Down the Chesapeake

After our stop in St. Michaels, we started making our way down the Chesapeake. Our first stop was in Solomons MD.  This is the same place we stopped on the way up.  We chose to go to Calverts marina again since they only charge $1/foot for dockage and that is a bargain by just about anyone's standards.  The transient docks are good quality floating docks and they have an on-site pool and restaurant.  One convenient feature of the marina is a courtesy car and, although it is not in the best shape, is enough to get you to nearby stores if you need provisions or something for the boat. The bathhouse closest to the transient docks are also the ones closest to the boatyard and what I could only describe as "boatyard rustic" with painted concrete walls and floors and a hodgepodge of fixtures.  I don't mind the rustic facilities, but wish they were a bit more clean.

We used the courtesy car to pick up a couple things from the grocery store and stopped by a local BBQ place for lunch.  Courtesy cars are always an interesting thing.  I was first introduced to the concept as a pilot.  Smaller airports in smaller towns would often provide a car to allow people passing through to visit (and spend money at) local businesses.  Many marinas, especially those that are a bit out of town, also provide cars as a perk as those traveling by boat don't usually carry long-distance transportation any more than those in small personal aircraft.  The car is provided for free (other than you are generally expected to replace the gasoline you use) so they are often not the greatest of vehicles and not in the greatest of repair. I've learned to test basic things before taking a courtesy car very far.  Quick check of forward and reverse at slow speeds and brake effectiveness and function of the lights if we might be out in other than sunny daytime conditions.  Despite their limitations, they are very handy resources to have and are often greatly appreciated.

Courtesy cars can be deceiving...it looks nice from a distance.

At Solomons, the courtesy car is an old diesel Mercedes sedan.  The car runs OK, the suspension is a bit loose as is the steering linkage.  With 200,000 plus miles, the worst part of the car are the collapsing seat cushions, failed air conditioning, and failed drivers side window.  Very minor inconveniences and definitely better than walking the mile or two to the stores.

Although we didn't spend much time looking around, Solomons appears to be a touristy, weekend vacation sort of town. Thanks to the weather we decided to spend two nights here before continuing our trip south. The second morning we departed Solomons (and Maryland) for Ingram Bay Marina across the Potomac in Virginia.  As with most of the trip thus far, what little wind we have had has been pretty much right on the nose so not much sailing has happened.

Ingram Bay marina is a small marina on...you guessed it...Ingram Bay. When we arrived we found a rather narrow channel, but it was wide enough for our boat.  The reported depths of over 6 feet must have been at the middle of the channel, but we found around 5 feet of water under our hulls as we crossed the breakwater into the marina basin. Once inside the basin the depth increased and we tried following the instructions for where to dock.  When we got to what we thought the marina had said, we found a slip that was about half the width of the boat.  We ended up tying off to the fuel dock instead.

The marina is a smaller facility, with covered and open slips for mostly smaller boats.  The fuel dock and one other end finger pier are the only places where larger boats can dock and I'm not sure if anything much larger than our boat can be accommodated, but we did fit.  It is in a nice setting and the marina owner also has a bunch of the surrounding property.  On it he has a couple cabins for rent as well as a lot of open area that our dogs really enjoyed.  The bath house is again rather basic, but here it is in better repair and cleaner than the last stop. This marina is again a bit out of the way, in fact, it is over 12 miles from the nearest town with stores. The owner, Captain Billy, offered to pick up something for us when he went into town later or we could use his work truck as a courtesy car. We took him up on the offer of the truck and went to town.  The best part of this marina was the WiFi though.  WiFi seems to be a common problem at most marinas but this one worked pretty well.  My guess is that it may be the quiet location and lack of users, but it was nice to have a more consistent connection (guess I should have worked on a post there...but didn't have a lot of time...sorry).

We left Ingram Bay the following day and made our way to the York river, just south of where we were when we built the hardtop.  This was intended to be a longer stop as it was where we had repositioned one of the cars. We arrived at the marina and I called them on the radio and they gave me instructions to a slip.  This was interesting since they said they would likely put me on a face dock.  I re-confirmed my beam and directions to the slip and made my way in.  As I approached the slip I could tell we wouldn't fit but the employees still seemed to think we would.  Since it had adequate rubber edge protection, I slowly moved the boat back until it touched on both sides.  We were a good foot wider than the slip, two or more if you include fenders.  After seeing the obvious evidence, they moved us to a face dock.

