10/20/14
Jackson Creek – Deltaville, VA, Chesapeake Bay
Position: 37 32.701N, 76 20.083W
Posted by Bill

We headed out early for Hampton/Norfolk VA, but after a couple of hours we hit 20+ knots wind on the nose, and a really nasty sea state. We were once again bashing into the weather and it wasn’t fun. We have gotten smarter so we diverted to the west and into the Piankatank River on the south side of Deltaville VA. We anchored in Jackson Creek in a protected anchorage. I did some boat maintenance while Tricia worked. The latest boat casualty is the inverter that provides our AC power from the batteries…bummer. Don’t have a clue why, but it is not working. Not sure if the battery charging function is still ok or not until we get to a marina. Fingers crossed.

Tricia cooked another great dinner and we will move toward Portsmouth, VA tomorrow. Still killing fruit flys!!!

The anchorage in Jackson Creek:

10/18/14
Mill Creek, VA; Chesapeake Bay
Position: 37 47.579N, 76 19.449W
Posted by Bill

Today was the first time we actually got to sail to our destination. Winds were 15 – 22 knots out of the NW and we were going S-SW…yay! It was great, but when we got to the mouth of the Potomac River the waves increased to 6-7 feet. It was a little crazy for a few hours but nothing we haven’t dealt with on Lake Erie. We read and heard that the Potomac can make the bay a little “dicey”, and they weren’t a-kiddin’.

Winds were supposed to increase to 30 knots tonight and tomorrow (again..sheesh!), so we decided to go and anchor in a very protected area south of Reedsville, called Mill Creek. Reviews showed that it is a quiet and picturesque anchorage but there are no places to go ashore, and the cell phone coverage is crap. This is why this post is late.

We met a couple in Deale on a Pearson sailboat called Paperbird. This is their maiden cruising voyage too, but they have lived and boated on the bay for many years. They are the ones who told us about Mill Creek. We were sailing along with a whole chain of boats heading south just like us, and sure enough, right next to us is Paperbird. We get on the marine radio and chat and told them we were going here to ride out the winds, and they changed their destination as well, so we followed them in. If we all stay tomorrow, we will dinghy over and socialize a little.

This place lived up to its reputation. It is so quiet and peaceful; we don’t know what to do! The shoreline is comprised of nice homes and farms and there is very little boat activity. We are anchored in 12 feet of water and have a beautiful view. It was blowing 18-22 knots most of the day on the bay and there is hardly a ripple in this anchorage…just what the captain ordered.

On the down side…we have an infestation of fruit flys. The bastards have taken over and we don’t know what to do to eradicate them!

If the forecast changes for the better, we will move tomorrow to someplace closer to Norfolk, or make a break for Norfolk…it all depends on the weather. So goes the life of a cruiser.

Pics:

Paperbird crossing Ingram Bay light.

A fish weir. A bunch of sticks in the way of boating…my interpretation…someone thinks this is a productive fishing thing

Sunrise in Mill Creek

10/17/14
Solomons Island, MD; Chesapeake Bay
Posted by Bill

Well, we stayed another day, and the day was absolutely beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky and 73 degrees with no wind. Tricia worked but we managed to go to breakfast and take a bike ride to West Marine for lunch. Later we took a dinghy ride through all of the creeks in the surrounding area. It was amazing to see the number of watercraft, particularly sailboats, most of them very large and expensive. This place is just teeming with boats. You can dinghy to several restaurants and bars, or for smaller boats, you can just dock your boat behind the establishment. Tomorrow the wind will pick up again, but will be out of the west, which will make for a good sailing day down the bay to Reedville, VA.

