Antipoison Creek

We left the Onancock River and crossed the Chesapeake Bay to the western shore one more time and it was probably the best sail we’ve had in the last month. The sun was shining and the breeze was stiff, keeping us cool despite the 80°F temperature. We sailed straight across the bay to Antipoison Creek, a good refuge from the wind but not terribly pretty. We were the only boat anchored in our little bay and we left early the next morning to avoid the predicted heavy winds on the nose. On our way out, we passed an early-morning fisherman at his weir; these weirs consist of little more than branches stuck in the mud with nets strung between them, but their ingenuity is that the passage through the nets is so convoluted that the fish can’t escape once they start swimming through.

Sarah Creek

Five hours later we were sailing up the York River and then motoring into Sarah Creek where we quickly dropped anchor and set about trying to retrieve our third package from West Marine which hopefully would contain a working microphone. We dinghied into York River Yacht Haven to get directions to walk to the UPS store in Yorktown and were not a little dismayed to discover it was a good eight miles from the marina. Tammy, the VP of operations at this huge marina, generously offered us the use of her car to run out to UPS and to pick up some groceries. We’re happy to report that the microphone is in fine working order and the next day we packaged up all the other radios and microphones and sent them back to West Marine. We’re pleased that this little saga is finally over and especially pleased that we unloaded that large cardboard box that was taking up so much room in our stern berth.

Our second day in Sarah Creek, with a prediction of high winds on the nose, we decided to stay in the area and do a little exploring. We arranged for a vehicle rental so we could tour Yorktown, Williamsburg and Jamestown. These three cities make up the Historic Triangle of Virginia where so much Revolutionary and Civil War history was made. Without a map, we stumbled upon the Colonial Parkway, a wooded and winding road much like Ottawa’s Parkways, and followed it down the York River to Colonial Williamsburg. Williamsburg was the center of much of the events and politics leading to the Revolutionary War of 1775-1783 and is full of buildings restored to that era and re-enactors walking around in historic costumes. It’s also home to the College of William and Mary, the second oldest university in the United States and one of their most prestigious. We both gathered up a good-sized stack of reading material at the excellent William and Mary College bookstore, a well-stocked store with rolling-track library ladders running down the length of their polished wooden bookshelves. An unexpected bonus here in Williamsburg was the chocolate, cheese and bakery stores that line the main street.

Oyster

At the Waterman’s Museum in Yorktown, we got the Virginia side of the crab and oystering story. Virginia is doing its best to maintain a vibrant clam, oyster and bluecrab harvest in the face of disease and overfishing. Virginia’s environmental workers spend much effort on this, from the huge oyster farms in Sarah Creek to the introduction of Asian oysters prized for their faster growth and disease resistance. The third largest industry here is clam aquaculture farming and in an effort to maximize harvests throughout the Bay, the watermen even gather clams from the very polluted James River and transplant them to cleaner creeks and rivers. Once the clams sit and purify themselves here for a few weeks, they’re considered fit for human consumption and can be harvested. Blair loves statistics and was intrigued to hear that a quart of oysters has more protein than a quart of milk. Despite enjoying oysters now and then, he would definitely balk at eating a quart of them though! We spent the rest of the day at the Victory Center, a combination museum, theater and re-enactment center that describes the events leading up to and including the American Revolutionary War.

USS Georgia submarine

We left Sarah Creek after three days, headed down to Norfolk and rendezvoused with Madcap at Lafayette Creek opposite the Norfolk Yacht Club. The ICW starts in Norfolk on the Elizabeth River and our route there took us past the Norfolk Navy Yard where we saw every conceivable kind of ship, aircraft carrier and even one submarine, the USS Georgia. For a really interesting story on this sub, check out the Wikipedia information on USS Georgia - it’s even mentioned in Tom Clancy’s, The Hunt for Red October.

First bridge on ICW

We up-anchored early Friday in anticipation of catching the first bridge opening on the ICW at 8:30 am. Well, there is much to be said about anticipation, planning and what actually happens on this ICW ditch. The first day on the ICW, we actually traveled about 50 miles which included five opening bridges and a lock. The first 50 miles of the ICW is about six highway lanes wide with pretty ho-hum scenery; either dense trees or low marshes and dead stumps. The bridges are quite low, so low that even the motor boats cannot fit beneath them. Some open upon request and others open every half hour which in theory sounds good. Unfortunately the spacing between the bridges was such that every bridge we got to, the boats that roared off from the previous bridge were waiting around the corner for us at the next bridge, hovering impatiently for it to open. Once we were through each bridge, the boats jockeyed for position and then over the course of the next five miles or so, we spread out to a reasonable distance depending on individual motoring speed.