Rainy day on the York river.

Since our arrival, we have spent time re-positioning cars, re-provisioning, meeting with friends, and  other mundane tasks (I really did need a haircut). We are preparing to move on again, so naturally the weather seems to be deteriorating and with the rain I finally had a little time for another post. In the next few stops we are going to make our way through the Dismal swamp and the Albemarle loop before stopping again in Oriental, North Carolina.

St. Michaels...or Bye Bye Baltimore.

Finally...yesterday, we finally left Baltimore.  It was starting to feel like we were stuck in the mud.   Baltimore harbor is typically mud colored (or at least that is what I keep telling myself as the other options for that color are less appealing) but I know boats can move on it.  With some plans made and storms out of the way, it was well past time to go.

We departed in a morning with fair weather but not much wind.  Oh well, moving by motor is better than not moving at all. The temperatures were expected to be "above normal" and "near record breaking"...two phrases we have heard far too much in the time we have spent here.  We motored along and a light breeze picked up from the southeast...naturally the direction we were heading.  I have to admit though...in the high temperatures, having wind on the nose is better than having no wind at all.  The wind made the temperatures bearable.

The bay bridge as we head southbound leaving Baltimore.

As we approached St. Michaels, my wife decided that she wasn't all that keen on anchoring out in the heat and about 30 minutes from arrival, she started calling to see if any marina's could handle our boat.  Smaller towns, particularly the further north you are, tend to have very limited options for boats as wide as ours.  She was able to find one and, after a little confusion trying to get directions from the marina, we where parked at their face dock.

I forget who told me or exactly how the warning went, but it was something to the effect of: the more times 'yacht' is found in the name of a marina or boatyard, the less likely you will actually find something worthy of the name 'yacht' and the less likely the facilities would live up to the standards of someone who owned a 'yacht'. The place we spent the first night lived up to that reputation. It is a combination marina and boatyard.  The most notable problems were the WiFi signal that didn't make it out to the docks and the restroom (that was described in one review as basic) I would describe as boatyard rustic with rusting fixtures, exposed plumbing  and flaking paint over cinder block and concrete construction.

Part of the St. Michaels Harbor

While it wasn't really all that bad, I had hoped for better at this charming little town. Oh, and did I mention that they only had room for us that one night and we wanted to stay two?  So, after getting settled in, I did a little searching and found that another marina across the way had a Friday special of $1.50/foot (plus a $29 resort fee that includes resort amenities).  This is a very good rate for this area, so we moved across the harbor the following morning.

Rover at the new dock...from near the old one.

After getting the boat over to the new dock, we took a couple of the resort bicycles and toured the town. It is a cute older town with lots of historic buildings from the boat building and fishing days. There are a couple museums including the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. This is a tourist town, so the main street is also lined with lots of stores and restaurants.

Buildings near the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

Waterfront homes were a bit different back then.

We had lunch at an overpriced gourmet pizza place that could only survive in a tourist town (high price and less than mediocre food doesn't make for many repeat customers). Fortunately our ice cream stop later in the day proved to be a much better option and a welcome respite from the heat. The St. Michaels museum was an interesting stop and a chance to tour historic structures and see how people lived long ago in St. Michaels.

The main street in St. Michaels

Cannonball house.  Called this not because it stored cannonballs or was some important
part of the war of 1812, but because a cannonball came through the roof  and scared the
residents.

The town is definitely worth a stop.  If you are here on a Friday, I would even recommend the Harbour Inn Marina and Spa (even though I won't know how the free continental breakfast is until tomorrow) on a Friday. Stop by the St Michaels museum for a peek into the past and a map for a walking (or biking) tour of the town. Might skip the pizza place though.

VAExit, Dragging, and Baltimore

Sorry...lots of topics on this one as I try to catch up with "real time".  We are in Baltimore and I have better internet access but the rush to get here is now a rush to get the boat ready for the boatyard and us ready for a trip back to Colorado.

In my last post we were at Windmill Point, just outside of White Stone, VA. After waiting for a cold front that brought bands of thunderstorms through the area on Thursday, we departed for Solomons, MD on Friday. We sailed a bit, but after a front passes the winds tend to calm down and we ended up motoring or motor-sailing much of the trip.

One of the old Chesapeake lighthouses.