I haven’t mentioned a couple of things about the bay that have taken some getting used to. They are things that we just don’t have to deal with in the Great Lakes, the 2 biggest being crab pots and tides. There are crab pots and fish nets everywhere that there is water under 30 feet, which is most of the bay. You can’t see them very well until you are on top of them, especially if there are waves. They space the crab pots in approximately 50 foot intervals. If you are sailing, no big deal, but if you are motoring, the float lines can get sucked up into your prop and wrap around the prop shaft. This can cause your engine to seize and/or damage the transmission, so you really have to avoid them. You can be cruising along half paying attention and then, CRAP!, crab pots! It makes navigating tough. Tides create currents that can get up to 2 knots in the bay. It can really affect your speed and drift, so you try to time your trips to work with the tide, which is not always possible. The other thing that tides do is work with or against the wind and waves. When the tide is in opposition, the waves become steeper and the sea state is rougher. You also have to account for tide when when determining how much anchor chain to put out when anchoring. If docking, you have to adjust your dock lines to account for the tidal range. So far, we have had a tidal range of 1.5 to 2 feet, which is not bad. We are getting the hang of how to deal with tides, but I hate the crab pots and fish nets!

It is also interesting, the number of people we are seeing and meeting that are doing what we are doing. Every day we see more and more, and are beginning to see some of the same people we saw before. They are of all different ages so far, and there are a lot of foreign sailors, mostly from Canada. I think the Bahamas is going to be very crowded! Most have been doing this for several years, and we have only met one couple that is on their virgin cruise like us. The veterans are telling us that it is very late in the year to be moving south and that we will likely have some cold weather if we don’t get the hell out of Virginia soon!

We have been getting spoiled staying in marinas the last several weeks. We hadn’t planned on using them that much, but I have erred on the side of comfort/safety with the weather lately, and we took advantage of a great day in Solomons. We will have to start anchoring as long as the weather is good, to get our expenses down. I like being “on the hook” better anyway. You just have to deal with not having shore power and being dependent on the boats shower and head (toilet), vs shore side facilities. The upside is that you have a 360 degree view of the water, your neighbors are not right on top of you, and you can move if you don’t like the surroundings. Today we topped off the dinghy fuel and generator fuel in preparation for anchoring more often.

Sunset on the Patuxant River today:

10/16/14
Solomons Island, MD; Chesapeake Bay
Position: 38 19.751N, 76 27.456W
Posted by Bill

We finally made it to Solomons Island. We wanted to get here to wait out the weather that we got over the last 3 days but we couldn’t make it before dark, but we are here now. It is really a cool place. There are 3 creeks that comprise the area and there are tons of boats and marinas. We arrived mid-afternoon and did some exploring, including a good ol’ fashioned pub crawl. Made us think about the friends we did the pub crawls with in Columbus. Everything here is in walking distance, so we don’t have to worry about driving, which is good. We started at Solomons Pier, went to The Light House, then The Tiki Bar and ended the crawl at Charles Street Brasserie. It was fun! We might have to stay another day. The weather was really nice today and we got to wear shorts again…of great importance to me…lol.

Solomons has an interesting history which you can check out at: http://www.solomonsmaryland.com/history-of-solomons.html

The passage today was once again into the wind. When the tide was opposing the wind, the waves became steep and of short period, much like Lake Erie, and it was a little rough for some of the passage. The bay opens up and is very wide in this section and it reminded me very much of Lake Erie. The sun came out in the afternoon and it became very nice. I was glad we diverted to Deale and waited out the heavy winds. It would have been a really rough passage if we had not made the call to divert. The Patuxant River, which is the tributary that Solomons is on, is very beautiful and picturesque. When we come back next summer, we will explore further up the river.

Close to Solomons, there is a section of the bay that has these really high cliffs:

We also passed this big terminal for oil and fuel handling with big tanker ships.

Then past Cove Point Light:

The view coming in to harbor:

Misc pictures of Solomons Island:

Zahniser’s Marina, where we docked:

Tricia, with Island Bound:

The view from Solomon’s Pier dock bar:

The Tiki Bar:

If we don’t stay here another day, we will be off to Reedville, VA. Today was fun, so we might just stay another day!