While heading through this area, we were all tuned to channel 13 on our VHF radios to connect with the bridge tenders. These men (and women) have seen it all I’m sure; from the more aggressive boaters hovering dangerously close to the bridge to the stragglers who have a well-founded fear of a collision if they’re anywhere near the main pack. The bridge tenders talk to each other; “3 motors, 2 sails heading through Steel Bridge”, and they talk to the boats; “Capt’n, this bridge is opening in 5 minutes and you’re a quarter mile away. I need you to bring it on up here’.

ICW signpost

For ICW travellers, Norfolk is the center of the universe, Mile 0, and as we travel, periodically we see signposts indicating how far from Norfolk we actually are. Blair, who so far is still wishing we were sailing on the open seas, says these signposts feel like a prison sentence; Norfolk being year zero of a 1000 year sentence. I’m just hoping the scenery gets a little nicer and am glad to be in such protected waters for this week as the forecast is for high winds and unsettled weather as one cold front after another blows through.

Alligator R - Pungo R Canal

Our first night in this ditch, we stayed at the Coinjock Marina at their one long dock alongside a narrow section of the ICW. This was our first overnight docking in 25 days (since the Cape Cod Canal) and we were happy to give our batteries a good charge. The boat traffic runs all night and once, at 4:30 am, I looked out the window to see a series of gravel hills passing by on a heavily laden barge pushed by a powerful tugboat. Our second day was a long dreary motor-sail in continuous rain. The highlight was the cheerful bridge tender on the Alligator River swing bridge as he called out to the boats passing through, “You have a nice winter now and I’ll see you next spring”. A nice touch we thought.

To stay positive while in this section of the ICW, we keep in mind that the first part of the ICW is reputedly the part that gets everyone whining and it will get 100% better as we get out of the narrow canal section and into the sounds and bays that have nice little anchorages. In the meantime, we’re learning a whole new etiquette associated with travel in this narrow part of the ditch. Most boaters go out of their way to pass others slowly so as to minimize their rocking wake and to hail slower boats to state which side they’re going to pass on. But, occasionally someone steps on someones toes and then it starts; a angry volley of insults back and forth over the VHF radio on channel 16. Eventually, the coast guard steps in and broadcasts a message telling them to move their conversation to a channel other than the hailing and distress channel. Sometimes the exchanges are pretty funny. Other times, they’re just more or less a lot of “Did so, did not, did so”.

Heading south

Even though the scenery hasn’t been top shelf, we’re seeing some birds completely new to us. Besides the more than occasional Osprey and Bald Eagle, we’ve spotted a Belted Kingfisher and Ring-necked Duck. Today, we’re at mile 135, anchored in the harbour of Belhaven, North Carolina. The wind is howling at 25-30 knots in the open waters just beyond here, we’re back to wearing polar fleece and gloves and the birds are flocking to head south; even further south from here! So, we’re still pushing hard to move to warmer climes and hope to be in Florida by the beginning of December.

It’s a little more than mid month now and the weather has turned distinctly fall-like with cool mornings that warm up to shorts and T-shirt weather by noonish. It was time, so we crossed over to the western side of the Chesapeake Bay to haul out at Spring Cove Marina. Steve and Sandi of Hilary, an Oyster 41 we met in Summerside way back in July, had recommended this marina in Solomons Island. On our way up the Patuxent River to the marina, a bald eagle cruised over Strathspey, dropped suddenly to the water and rose with a fish (which he immediately dropped). We were in sensory overload because at the same time Blair was excitedly pointing out an Osprey hovering on the other side of Strathspey. No, not the bird, the plane; the one that has engines that tilt, so sort of a combo helicopter/plane, officially known as a tiltrotor aircraft. You don’t see very many Ospreys in flight these days as the American military is still testing this fairly new technology with mixed results. We had a ringside seat as we motored past the Patuxent Naval Air Test Center.

Solomons Island

Solomons Island, with a population of less than 2,000, is home to quite a few little creeks, twelve marinas and a gazillion sail and motor boats. This is one busy place! We’d found a great book called Cruising the Chesapeake, A Gunkholer’s Guide by William H. Shellenberger and on more than one occasion, he has directed us to great anchorages known only by locals and, best of all, they’re usually deserted. This time was no exception and we motored up a good-sized creek with boats anchored left and right and turned into a tiny little bay with just enough room for Strathspey to anchor right smack in the middle of it. On the western side of the Chesapeake, the anchorages are usually in built-up areas. This time we were in amongst quiet little back yards, with every house having a dock and a boat or two tied up. The homeowners were not displeased to have us as neighbours and we got some friendly waves as some of them motored past us later that day.