We were trying to find a place to anchor out and my wife came across a marina that offered floating docks for $1/foot with a BoatUS discount. We figured why not and tied to the dock for the evening. Calvert Marina is a large facility with lots of fixed docks, some covered (for boats without masts), and some reasonably nice and new floating face docks for transients.  The facilities are rather rustic, but the price is right and they also have a courtesy car if you need to re-provision in town.

The next morning we slept in a bit and left the dock around 10 AM.  There was some wind, but as far too often seems to be the case, it was coming from where we wanted to go (straight down the bay).  We beat into the wind for a little bit, but after a couple hours of velocity made good (VMG) around 1.5~2 knots, we again fired up the engines and made our way to an anchorage on the Rhode river just south of Annapolis MD.

Rhode Creek Anchorage.  Boat on the right is the one we
believe ended up a bit too close later that night.

As soon as we turned up the river, the 15 knot wind died (or this anchorage is far more protected than it looks).  The anchorage (known as "Rhode River 1" in Active Captain) already had a number of boats but we were able to find a spot and threw the hook.  We had dinner and settled in for the night.  Sometime around 10 PM the wind picked up a bit.  I don't recall why my wife went outside, but she summoned me out and we found a boat rather close to us.  I checked our anchor alarm and we hadn't moved other than to clock into the wind.  Best we could tell in the dark, the other boat dragged past us.  Although we weren't 100% sure, I thought the boat was the one anchored beside us earlier that evening and there were people on board.

I grabbed my handheld spotlight and tried to get the attention of the occupants of the boat.  After a couple flashes, someone appeared on deck and looked like they were scrambling around a bit (with our generator running to top off our batteries for the night, we couldn't hear or talk to them).  I don't know if the crew of that boat got the anchor to reset or it just reset itself by the time they were up, but the boat seemed to be OK.  Downwind of us and a bit closer to shore than I would be comfortable with but no longer moving.  Crisis averted, or so we thought.

Thomas Point Lighthouse, near Annapolis MD.

About 2:30 in the morning I needed to answer the call of nature.  I noticed that the wind had mostly died and what little there was had caused us to clock around about 180 degrees.  I decided to take a look around and, to my surprise, the dragging boat was now nearly beside us and only a couple feet from our starboard bow.  Since our cabin is right where the other boat would have hit us and since we didn't hear anything, I can only assume that we didn't touch. I was able to grab my boat pole and, without extending it, knock on the deck of the other boat.

I think the guy that popped his head out was a bit surprised to see me standing over him on the bow of my boat.  I told him that I've verified our position with my anchor alarm and that it appears he is dragging.  My estimate is that he dragged several hundred yards, making a U shaped path nearly around our boat.  He asked if we hit or if there was any damage and I told him I didn't think so, but that his anchor might be in the shallow area near the shore so he should be careful when he retrieves it.  He got his crew up and pulled up anchor while I monitored to make sure they, and us, were OK.  To my surprise, instead of resetting the anchor, he turned on his navigation lights and motored out of the anchorage under the moonlight. Not sure why he didn't just go reset his anchor, but either way I guess the problem was solved.  The next morning all the rest of the boats, including us, were where we left them the night before.  I do wish I had a chance to talk with the guy that dragged as I would be interested to know what anchor he was using and what scope...to see if there was anything I could learn from the second boat to have almost dragged into us in the past couple months. Only thing I know is that his rode was mostly line with only a few yards of chain on the end (what I could hear in the dark while they were raising anchor). Glad our Mantus anchor had no such problems and kept us in place.

Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and some wave generators.

The next morning, after making coffee, we raised anchor and pointed the bow of the boat up the Chesapeake once again. It was our last leg to Baltimore and was a nice and sunny day with almost no breeze so playing motorboat was again on the agenda.  We motored past Annapolis and under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.  It was Sunday and there were a lot of boats about.  We came to learn that there was a sailing race across the bay later that day, but based on the number of fishing boats out, I wonder if most were actually interested in the race or just an excuse to anchor out, toss out a fishing line, and have a few beers. Given the number of dead fish we've seen floating in the upper part of the Chesapeake bay, I'm not so sure I would trust the fish caught there.

Baltimore Light (yes, looks a bit like the first one).