10/15/14
Deale, MD; Chesapeake Bay
Position: 38 46.30N, 76 33.81W
Posted by Bill

The weather forecast finally jived with reality and we got hammered with wind and rain today. Most of the day we did not have too much rain until late afternoon. Glad we are in a marina. Being in a marina is nice because 1) you are tied to something solid, 2) you can get off the boat and do shore based stuff without messing with the dinghy, and 3) you have access to showers and a bathroom. The downside of a marina is that you are side-by-side with other boats and their owners, and it is usually expensive. The boats on either side of us are unoccupied, and on one side is a boat that did not have the halyard secured. A halyard (or this one in particular) is used to raise the main sail and it runs up the outside of the mast. If this is not secured, the halyard bangs against the mast when the wind blows and is called halyard slap. It is considered rude to not secure lines that would cause your neighbors angst, and it is a pet peeve of mine. In 20-30 knot winds, the halyard slapped all day and night, making a huge racket. On the other side of us was a boat with a wind generator. Most models of wind generator for boats make a whirring sound that can get rather loud. The one next to us was a 9 out of 10 on the noise scale. Between the 2 boats next to us, we had to drink several martinis to dull our senses to the point that we could tolerate it (oh darn), and we were up to the challenge.

2 great things happened to us today that were unexpected. First, upon telling the marina that we were going to stay a third night, they gave us the night for free! Second, I asked to have an air conditioning guy come to look at why our AC/heat was not working because it was beyond my troubleshooting capability. He spent a half hour looking at our system and it amazingly worked without him doing anything else. He did not charge us since he really didn’t do anything repair wise, and it is working great. On top of that, he taught me some things about the system that I didn’t know. Kind of like icing on the cake for Herrington Harbour North marina.

I met a couple from Cleveland a couple of slips down from us. Their boat name is High Spirits and they have cruised the Bahamas several years now. We exchanged contact info and will be looking for them as we move south.

I didn’t mention how good the food was at Skipper’s Pier on the blog yesterday, so I thought I’d add some content about yesterday’s dinner. Tricia had fried shrimp and I had ribs. The food was awesome. If you are ever in the area, we highly recommend it, and you can dock your boat there while you eat.

Mike and Sue are making a drive down to have dinner with us tonight. Seems they miss us as much as we miss them and it is not too far from where Mike’s band is playing, so I thought I would post the blog early, knowing the way we party when together…lol!

Tomorrow’s forecast is looking good for passage, so we will make way to Solomons Island.

10/14/14
Deale, MD; Chespeake Bay
Position: 38 46.30N, 76 33.81W
Posted by Bill

Well the weather followed through according to forecast today and the wind kicked up pretty good. It looks like the forecast further south is even worse, so we are going to sit it out here until Thursday.

Herrington Harbour North is a really nice marina. The grounds are really well kept and the showers and restrooms are nice as well. Showers and rest rooms are important in this life style. These are the nicest we have had so far other than our home marina on Catawba. Here are some pictures of the grounds around the marina. This is typical of what it is like throughout all of the docking areas.

Even the boat yard was impressive. The yard storage locations were numbered and each one had electricity and water connections. I’ve never seen that before!

Besides the wind, today was a really nice day, and we got to wear shorts. We walked to a place in Deale for lunch, stopped by the hardware store to pick up some stuff, stopped by West Marine to be disappointed that once again, they don’t have what we need. Then we launched the dinghy (which we call our car) to go across the creek to go to dinner. To me, this is great fun…taking a boat to dinner. We ordered a beer and dinner and sat on the dock by the water. As we are sitting there, I notice that the dinghy is dented in, which is not a normal state for an inflatable boat. It was not like this on the way over to dinner. One side of the dinghy is losing air and is going flat! Oh crap!!! I jump in the dink (short for dinghy), and cross back over to our boat to get the pump that is used to pump it up. I notice that the valve cover for that side of the dink is loose, probably caused by bumping it while tying up at the dinner spot. Thank goodness. I had bad visions of a punctured dink and having to deal with fixing it, not to mention, how in the hell do we get back home!!?? So far it looks like it was just the valve and our car is functional again.

10/13/14
Deale, MD; Chespeake Bay
Position: 38 46.30N, 76 33.81W
Posted by Bill

We left the dock in front of our friends’ house in Nabb’s Creek just before dawn with heavy hearts. We had great fun with our friends and hated to end the party, but alas, the cold weather is chasing us south and we need to get a move on.