Corrosion at work

We spent two days here, attending to maintenance. Blair changed the oil and replaced the oil and fuel filters. I walked to the West Marine store for supplies (three times) and did way too much laundry - who is wearing all these clothes?!! The 30-Ton travel lift at Spring Cove Marina lifted Strathspey out of the water and none too soon I think. The good news was that there are no barnacles on Strathspey’s hull but the anode on her saildrive was quite corroded (at least 75% gone). Blair worked with their competent mechanic, Chuck, to change the anode and reglue the rubber boot flap that covers the saildrive opening. We’d recommend this well-run marina; its staff is experienced and the rates were very reasonable. We’re glad we didn’t wait any longer for this inspection. In seven years of freshwater Lake Ontario sailing there had been no degradation of the anode, yet it almost disappeared in four months of salt water travel and quite a few marina stays. I know salt water increases the rate of corrosion but stray current at dock can also play a major role. We’ll keep a close watch on this and once in the Bahamas, we’ll be able to frequently inspect it ourselves in the crystal clear water there.

In Solomons Island, we spotted a few of the same boats that were with us in Cape May and Blair even saw one that he recognized from Baddeck, Nova Scotia. Some of these boats are racing down to Norfolk, Virginia to enter the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) at the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay trying to stay one step ahead of the cooler autumn weather. Others are lingering hereabouts waiting for November 1st. For insurance purposes, that’s the date when many boats join the wagon train heading south. We don’t have this restriction but we do have a few more places we want to visit in the Chesapeake region. It’s a toss-up which will arrive first though, November 1st or weather so awful it isn’t fun to be cruising. Either way, we are hoping to get a jump on these boats and leave the area before the end of October.

We left Solomons Island and headed back across the Chesapeake Bay to the eastern side and Crisfield, the self-proclaimed “Crab Capital of the World”. Once across, we turned south down Tangier Sound and we saw one brown pelican after another soaring around us and landing in the water behind Strathspey with a heavy kerplunk. Our bird book tells us that these ungainly looking birds have a history dating back 30 million years. Tangier Sound is surrounded by low-lying islands around which the watermen do most of their crabbing. These islands show green on our charts, indicating low marshy areas with no profile; no houses, no trees, just marsh and crabs. The way through these islands was marked by numerous red and green buoys which we paid close attention to so as not to stray too close to shallow water.

Crisfield

We were excited to pull into Crisfield. We’d both read William Warner’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Beautiful Swimmers, in which he unlocks the mystery of the blue crab and the Chesapeake watermen that fish for them. Crisfield was featured prominently in this book and although the story was written back in the 1970’s, much of the waterman’s lifestyle and his processing of crabs remains the same. We loved the new and intriguing vocabulary in Beautiful Swimmers; Jimmys (male crabs), Sooks (females), Softs (ones just molted) and Blair’s favourite, Snots (crabs just about to molt). In Crisfield, we were definitely in the heart of blue crab country. Throughout the summer here, there are back-to-back crab festivals devoted to crab catching, crab meat picking, crab eating and even crab racing. They have a Miss Crustacean every year and one restaurant we dined in had unique washroom door labels; instead of Gentlemen and Ladies, the doors proclaimed Jimmys and Sooks.

Dinner

Our first night in Crisfield we stuck our heads in the door of the Side Street restaurant and couldn’t resist the daily special; a dozen steamed crabs and a pitcher of beer for $19.95 – even if our dollar wasn’t almost equal, that would be good value. After we ordered it though, our waitress removed our placemats and covered the table with a big swatch of brown wrapping paper; get ready to be messy we figured! They were served the standard way - cooked with Old Bay Seasoning, served in a flat basket without plates and they were delicious.

Crab Steamer

Before we found the Side Street restaurant, we wandered into MeTompkin’s crab processing plant right on the waterfront and were just in time to see huge pots of crabs, one after another, lowered into giant pressure cookers. “Come back early tomorrow morning”, we were told, “ …and you’ll see them being picked”. The crab picking shift starts at 4 a.m. We didn’t get there at 4 but we did manage to be there by 8 am and were allowed to poke about both the crab picking and oyster shucking rooms.