We turned out of the bay and made our way up the Patapsco river, past Fort Carroll, under the Francis Scott Key bridge (near where the man wrote the Star Spangled Banner), past Fort McHenry, and into the rather industrial surroundings of  Port Covington in Baltimore. There were a lot of high horsepower boats heading out to enjoy a day on the water and this part of the trip was the roughest ride we've had since...well...the onslaught of power boats at the inlet to Morehead City.  My wife once pontificated that weathermen were wrong and waves aren't caused by the wind but by all the power boats in the world...and I'm starting to believe her.

Ft Carroll, near Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.

We find our way to the marina and yard where Rover will be getting a new bottom paint job and some other work done.  I think this is as close as I've ever been docked to military boats (there are a couple of some sort of military transport vessels at the end of the pier here).  They make our boat feel rather small.  A couple days of prep and we will be leaving our boat for the first time in over a year of living aboard.

Rover at the marina dock.  Big, but quiet, neighbors.

Keep your fingers crossed with us that this boatyard will prove better than those we have dealt with in the past.

From Chesapeake to Chesapeake

We left Chesapeake Yachts, in Chesapeake Virginia near first light.  The idea was to make it to the Gilmerton bridge in time for a pre-rush-hour opening.  Between 6:30 and 8:30 AM and 3:30 and 5:30 PM the bridge does not open except for commercial traffic with reservations (we don't qualify).  We arrived at the bridge about 5:50 AM...and found the adjacent railroad bridge was down.  The other catch with this bridge is that it doesn't open when the railroad bridge is down as the two are only a few feet apart.  The Gilmerton tender said they would open as soon as the railroad bridge did and expected it to open a little after 6 AM.

The Gilmerton Bridge, railroad track on far side.

We sat for over 30 minutes watching the empty train tracks blocking our path.  The train finally did arrive and pass over the bridge. I guess Amtrak schedules are merely suggestions as they seemed to be running quite late based on how long the bridge was down.  It was after 6:30 when the railroad bridge opened...fortunately the Gilmerton bridge did too and we, along with a barge that had been waiting, made it through the bridge before they were closed for rush hour.

Since we aren't on a work schedule, we usually let barges and other work boats have right of way and stay out of their way.  We were letting them get a little ahead of us since I'm sure maneuvering a barge with a tug is difficult enough without having a sailboat breathing down your neck. The barge captain called us on the radio and let us know we should stick close to him until we made it past a couple more railroad bridges or we might get stuck behind one for a while.  He was obviously local and knew the closure schedule (most things for us boaters just say "normally open unless there is train traffic") and we appreciated the tip.

Hospital Point Anchorage near Portsmouth

We made it through the train bridges, Portsmouth, and Norfolk without any further rush hour delays. After and enter the Chesapeake.  Finally out in the open, we were able to set the sails and shut down the engines that have been droning on for what seems like days as we traveled the canals and rivers of the ICW.

With wind from the west-southwest, we were able to sail all the way up past Mobjack bay and the Severn river where we spent the prior summer building the hardtop.  We sailed past Deltaville, where we had hauled the boat a year before in a failed attempt to get some work done. Along the way we saw a couple of the old Chesapeake Bay lighthouses that mark, and sit out on, some of the shoals.

Thimble Shoal Light near Norfolk

We crossed the Rappahannock River and stopped at Windmill Point marina. It was a long day and the weather forecasts on the radio helped us decide we should go for a marina.  Having a courtesy car so we could reprovision a bit was a plus.  The marina was reasonably priced and a newer facility, but I wasn't a big fan of the fixed docks as I found it difficult to set fenders. The weather the next day was filled with rain and thunderstorms, so i was a nice place to hide from the weather.

Salt Ponds Marina

I know it has been a while since I was at the marina, but I haven't found a lot of extra time for blog posts while working on the boat.  But, before it becomes too distant of a memory, I thought I would do a little review of our last marina stop, Salt Ponds Marina Resort in Hampton Virginia. I know I am always looking for information on a variety of places, so hopefully this will help someone else.

Aerial view of the marina (from marina web site)

Our time at Salt Ponds was nice.  I got a chance to spend some time with my family and see some of the local sights, and we even got a little work on the boat done.  The marina itself is interesting.  I guess the best phrase I have to describe it is that it has a lot of potential.  The staff is friendly and helpful, and most of the people there are super nice.  You can tell the marina was once a very nice facility, but it seems a bit weathered and run down (the exception is the pool, which seems to attract a crowd and most of the maintenance attention).  I guess that explains the price, which is very affordable for the area.  My understanding is that it has undergone an ownership change recently and there is evidence that things are starting to get more attention so I hope improvements continue.