Within an hour of leaving it began to rain and it didn’t really stop until we docked in Deale MD, 6 1/2 hours later. The forecast was for increasing winds and a slight chance for rain early. Our plan was to try to make Solomons Island before the winds increased, and wait out the gale force winds that are expected until Wednesday. Half way to Solomons (30 nautical miles), I realized we weren’t going to make it to Solomons before dark and I diverted to Deale. I was more concerned about the 30 knot winds that were forecast for late afternoon than I was for the darkness, but a combination of both was not something I wanted to deal with in a strange harbor. The winds on the bay around Deale and Herring Bay were testing the 16 knot range and I made the call around 1 PM. Of course, as soon as we entered the protected harbor the winds died to 4 knots, and now the forecast doesn’t show it piping up until tomorrow afternoon. We had such a great weather window during the first 5 weeks of our trip and now we are paying for it. The forecast has been wrong most of the time during our passages in October and has gone to hell.

Deale is a small town with a few places to eat/drink, but you have to walk about a mile. Other than that nothing much, except the place is packed with marinas and boats. We are at Herrington North marina and it is massive as marinas go. It is very nice and we are in a protected area with great amenities. There is even a West Marine on the marina grounds, surrounded by marine services companies that can do anything from canvas, sail repair, electronics and mast repair/fabrication. Pretty amazing for a really small town in the middle of nowhere.

We’ll hang out here and do some boat maintenance until the weather clears and then head south again. We probably have 2 more stops before we hit the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) and leave the Chesapeake.

This is the north end of Herrington Harbour marina. You can see how far it stretches south. Massive.

The last good sunset at Nabb’s Creek. I love that place!

Sue gave us some of her harvest from the garden…good stuff man…good stuff.

She had this one mutant carrot that kind of looked like the Stay Puffed Marshmellow Man. It was creepy. I have never seen a carrot like this. We were expecting it to do La Cucharacha.

Chessie the wonder dog! Gonna miss him too.

This is typical of the working boats on the bay. These guys were setting crab traps.

This is the Baltimore Light. The bay has many cool light houses like this.

Another light just north of the Bay Bridge. Not sure what the name of this one is.

The Bay Bridge. I have driven over this many times but this was the first time I went under it.

This was an anchorage for big ships just south of the Bay Bridge. This ships were big!!

Thomas Point Shoal light. Too bad I was so far away. This is a cool light.

We walked to a good happy hour and had some wings and mussels. Food was good, but there were a lot of weird people in that place. Good entertainment.

10/12/14
Nabb’s Creek, Chesapeake Bay
Posted by Bill

I know…I know….where have I been? Not much exciting going on the last 3-4 days. Tricia has had her business meetings and I have been working on the boat and running to Walmart, West Marine, etc. while I have had access to a car (but trying to limit how much I take advantage of that). Tricia was finally able to announce her retirement and we had several nights of celebration with her co-workers. Thursday night got a little out of control and we polished off many bottles of Patron (too many). We had planned to go to Annapolis to the boat show Friday, but no one was able to function well enough to pull it off. We did go to the boat show Saturday and got a bunch of stuff we needed, including nautical charts for Florida and the Bahamas. Today we are doing laundry and prepping the boat for passage again. We want to leave early Monday (tomorrow) and try to make it to Solomons Island, a 60 mile run, but we have the tide working against us, as well as restricted bridge openings getting out of Stoney Creek. We are going to give it an early start and see how well we are doing, with secondary options of stopping at Galesville, MD or Deale, MD, if we are not going to make Solomons by dark. We are expecting high winds Tuesday and Wednesday, so we will hunker down in a protected marina wherever we stop.

Our friends Mike and Sue have been absolutely wonderful to us while we have been here, offering to share everything they have, from dockage, laundry, cars, food, drink, showers, bed….and we cannot thank them enough. We also love hanging out with them and we will miss them!

The next couple of weeks will be interesting. Typically, after the boat show, everyone who is going south leaves at the same time. It makes for some crowded anchorages and bridge openings, from what we hear, so stay tuned! I am sure we will have some crazy stuff to share.

