“FLEETWOOD” ’S LOG

THE CHESAPEAKE BAY

A FOUR WEEKS CRUISE OF THE CHESAPEAKE BAY IN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND IN AUGUST 2008

For the photo album go to: http://www.cometosea.us/albums/albums/Chesapeake.pdf

The Chesapeake is the largest estuary in the United States of America. Total shoreline for the Bay and its tributaries is 11,684 miles (18804 km), and the surface area of the bay and its major tributaries is 4,479 square miles (11601 km²).

The eastern shore, the narrow peninsula that separates the bay from the Atlantic Ocean, is for the most part shallow and there are only a few harbors for other than shallow draft boats, particularly the southern Maryland and Virginia portion of the peninsula. The eastern shore has many more options and many of the rivers are navigable for a respectable distance upstream from the bay.

But you need to be constantly alert for shallows that extend far from the shoreline and the busy freighter traffic lanes that connect to Baltimore and ports on the Potomac and push boats and their barges to the many river ports. And then there are the crab trap buoys and fish traps to deal with.

I left my marina berth on the Elizabeth River in Portsmouth, across from Norfolk, on Saturday the 9^th at low tide but my VHF antenna still played a xylophone melody on the bridge deck stringers of the route #164 bridge. The first night I anchored in Sarah Creek on the York River at 37.15˚ N and 76.29˚ W, excellent protection and wireless from the adjoining York River Yacht Haven. Sunday morning I crossed the River to Yorktown. Rivertown Landing charged me $ 5 for a short stay at their dock. I rode the folding bike up the river bank and onto the urban area of Yorktown, which turned out to be an about 5 mile distance through the preserved battle grounds of the revolutionary war. Open fields and lush mixed pine and deciduous forest, on the way back from mass at St. Joanne of Arc, the earlier thunderstorm brought out the wonderful fragrances of the forest and fields. I stopped at the self guided tours of the battles fought here against the British by the Americans and the French forces in 1781.

The original Yorktown has been preserved in its colonial period and no buildings other than restorations and replicas have been added to the town. It is entirely buffered from the new world by the vast expanse of the surrounding battlefields and the York River. Well worth a visit.

Sunday night I anchored once again in Sarah Creek and crossed the Chesapeake to the Eastern Shore on Monday. Cape Charles is a delightful town. It became important around the turn of the century when it was linked to the mainland by a rail road ferry.

I set out a course back to the eastern shore into Winter Harbor. When I arrived at the entrance channel across the shallows, in the late afternoon, I got stuck after the first marker and then realized there were no further channel markers. Could the folks in Winter Harbor take their channel markers down in the summer? I got off and had little choice at that point and the approaching darkness than to drop the hook right there. Fortunately the weather turned out benign for the night in the unprotected eastern shore of the bay. It was a short hop then to Jackson Creek in Deltaville at Stingray Point, at the mouth of the Rappahannock River. It has a very narrow winding channel into the creek but a pleasant anchorage and good holding, 37.33˚ N 76.20˚ W. For that matter I never had any problems with holding ground, it is mostly mud and clay all through the Chesapeake. Deltaville Marina, in Jackson Creek, provides showers, use of their swimming pool, coin laundry and dinghy dock for $ 10.00 per day per person to anchored sailors. They have “beach cruiser” bicycles available to go to the small town and a loaner car if needed. I will list their haul out rates separately. This would be a fine location to haul out or store. The town has a West Marine store, sail makers, riggers, carpenters, electronic and mechanical businesses. And you pick up the marina’s wireless in the anchorage.

I had bought a folding crab trap in Cape Charles and feasted nearly every day on one or more of the tasty Chesapeake’s Blue Crabs.

The wind is usually from the east and since the Chesapeake runs north and south it was a nice reach most of the time, going up the Bay and on the return to Portsmouth. Urbanna, about 20 miles up the Rappahannock was my next destination. I ended up staying three nights. It is a delightful spot with a rich colonial heritage. It boasts the oldest surviving tobacco warehouse/exchange, dating back to 1767.

William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition set off from Urbanna.

The pictures in the album speak more eloquently of this town’s charms. From Friday till Sunday the town hosted the national sailing championships of the Hampton One Design, held nearby on the Rappahannock. Irvington is just 5 miles across the river and I wanted to see the old church near Irvington, Christ Church which was completed in 1735 by Robert “King” Carter a wealthy planter.

His father, John Carter, had already built a simpler wooden church on the same grounds in 1670.

The high brick walls, triple decker pulpit, stone floors are in sharp contrast to the simpler wooden houses of worship of that period. My new friend, I had met a few days earlier in Urbanna, Lynne, and I sailed across to Irvington on Saturday and rode the “beach cruisers” from the Tides Inn Marina through the surrounding countryside to the 8 o’clock Sunday Anglican service. The pews are in four foot high walled cubicles of approximately 12 x 12 foot squares. The only time you see parts of the other parishioners is when they stand up around you. Hard to visualize, go see the album.

The Tides Inn is a classy 5 star resort and until recently had been privately held since 1947.