Entrance into the marina is via a dredged channel.  At the time we were there they were in the process of dredging the channel so we saw depths when we arrived as low as 4ft (while trying to pass a boat coming out the channel) and were in the 8ft range by the time we left. My understanding is that they need to dredge the channel every couple of years, so you probably want to verify depths and access if you have a deeper draft boat. It may have been the result of the dredging operation, but we found that our air conditioner sea strainer (desperately needed in the 100F+ heat index days) needed to be cleaned every week or two and contained a fair amount of growth and mud. We also found it necessary to back-flush the entire system to flush out what the strainer didn't catch.

The docks themselves are nice since they are floating docks. Their construction is a butcher-block-like design and some of the wood is decaying so there are some soft spots (nothing dangerous, just small spots thus far).  They have rubber rub-rails along most of the docks and I didn't find anything protruding, so they are certainly good dockage for a short or long term stay.  The marina lies along a channel and has a long boardwalk with 18 piers, labeled A through R, for slips and T-heads at the end of each so they can support a variety of sized boats.  I know they have 30A electrical service, and I think 50 may have been available, but check with them regarding power requirements before you go. Power is sometimes metered and sometimes flat-rate, I think it depends on whether the meter on the power pedestal is working or not. The walk from end to end of the marina boardwalk is about a mile long.

Rover at the dock in the distance.

I guess this is a good time to bring up the bath houses.  There are 3 along the stretch of boardwalk (the web site states 4, but I don't recall seeing the 4th), which is good since it would be a long walk from the end piers to the office when you needed a bathroom. The bathrooms are where you can best date the age of the marina...or at least their last make-over.  The sinks in the main bath house are molded "green pearl" plastic sinks that are cracking and weathered and give a distinctive 70's feel. The walls of the stalls are rusting, and there is a general need for caulking and updating.  Two showers are available.  The remote bath house at the far end (near piers N through R..the one closest to us) was a bit more utilitarian with white wall mount sinks and one piece plastic shower stalls and the same rusting metal stall dividers.  The showers each had a three hook bar, which is good when you need a place to hang your towel and clothes.  The flooring in this bath house is soft in spots so one toilet rocked a bit, and the floor outside the shower was of questionable stability.  The remote bath house had a pay washer and dryer in each of the men's and women's sides.  At a minimum, the bath house needed a good cleaning, some floor repair, and caulking to prevent continued water damage to the floors. The remote bath house could also use a No Smoking sign that was obeyed (Virginia, presumably because it is a tobacco growing state, seems to have a high number of smokers). The boaters seem a bit rough on the facilities...possibly because they feel "why bother" given their current state.

The boardwalk. About half of the walk to the office for us.

The main office and pool area is a bit of a hike, around 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile from the outlying docks. Many of the regular tenants have golf carts to make the trek.  This is also the location of the main parking lot and can be quite a hike to your car if you have one.  There is a small parking lot near the higher letter docks, but there seems to be a fight for control of it between the marina and the gated housing development. The office has some supplies, t-shirts, ice cream, and drinks.  They usually have coffee available in the morning as well. While I did not use it, the pool seems to be a good size for the facility and a very nice area for lounging at the marina. I'm told that the pool and a common area that is part of the office can be "signed out" for an evening if you want to have a party or gathering.  This is a particularly nice feature if you would like to do some entertaining not on your boat.

Salt Ponds has fast internet access, but the fast only seems to exist at the office and common area. There are wireless repeaters that attempt to spread the signal down the docks, but like many marinas, they don't seem to work very well.  We were on the T-head of dock Q and the closest WiFi router could be connected to but didn't seem to have any internet access except on very rare occasion. Using a long-range WiFi antenna, I was able to connect to repeaters down the dock and closer to the office and could get marginally usable internet there. I usually had to play a game of "which router is working today" in order to get access from the boat.

On the marina grounds there is a restaurant and Tiki bar.  The bar even has it's own pool.  Food at the restaurant the one time we tried it was decent, especially for being so convenient.  Groceries or other supplies not found in the office are not as convenient.  There are a couple small convenience type stores a long walk or medium bike ride away near Buckroe beach.  Going further, there is a Farm Fresh supermarket in Phoebus (the one we went to when anchored at Ft. Monroe), and a Sav-a-lot about equal distance away. The neighborhood along the beach consists mostly of nicer vacation/rental type accommodations, and become more modest as you move away from the shore.  There is a small beach across the street from the marina (beaches behind the beach houses are private) and the public Buckroe beach is a moderate walk or short bike ride away.