Crab pickers

The crab picking room was filled with metal tables each holding one or two older women (no men) seated in front of a huge pile of steamed crabs that had been cooked the afternoon before. Now, for me to pick an entire crab, legs and all, it’s easily a good five minutes (and that doesn’t include the eating or whining over the slices in my fingers from the sharp shell). These women were fast! They had foot-long metal trays on their laps holding packing tins and the time it took to reach for a crab, scrape the meat into the tins and reach for another was no more than 10 seconds. They worked quickly and quietly. We weren’t allowed into the crab picking area because of health regulations so we stood at the door, snapped photos and marveled at their speed.

Oyster shuckers

Right next door was the oyster shucking house which, in contrast, was full of men (only two women) and 70’s R&B music blaring from a ghetto blaster while the men stood in front of their shucking stations. These guys sang along to the music and occasionally shared cigarettes (someone would clean their hands off, light up a smoke and pass it around; either holding it up to the lips of their fellow slimy-handed shuckers or just leave it there and go on to light another one for the next shucker). There was definitely a method to their shucking and they were fast. They’d position a gnarly-looking oyster on the sharp edge of a six-inch square metal block, whale on it once with either a metal mallet or pipe and then once the shell was open, scrape the oyster into a metal pail that held about six pounds of plump oysters. Once the pails were full, they’d be weighed and that amount tallied against the shucker’s name. The shells were sent outdoors via conveyor belt to be piled high behind the plant and removed shortly thereafter.

Oyster Hills

We arrived in Crisfield in time for the last festival of the season, The Waterman’s Festival, an all-you-can eat (steamed crabs, clams, oysters and sea trout) and drink (beer and wine) event with oyster shucking contests, great music and dancing. The Waterman’s Festival was small-town America at its finest; friendly, generous and uninhibited. The price was $35, which in Ottawa barely buys you two dozen oysters and a glass of wine at Big Daddy’s. A few of the oyster shuckers we’d met at MeTompkin’s entered the oyster shucking contest so we had someone to root for. The oyster shucking contest rules were pretty exacting. Each shucker had to make their way through 25 oysters, their times recorded by stopwatch. But speed wasn’t everything as deductions were made for mistakes; 1 second deductions for a sliced oyster, a not quite detached oyster or a shell left in the oyster and a whopping 20 seconds deducted for a missing oyster (presumably on the floor or somewhere else but not in the shell). The winner of the oyster shucking contest, Sam, shucked 25 oysters in 1:54 minutes. The next fastest time was 3:12. As I said… these guys are fast! The prizes were not shabby either; $300 for first place. Sam’s next venue is the National Oyster Shucking contest to compete for a prize of $1800.

The Contest

We stayed in Crisfield for a few days waiting out a bit of rainy, windy weather. It was comfortable here, the people were friendly, there were lots of blue crabs to eat and when we motored over to pumpout our holding tank, the marina operator said the pumpout service was free. Obviously, they love this bay and want to encourage good environmental practices and we follow suit (being from Canada and used to this in our freshwater Great Lakes). The only frustration here is that we could see lots of wifi connections but EVERY SINGLE ONE had encryption on it. What is this all about! We thought it just a little odd that the people in Crisfield, a friendly, out of the way little fishing village, would have such restricted internet access. This is the first time we’ve encountered this problem as usually, with our wifi booster antenna, we’ve been able to quickly connect to a hotspot and get our emails directly from the boat.

When we finally left Crisfield, we made our way down the eastern shore and crossed from Maryland into Virginia. Normally the water borders between states are invisible except on our charts but between these two states there is a well-marked set of yellow buoys which serve as a reminder to the watermen to stay in their own crabbing and oystering grounds. Maryland and Virginia have very different fishing practices as far as the crabs and oysters are concerned and these differences often lead to major battles between the Governors of these two states. Once into Virginia, we wound our way up the Onancock River to the town of Onancock, the second largest on this side of the Chesapeake. It was by far the prettiest river we’ve explored this month.

The Chesapeake in October is a fine place to be. We loved Maryland and Virginia and everyone’s slow-down-honey manner of speech which matches these warm, sunny days of relaxed sailing. It’s hard to tear ourselves away from this area but now we’ve dug out our down duvet and each morning we see mist rising from the waters so we know it’s almost time we were headed further south. Today, we cross back over to the western side and start heading further down the bay to Norfolk and Mile 0 of the ICW.

Since we arrived in the Chesapeake Bay area, we’ve been exploring and anchoring up into quite a few rivers. That’s mostly what the Chesapeake Bay is all about; the rivers. It’s a long, skinny bay, 3½ miles wide in the north and up to 25 miles wide in the south with almost 50 freshwater rivers running into it. The bay itself is wide open and any little coves that we might anchor in would be too rough from all the north-south boat traffic and prevailing winds. But the rivers are beautiful. Calm, mostly deserted, leaves starting to turn and probably more Canada geese walking on shore and honking overhead than in Canada right now.