A fixture at the hotel, since 1956, has been the 127 foot cruise vessel the “Miss Ann” named after

Mrs. Ann Stephens the wife of the founder of the Tides Inn. The Saturday we left Urbanna she made her last “Whisky” run from Irvington to Urbanna. Irvington in Lancaster County had stricter blue laws and guests at the Tides would set out each Saturday morning across the river to Urbanna to get their spirits which then would be held for them in individual guest lockers for their consumption at the inn. The twin diesel powered yacht was built in 1926 and was “borrowed” by the Navy during the 2^nd world war to serve as a coastal patrol vessel. It also served as a tender to FDR’s presidential yacht the “Potomac”.

At the end of the summer she will disappear from the Rappahannock and serve a new master, reportedly in the Washington D.C. area.

My youngest daughter, Jeannine wit husband Sean and my granddaughter Gabrielle drove up from Chesapeake City on Sunday to sail on the river. Until that Saturday, I had never had any one else sail with me on “Fleetwood” since I left the Northwest in February 2005. Company was a welcome change for me this time. Sailing alone on the Chesapeake was not the same as sailing alone on the oceans. There are always fellow travelers of the same spirit to interact with in the foreign anchorages, gathering spots and watering holes.

Monday night I was back in Deltaville, this time on the river side, which has at least ten good size marinas in it and boat yards. But it turned out that there is not really enough room to anchor inside in contrast to the south side of Sting Ray Point, in Jackson Creek. Continuing my northward cruise I spent two nights at anchor in Reedville.

There is not much going on in the town with the exception of the very interesting displays and activities of the Fishermen’s Museum. Practically all of Reedville’s homes have waterfront; lots of relatively deep water inlets. Main Street runs on a long narrow peninsula with waterfront on both side of the street lined with well maintained turn of the 20^th century Victorian homes. Reedville was a boom town a century ago from its fishing industry. The Menhaden, or nick named Pogie, paved the streets with gold. A small oily fish that is unfit for human consumption, it moves in large schools, similar to Herring or Anchovies, in the Chesapeake and off shore in the Atlantic. Spotter planes direct the seiner skiffs to purse the schools. The critters are processed in Reedville in large smelly factories into fish meal and fish oil and end up in a variety of animal and pet food.

From Reedville I sailed straight to Solomons Island leaving Virginia, just south of the Potomac, into Maryland. It took me a couple of weeks to sail through the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific in 2005,

an afternoon will suffice for the Solomons in Maryland. But you could park all the sailboats I ever saw in the Pacific Solomons in one of the many marinas of its temperate zone name sake.

This is a popular weekend destination for visitors from nearby Washington D.C. and Baltimore.

My timing was right, when I rowed to shore from my anchor spot in front of the Harbor Island Marina,

It turned out that the domestic bottle beer at the Calypso Bar was on the Thursday special, 75 cents. It is a busy place and the party goes on till the wee hours. A constant coming and going of boats, junior sail boat races, Saturday buoy racing on the Patuxent River.

Right after Sunday’s 8 o’clock mass at Our Lady Star of the Sea I sailed to Oxford on the Choptank. This is the part of the Chesapeake where the story of Michener’s “Chesapeake” is set, on Maryland’s Eastern shore. A land of forests and marshes, inlets and rivers, the migrating Geese, plantations, boat builders and watermen. I first heard of “watermen” in Michener’s book. Waterman is a Chesapeake colloquial for a collection of oystermen, shrimpers, crabbers and fishermen.

Oxford was a complete change from Solomons Island; a small laid back quaint old town.

St. Michaels is a regular event in “Chesapeake” and I sailed there from Oxford into its back door, instead of the long way around the Rich Neck peninsula, via Broad Creek into San Domingo Creek.

I anchored at 38.47˚N and 76.14˚W; a stiff row from there into town.

“Renaissance” with Bill and Patty Gaffney were anchored in the creek as well. I had spent a freezing weekend with them in Bellhaven, N.C. on the I.C.W., last January. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to visit with them since it was too windy and far to row back to their spot.

St. Michaels is a happy medium of the busy Solomons and the quaint and laid back Oxford.

This is as far North as I went and the next day I sailed back to Solomons Island and made it in time for the 75 cents beers at the “Calypso”. I was stuck there for two days because of a 15/20 knot S.E. and passed the time doing boat maintenance. One of the chores was changing the oil and when I went to get the oil I ran into Bob and Megan, she was the Girl Saturday on the Green Cove Springs Marina desk.

They had lost their furling headsail in a nasty blow off the mouth of the Potomac and had been here for a while to do the replacement and repairs.

It was still a stiff breeze from the S.E. and bumpy leaving the Solomons but I made it into Mill Creek across from Reedville as my next stop. Saturday night I anchored once again in Jackson Creek, Deltaville.

This time the anchorage was full with boats because of the 4 day Labor Day weekend.

I ended up in a Philippi Christian church for my Sunday ritual. Catholic churches are a sparse commodity on the Western shore. These Philippians have an unconventional way to worship for my customs but a warm and welcoming community leaving me with fond memories.

Sunday night I dropped the hook off the spit on the N.E. entrance to the York River, in Deep Creek.

My last day, Labor Day, I had some of my best sailing with spinnaker runs and reaches, surrounded by a steady stream of boats returning from the 4 day weekend.

I had wanted to go to Annapolis and did not take the time to explore the Potomac River, but what the heck; I have till my eightieth birthday to do this….