10/7/14
Nabb’s Creek, Chesapeake Bay
Posted by Bill

The boat projects the last few days have gone the typical way of boat projects. First up was replacing the bilge pump. It sits in the bottom of the bilge beyond arms reach by about a foot and it is attached to a metal bracket that you have to unbolt and lift up to gain access to the pump. Problem is, someone before us installed a through hull just above the pump and in the middle of the bilge so you can’t pull it up to access it. The through hull is for the air conditioning/heating and we will have to pull the boat out of the water to remove the through hull allowing us to work on the pump…not too smart. It will add several hundred dollars to the replacement cost to have the boat hauled. I thought I could maneuver around the through hull, but after several hours of trying…I cannot.

Second project was to replace the wiring connector for the mast lights. When we had the mast lowered and later raised, the original connector fell victim to old age and corrosion during the process. I bought a new connector at Riverview Marina where we had the mast put back up but was just now getting around to the project. Problem is, the connector I bought will not accept wires that are as big as one side of the mast wiring. So off to West Marine using Mike’s car. They don’t have what I need, so project 3…replace the batteries in the boat.

The batteries are 3 1/2 years old and need to be replaced. This is not something you want to have to deal with without access to stores and a car. It takes 4 batteries and they weigh at least 90 pounds each. I was able to find suitable replacements without taking out a loan (lol), so I got them back to the house and drug them down to the boat, and brought the old ones back to the truck. By now I am exhausted, but it appears that the new batteries are working as they should be. Thank god you only have to do this every 3-4 years.

One out of 3 ain’t bad as boat projects go. Thanks again to Mike and Sue for the use of their car and being tied up to their dock.

While recuperating, I get a phone call from a company taking a survey. They want to talk to me about home communications systems and wonder what type of TVs and cable service we have. I tell the lady we live on our boat and we don’t have that anymore. She lets out a big belly laugh and promptly ends the call. It made me think about how different life has been afloat thus far. We do have flat screen TVs on the boat with digital antennas but we just don’t watch them. Except for these last 5 days in Nabb’s Creek, we get up just before dawn, check the oil, prep the boat for passage, make coffee and get moving. At the end of the day, we make dinner or go to a local restaurant, check the weather, check the tide schedule, plan the passage for the next day, and go to bed. Passage planning takes quite a bit of time. It is so dependent on the weather and tide, and you need to have a primary destination with bail out options if you don’t make the speed you expected, or if the anchorage or marina is full. It is so different than the way we used to live. I think about how much time we used to spend in front of a television and it seems so wasteful to me, almost totally detached from the natural world around us. It is a very interesting change.

10/5/14
Nabb’s Creek, Chesapeake Bay
Posted by Bill

It was a little chilly today but the sun was out. We mixed up a batch of Pain Killers, jumped in the power boat and went up the Patapsco River into Baltimore, landing at Fells Point. Fells Point is one of my favorite parts of Baltimore. It was an old warehouse district years ago and some genius fixed it up building row houses, bars and restaurants. It probably has more bars per square mile than Key West. Although we have been there many times, this was the first time via water.

On the way we passed this tall ship.

It looked cool with the Francis Scott Key bridge.

And we passed the Francis Scott Key buoy. It was at this spot that he was held captive in a British ship and watched the battle that inspired our national anthem.

View of Baltimore as we approach.

Fort McHenry. Approaching via water you could see that this place was an excellent spot to protect the port of Baltimore.

One of the many marinas in Fells Point. Baltimore harbor is packed with huge marinas. It was pretty confusing from the water, but we asked several boats we saw, got on the marine radio, and found a place to dock.

The broomstick was nowhere to be found…

Fells Point was having their annual Fun Fest. We hit a bar and listened to a blues band and then walked around.

We ended up watching this reggae band. They were really good.

Maybe not so much for this little girl.

And there was the usual people watching. Not sure what the deal was with these 2. They looked like they were wandering gypsies.

Then we found a Stoli tent that had orange crushes. They were expensive and not near as good as the other night in Nabb’s Creek.

After that we went to one of my favorite pizza places in the USA…BOP…brick oven pizza. Needless to say, I made an exception to the Paleo diet.

It was a cold ride back, but a really fun day!