Crab Pot

The Chester River is one of the largest freshwater rivers flowing into the Chesapeake but still we had to stick to a narrow channel to avoid going aground. The scenery is just what I imagined the Chesapeake to be all about; long, low marshes with stands of tall ornamental-type grasses and crab-pot floats, not in the main channels but off to one side (much easier to negotiate than the lobster pots in Maine). We’ve seen quite a few “chicken-neckers” on the rivers too. When I bought the little crab pot from waterman Jerry Craig and asked him about tourists trying to catch blue crabs, he said “… see, we’ll call you a chicken-necker now, ‘cuz I’m a waterman and we use eels for bait but you guys use chicken necks or just about anything else you can get your hands on”. It would seem we’re pretty bad chicken-neckers though because every time we bait that crab pot and lower it to the river bottom, the bait (yes, it’s chicken) is gone.

Soda Fountain

At Chestertown, we made a two-mile round trip hike, in 85°F heat, into the UPS store to pick up our replacement VHF radio and microphone. Back on Strathspey, after a quick installation, we determined that the replacement microphone was faulty. We hiked in the next day (again in 85° heat) to mail the microphone back to the manufacturer in California (Standard Horizon) who has guaranteed us a one-day turnaround. So at this stage, we’re frustrated to be once again looking for a location to receive a package. On the bright side, Chestertown is home to the beautiful Washington College campus which we walked through each day on our way to UPS plus a stellar drugstore soda-fountain counter with real old-fashioned milkshakes, sodas and floats (remember coke floats?).

Estelle at Chestertown

In Chestertown, rather than anchoring off the town docks, we stopped a few bends short of the town and dropped our hook just to the side of the channel behind Estelle, a Bristol 41.1 owned by Jim and Jeannie Lea from Charlottowne P.E.I. When we were planning this cruise last winter, I was in search of any and all blogs pertaining to going south and ran across Estelle’s website. The stories are interesting, Jim and Jeannie like to cruise off the beaten track like us and, to make your tastebuds tingle, Jim usually ends his postings with wonderful descriptions of what they’ve had for dinner each night “….grilled swordfish with a mango salsa, accompanied by a nicely-chilled Chardonay”. It was great to finally meet them, share some stories, a drink and of course some good food. You can check their blog here.

Chesapeake Bay Bridges

We stayed one more night on the Chester River, at Langford Creek and had our first thunder and lightning storm of the trip. These kinds of storms are quite common on Lake Ontario but we’d not had any of this sort of weather for the last four months. The next day, we headed back out into the main bay and under the Chesapeake Bay bridges; two of them, one for traffic in each direction. On our way out, we saw a large group of boats engaged in oyster diving. Apparently, at this time of year in the Chester, watermen can only harvest oysters by tonging (raking the river bottom) or diving for them. How they can tell what they are catching is beyond me because the waters are so muddy, they wouldn’t see their hand in front of their face. We know this because Blair dove overboard to try to check our zinc anodes on the saildrive and couldn’t see anything.

St Michaels town dock

On the last of the hot sunny days, we stopped in St Michaels, a town settled way back in the 1600’s and most notable now for being the home of Vice President, Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. We dinghied ashore and, on the excellent advice of Estelle, searched out Big Al’s Seafood to stock up on more blue crabs. Big Al’s is well-known in this area and advertises “crabs, liquor, wine, breakfast, lunch and oysters”. What else could you need or want? There must have been an especially high tide here because the water was overflowing the town dock area when we arrived and it was an unusually easy step out of our dinghy.

We pumped out our holding tank at the town marina and the attendant told us to keep our receipt for the pumpout in case we were stopped by the coast guard. Apparently, there is quite a push to clean up the Chesapeake by organizations such as “Save the Bay” and “The River Starts Here” as well as new environmental laws. We’re even seeing specialty Maryland license slogans, “Treasure the Chesapeake”. Even with hefty fines for polluting, many boaters disregard the laws, hence the environmental patrols. In the face of big winds the next day, we left the relatively unprotected St Michaels harbour late that afternoon and ducked into Leeds Creek across the river. This was the skinniest water we’ve encountered yet and we motored into the creek at a dead crawl, pausing once when our depth meter read 5’3” (we’d be good and stuck at 5 feet now that Strathspey is so loaded down). We tucked into the first little cove around the corner to wait out the big winds which arrived around 1:30 am that night.