Overall, the marina is worth a stop if you are looking for a marina to hang out at for a while in the southern Chesapeake.  It is an aging "resort" but has some nice amenities at a reasonable price.

Deltaville to Brunswick, By the Numbers

I thought it would be interesting to see a few numbers related to the last trip.  And I thought I would throw in a couple other pictures as well. Most of the numbers are calculated from the tracks recorded by OpenCPN.  Engine hours are the total number of hours run per engine (so if I ran both engines for an hour, the number would indicate 2 engine hours).  In most cases the time and speed numbers include time spent deploying and hauling the anchor, waiting on bridges, etc.

The first leg of the trip was from Stingray Point (near Deltaville) to Mobjack bay.

• Distance: 24.1 NM
• Average Speed: 5.5 Kts. (approximate)
• Time: 04:20 (approximate)
• Engine Hours: 10.7 (including system testing time at start)

(I forgot to turn on tracking for part of this leg, so numbers are approximate)

The second leg was Mobjack Bay to Great Bridge Lock

• Distance: 43.5 NM
• Average Speed: 4.47 Kts.
• Time: 9:43
• Engine Hours:  16.3

The third leg was Great Bridge Lock to the Broad Creek anchorage.

• Distance: 44.55 NM
• Average Speed: 5.8 Kts,
• Time: 7:55
• Engine Hours: 11.2

Fourth Leg from Broad Creek to the Pungo River anchorage.

• Distance: 60.87 NM
• Average Speed: 4.25 Kts.
• Time: 14:19
• Engine Hours: 17.9

Fifth Leg from Pungo River to the Whittaker Point Marina.

• Distance: 53.43 NM
• Average Speed: 5.23 Kts.
• Time: 9:11
• Engine Hours: 16.5

Sixth Leg from Whittaker Point to Ft Macon anchorage.

• Distance: 23.4 NM
• Average Speed: 4.82 Kts
• Time: 4:10
• Engine Hours: 8.4

Seventh Leg from Ft Macon to Brunswick.

• Distance: 408.67
• Average Speed: 5.3 Kts.
• Time: 3 days 09:03 
• Engine Hours: 39.0

More time running the engines than I would like, but it can't be helped when traveling the ICW. I don't have good fuel numbers since I was unable to fill up before the trip started, but my best calculations show we were burning less than one gallon per engine hour. Hopefully next year I will be farther south before the cold arrives.

Here's a nice picture of where we anchored on Pungo Creek. Just after we dropped anchor another boat decided it looked like a good place to spend the night too.

And here is a picture of Neal sporting the appropriate wardrobe for much of the trip. A far cry from the t-shirt and shorts trip I made getting the boat up to Virginia.

On My Way South

I am on the move at last. I left the Deltaville boat yard around noon on Tuesday with my volunteer help, trying to head south before this strange arctic weather arrives. After a combination of motoring and sailing we anchored in Mobjack bay just as the sun set that evening. The next day we made it through Norfolk and on to the free dock at the Great bridge lock (Chesapeake VA) for the second night. Yesterday we continued motoring down the ICW past Coin jock and anchored in Broad Creek (NC I believe) just north of the Albemarle sound.

The Arctic blast has caught up with us and it is cold and windy...too windy to attempt crossing the Albemarle sound, so we are staying put today, trying to stay warm, and hoping for better weather tomorrow. Wind is around 25 knots and the temperature is maybe 40 if we are lucky. This really shows how poorly insulated boats are.

The two uses of the anchor indicate that she sets and holds very well in the softer bottoms of the Chesapeake area.

Cell phone and Internet access are spotty, so no pictures or long stories today. Hopefully this will post.

Chisman Creek Anchorage to Deltaville - Beating to Windward.

After getting up, verifying the anchor was where we left it, and making breakfast, we were again on the move.  This should be our last day of travel up to Deltaville VA.  The weather finally seems to have improved and is supposed to be nice for the next several days. We make our way out of Chisman creek and into the Chesapeake.  The wind was again from the northeast, but we decided to try and sail it anyway.