Sunrise at Leeds

We hunkered down in Leeds Creek waiting for nicer weather and from our calm anchorage, we could see whitecaps at the creek entrance and the tops of the trees bending with the force of 25-30 knot winds. So, we stayed below deck and spread out like it was Sunday morning; read the Washington Post and New York Times, watched some movies and listened to a CD Sandy had given us, Paul Anka’s Rock Swings, a collection of rock songs by the ilk of Kurt Cobain, Bon Jovi, Oasis and Van Halen. Paul has “schwinged” the songs up, the best one being Sound Garden’s Black Hole Sun. This CD has probably single handedly revived his career by introducing him to a new generation. We tried our hand with the crab pot once again with no luck. We also tuned into CBC with our Sirius satellite radio, a “must have” for Canadian cruisers down here because it is definitely the only way we know what’s happening back home. Besides the news, we’ve been tuning into “Go” with Brent Bambury for his razor wit and sheer silliness and “Vinyl Tap” with Randy Bachman for his excellent musical insight.

German greeting

After sitting for so long in Leeds Creek, we were happy to have a good long sail down the bay and around the corner to San Domingo Creek, a creek that runs up to the back door of St Michaels. What a difference the weekend makes; St Michaels was now bumper to bumper, two weddings spilling into the main drag and crowded sidewalks as far as we could see. Walking towards town from the creek entrance, we stopped at a great deli/butcher shop and were happy to stock up with meat and chocolate. This was important as our diet on Strathspey runs mostly to the “white” meats, fish, fruits and vegetables augmented by lots of good chocolate and black licorice, neither of which we could find much of since NYC.

San Domingo Creek

We weighed anchor in San Domingo Creek around 10:30 am after some minor maintenance on the storage box over our engine. The screws used to hold it in place were too short and we were obviously using it to hold too much as it had started to collapse into our engine area. Blair usually checks the engine oil, etc before we start up each morning so he caught this little snag before it snagged our engine. We keep our winch handles and blocks in here and there’d be nothing like a winch handle or two in your engine to make you sit up and take notice!

We had a nice sail down the Choptank River, that river of Mitchener’s “The Chesapeake” fame, all the way to Oxford and dropped anchor in Town Creek to see what this old town was all about. Number one on our list of recommendations for Oxford was to go to the Scottish Highland Creamery for homemade icecream and truffles, which of course we did. Oxford is a fairly quiet town town now but way back in the 1600s it was actually a port of entry. That all came to an end when the Brits left town after the American revolution. We wandered through the narrow back streets, toured the local museum with all its intricate scrimshaw and got a few groceries. After leaving Oxford, we sailed down to La Trappe Creek next, a small creek reputed to be the prettiest in the Chesapeake. We shared the anchorage with a cabin cruiser from Vancouver of all places (now that’s a long squawk!). Wake from oyster boats woke us early the next morning and we left at 7:30 for Solomons Island where we have a date with a travel lift to check the zinc anodes. That means we’ll be crossing the Chesapeake Bay to the more populated western side for a bit. We got word that our replacement (replacement) VHF microphone is fixed and hopefully we’ll pick it up on the other side of the bay too.

Miss Liberty

In my last post for New York City, I forgot to mention that we’d had a few boat items sent to Derek’s apartment; our interface box for our GPS system and a new VHF radio, complete with a microphone for our cockpit. We’d been having problems with our existing microphone for awhile (Blair thinks “one of us” talks like a teenager and stretches the cord halfway ‘round the boat but regardless, the thing is broken). We really depend on both these items so we were happy to pick them up and after leaving Derek and Wendy’s apartment on Saturday afternoon we headed back to Strathspey to install our new toys.

79th Street Boat Basin

Before leaving terra firma though, we stocked up at the renowned Zabar’s deli on 80th and Broadway, a short three blocks from the 79th Street Boat Basin. We’d only spent one night actually sleeping aboard Strathspey at the Boat Basin but that was enough for us to appreciate both the strong Hudson River current and the neighbourhood. The Boat Basin is located in the Upper West side of New York. In this upscale area, rents run $6-7000/month but you can easily join the ranks of Yoko Ono and Robert De Niro for $900/month if you lived on your boat year round at the 79th Street Boat Basin. The downside is that there’s not a lot of shelter here. In fact, Boat Basin is a misnomer for this marina; it’s basically a few long rows of mooring balls lined up along the Joe DiMaggio highway, exposed to all but east winds, with a strong current and boat-rocking waves kicked up by all the passing ferries and tugs. Its redeeming feature is that it’s cheap and close to the subway and of course Zabar’s.

Verrazano-Narrows Bridge

We left the Boat Basin and headed down past the tip of Manhattan into NYC harbour. It was rough, with huge waves, ferries crossing every which way and the challenge of staying between red and green buoys while at the same time managing a photo-op with the Statue of Liberty. We had a good fast sail out of the harbour and under the Verrazano Bridge down to Sandy Hook, New Jersey. We anchored in the lee of the hook, opposite the coast guard station directly under the flight path to Kennedy International. We could see and hear the really big planes passing overhead, 747’s, A330’s, A340’s, so definitely not a quiet anchorage. Yet, around 7 pm, we started hearing a sort of pitter patter, almost like hard rain starting to fall. The water surface showed small fish breaking the surface - we’re not sure if they were there to feed or were scared up by other bigger fish. So, a backwater sort of place with fish jumping, yet jets soaring overhead. It was lights out at 7:30 pm in anticipation of a 3 am start the next morning in order to make a long run to Atlantic City.

Leaving Sandy Hook, we had a long slow pound out in big waves through the Sandy Hook channel but as soon as Strathspey turned south, we pulled out our foresail and quickly sped up to 6.5-7 knots. The sun came out around 7 am as did all sport fishing boats, roaring out past us to their favourite fishing grounds. New Jersey, from the ocean side, looks like one long beach. Behind these beaches are swamps though, sometimes five miles wide and it’s here in northern New Jersey that the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) begins. The ICW, built by the US Army Corps of Engineers, provides a calm inland water route south to Florida, well away from the big ocean swells and high winds. The section in New Jersey is for shallow draft boats only though and if we tried to use these waters in Strathspey, we’d be singing the line from from Springsteen’s Rosalita: “…my machine she’s a dud out stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey…”.

Atlantic City

The sand beaches make for really shallow waters all along the New Jersey coast. Even out at the three mile limit, we were only in 50 feet of water. In fact, many of the inlets that we could have used to duck into to find an anchorage are too treacherous due to the constantly shifting sand. That meant that we had to make a long run to Absecon Inlet, a safe entrance into Atlantic City, but a distance of 77 miles from Sandy Hook; a long 13-hour squawk. We had a good sail down the coast but the ride through the Absecon Inlet was as wild a ride as we ever hope to have on Strathspey. As the depth decreased, the rollers increased and once we started through, we were committed. We made it through in one piece and anchored in front of Harrah’s Casino and when night fell, the light show on the side of the buildings entertained us over dinner. This is quite likely the ugliest anchorage we’ve been in, mostly because it is in the middle of the channel with casinos and parking garages on one side and condos on the other. Looks aside though, we were grateful to be in safely through the big surf and after leaving Sandy Hook at 3 am, that night we slept like it was our job. The next morning when we pulled up the anchor, there was an overwhelming odor of eau de sewage. Who knows what else there was in that primordial sludge – after all, this is the east coast gambling capital and no debt goes unpaid….

Our exit through the inlet was uneventful, we heaved a sigh of relief and once again pointed Strathspey’s bow southward to Cape May which was the last harbour before making a sharp right into the Delaware Bay and then on into the sheltered waters of Chesapeake Bay . At this point, we’re seeing a different sort of boat out sailing with us. They look like they’re making tracks south, adorned with wind generators, extra diesel and water jugs strapped to their decks and many of them are flying the Maple Leaf.

Cape May Fishing boats

The trip down to Cape May was without much wind and big rolling swells (the kind I like so much….. not!). It was a quick trip though and by early afternoon we were snaking our way into the tightest marina we’ve ever shoehorned ourselves into. We filled up with diesel and squeezed out past all the big fishing boats to find ourselves an anchorage, yet again in front of a coast guard station. This station was a big one and is where newly enlisted coast guard cadets are sent to do their basic training apparently. Just before dusk, Blair played his pipes and shortly after we were witness to two companies of cadets marching by four abreast and smartly dressed in navy. Here our weather turned summery again and Brooklyn says it was 31 with the humidex in Ottawa so we must all be experiencing the same weather system. Gotta love that Indian summer!

Delaware Bay lighthouse

We left Cape May the next day at 8 am to catch the flood tide up the Delaware Bay. This is a big, muddy, shallow bay with a deep ship channel up the center and not a whole lot else. We had to cross one short section in 10 feet of water where we couldn’t see bottom, just muddy swirls as we coasted over it. Once across, we followed the main shipping channel north and saw a steady procession of big tankers heading back and forth to Philadelphia at the head of the Delaware River. That day, October 3rd, at 2:26 pm, in the middle of the bay, we were exactly due south of our backyard in Ottawa (374 miles due south that is) after having traveled almost 2100 miles to get here. It gives new meaning to the phrase “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey” but we’re happy to have swung wide through the St Lawrence, the Maritimes and New England to get here because of the spectacular scenery and not a little bit for the bragging rights associated with having gone “the long way ‘round”. That day too, we thought often of our friends Mireille and Christian, from Nomades, a 37 Endeavour who had planned to meet up with us in this area, but had to postpone their trip. We are wishing they were traveling with us as planned, rather than where they are now and the tough times they face ahead.