Goodbye Chisman Creek, you were a nice anchorage.

Beating to windward is what sailors call it when you are trying to head to an upwind destination.  If you have big swells and the wind in your face, I can imagine you could take quite a "beating".  In our case it wasn't bad.  We had maybe two foot seas on a 5 second period (at least that is the guess I noted in my log book). Of course it feels rougher because you are traveling against the wave direction so to you they feel much closer together. Winds were anywhere in the 15~30 knot range, justifying the need to reef the sails.  Still trying to figure out the best time to reef using the "sticker" the charter company put on the inside of a cabinet door as a recommendation.  As it turns out, I found the boat tends to make more leeway without going much faster if you exceed their recommendations, so it looks like I'll stick to those.

You do a lot of sailing when beating to windward...but you don't do much of it in the direction you are trying to go.  We were averaging around 5 knots, but our velocity made good (VMG - or the speed you are going toward your destination) ranged from around 3 knots to -2 knots.  We would play with pinching into the wind as much as we could, then falling off a bit for better linear speed to see if the VMG would change, but it was a slow ride.  I know I'm no expert when it comes to sailing and the best we could seem to get any sort of speed was at about 40 degrees off of the wind direction.  When you account for the leeway, we were traveling somewhere around 50 or more degrees away from the wind. Finally around 4:30pm we had to fire up the engines and motor sail or we were never going to make it to Deltaville before dark.  You can see in the image of our track below when we went from sailing to motoring as our course became much more direct.  While we sailed a majority of the distance we traveled, it seems we only sailed about 1/2 of the actual path between Chisman Creek and Deltaville.

We made it to Deltaville, but it was late and the boatyard I was heading to was closed for the day (and weekend), so we anchored in a nice bay just a little outside their facility.

Rover at anchor in Fishing Bay near Deltaville VA.

I guess I hadn't mentioned this, but the reason for this trip, in addition to getting north of Cape Hattaras before June 1, was to get the boat hauled and get some work done.  I hope I can find some decent tradespeople here, I've heard pretty good things about the area.

Dodge the Big Gray Iron Ships - Portsmouth to Chisman Creek Anchorage.

The weather was forecast to be better today, not great, but better and improving as the day went.  So, I decided it was time to move on.  We left the free dock in Portsmouth just a little before high tide (so we could get to the dock lines without getting our feet wet) and with gray skies greeting us.

Lots of Navy ships in Portsmouth/Norfolk.

There was other gray that greeted us as well, the gray of several U.S. Navy warships.  Shortly after leaving the dock, one of the ships came up from behind, backwards.  It didn't get that close and apparently found a place to turn around, because later, it passed us.  Actually, it was in the channel and passing a barge coming the other way in the channel and we, wisely, just moved off to the side and let them pass.  You can sure feel small when these ships pass by.

Navy Ship passing Barge.  Weather still wasn't great.

There is a causeway that goes into a tunnel north of Norfolk so ships can pass over the cars.  Just after getting through that part of the channel, we were passed by an aircraft carrier.  You really feel small when one of those giant floating airports pass by...even at a distance.

Aircraft Carrier with a 500 yard "protection zone" enforced around it.

Once we got away from Norfolk, there were no other encounters with the Navy.  We did hear on the radio that they were doing exercises in the area, I guess that explains all the ships that were out and about.

About the time we got on course, what little wind there was we found to be dead on our nose again.  So, we did a little sailing and a little motor sailing to make reasonable time.  At one point near the end of the day's travels the winds died down a bit and we flew the spinnaker again.  Still pretty sure I've used this sail more since I've had the boat than it has been used the entire rest of it's life.

We found a nice anchorage location courtesy of Active Captain and after a little debate about where to drop the hook, we anchored for the night.  The few times I've anchored out, I've had a hard time choosing an anchorage location.  Maybe I just try to be more considerate, but I try not to anchor right in front of a house on the shore or too close to where I think a lot of boat traffic may be (don't want to be inconvenient to others and certainly don't want to be run in to by another boater).  By the time we were ready to anchor, the clouds had all parted and it was a nice evening.  We grilled up some hamburgers on my Magma rail mounted grill and then were treated to a nice sunset.

Not a bad place to spend an evening.

This will be the first night I've spent at anchor on our boat. The anchor seems well set and the weather is calm now, so hopefully it will be an uneventful night.  One more day and we should be to our destination.