After cruising up the Delaware Bay for most of the day, just after 4 pm we anchored behind Reedy Island, a nice little anchorage with only Madcap and Strathspey tucked in that night. We had planned to leave at 7 am the following morning to catch an ebb current through the canal to the Chesapeake but awoke to a dense fog; a fog as dense as anything we ever saw in Nova Scotia. Once the fog lifted, we headed north and entered the C&D canal and got a good taste of what it will be like heading down the ICW I think; the steady drone of our engine, watching beautiful scenery drift by at a pace slightly faster than a quick jog and the constant search for the next buoy. The leaves had started to turn along the banks of the canal which seemed a bit out of place as the temperature hovered in the mid-80s and the humidity was stifling. Once through the canal, we headed up the Sassafras River to Georgetown. This river is relatively wide and winding yet there is a fairly narrow channel right up the center which often showed depths of as little as 10 feet. We anchored at Georgetown in fresh water - yippee!

The next day, we moved Strathspey into the Georgetown Yacht Basin where we stayed from 8:30 am til 6 pm, plugged into 30 amp power to charge up our batteries, got groceries, and scrubbed the boat from stem to stern. What a treat and all this for only $15; money well spent. I can highly recommend this marina; their facilities are spotless, the dock help are courteous and go the extra mile and one of the best things is that they have old-fashioned bikes with coaster brakes that their customers can borrow.

Our Transportation

We rode into town for groceries and stopped at E&E Seafood and ordered a dozen blue crabs. E&E Seafood is owned by Jerry Craig, a former waterman (aka crab fisher). He and his son Aaron buy crabs and oysters from the Chesapeake Bay watermen and sell them to restaurants and anyone else who wants them. Along with the crabs, freshly steamed in Old Bay spice, Jerry gave us instructions on how to catch crabs in the river, how to cook them once we caught them, how to eat them (really messy!) and most importantly to the watermen, how to avoid running over their traps. We were only going to get six crabs but Aaron, an earnest 18-year old, said that wasn’t enough and pointed out a customer standing behind us and said “he could eat a bushel, them’s finger food and you wanna have enough”, so we did as we were told and asked him to steam up 12 of them and we’d come back in an hour. Along with the crabs, I bought a little crab pot so Blair could try his luck at catching crabs.

Blue Crabs

We spent three nights in Georgetown, cycling, swimming (yes!), exploring up all the little creeks off the Sassafras in our dinghy and eating steamed crabs, crabcakes, crab sandwiches (12 crabs definitely goes a long way ….). Madcap has continued on to Baltimore and the Annapolis Boat Show and we’ll catch up with them later this month. We’ll pull up stakes today and head up the Chester River for a while.

In the last few weeks since we left Portland, we’ve traveled close to 500 miles and it will be nice to relax for a bit, soak up some sun and catch our breath. While in this area, we also need to receive our replacement VHF radio and microphone. After spending the good part of an afternoon and evening in New York, installing the new radio and stringing cable for the microphone through lockers and lazerettes, we weren’t happy to find that the radio has a major bug in it. Every time we press the transmission button, the radio turns itself off so although we can still listen, we can’t talk to anyone. Blair jury-rigged a radio setup when we got to Sandy Hook and a quick call to West Marine resulted in a new system being sent off immediately. However, it had to be sent to Derek’s NYC apartment because that’s where the first one had gone. It’s been forwarded on to us in Chestertown on the Maryland side of the Chesapeake Bay and hopefully will be there on Tuesday for us.

As well, we need to haul Strathspey out of the water to replace the sacrificial zinc anodes on her saildrive. For the non-sailors, the zinc anodes are little blobs of zinc attached to either your engine or in Strathspey’s case, her saildrive. Theoretically these blobs will corrode from salt water before the saildrive corrodes. The idea is to keep checking the zinc anodes and as soon as you see major corrosion, you replace the anode before the corrosion proceeds on to your saildrive and starts eating away at it. Most other boats have these zinc anodes on their engine where they can easily be checked and replaced. Unfortunately, Strathspey has a saildrive setup, which although it allows us to spin on a dime, it requires a haul out of the water to check and replace these anodes.