What a terrific area to visit. I stayed at the South Annapolis Yacht Centre in Eastport which is across Spa Creek from Annapolis. Annapolis has a great historical downtown area, US Naval Academy and lots of great places to eat. Sandy, who was visiting, and I hit them all and did quite a bit of walking back and forth over the Spa Creek bridge to see everything. We rented a car and toured a little bit of Washington D.C. We went to the National Zoo and wasn’t all that impressed, but hey it was free. I wanted to see the Korean War Veterans Memorial but, of course, was being restored so we couldn’t see much. It was still nice to walk the mall.
My original plan was to leave Urbanna on Thursday and spend the night anchored in Ingram Bay. I was worried about finding a good spot to anchor around Solomons Island so I skipped Ingram Bay and went directly to Solomons Island. I found a great spot to anchor at the entrance to a small cove in Mill Creek. I was looking forward to taking Ness (my tender) and doing some exploring. Alas, it was not to be. Seems like there is an issue with the electrical system. Of course, I found that out after I had taken it down and put it in the water. Without convenient transportation I ended up spending the entire time on the boat. I know, life’s tough. I did see some great fireworks by the people on the small cove that rivaled the public fireworks not far away. It was nice relaxing time and looked forward to getting to Annapolis and getting off the boat!
I was looking forward to Urbanna VA and wasn’t disappointed. It is a great little town and everyone was super friendly. I ended up staying an extra day and skipping my planned visit to Kilmarnock VA. I took the “Museum In The Streets” tour where they had point-of-interest signs spread around town. There were lots of cool homes and buildings to see. I had a couple of really good meals to top everything off. I would like to come back for the oyster festival in November but that may be a little late in the year. We’ll see.
After a restful day on the East River it was time to move on. Next stop was Fishing Bay at the mouth of the Piankatank River. A small rain storm escorted me into Fishing Bay making everything nice and muggy. At least it was a cool muggy. When I entered the bay there were sailboats galore. Looked like some type of race or regatta for little sailboats right in the area I thought about setting the hook. Since I didn’t think they would let me in the race, I continued up the Piankatank and anchored away from all of the activity. I was pretty much planning to anchor here anyway after I looked at the wind forecast. Although the winds were going to be mild, comme ci, comme ça.
So much for plans. I woke up on June 23 and received a wonderful birthday present, no steering pump. I had a similar problem earlier where I was getting the same alerts. Ugg. I started googling and calling anyone and everyone that looked like they worked on marine autopilots. I talked to only one actual person. I’m still waiting for one company to get back to me that I called at least twice, left a voice message, left a callback number and sent an email to.
Warning, Warning, the following is an editorial rant! For those people in the marine industry, one of these days you won’t be in heavy demand and those of us that put up with your crappy customer service will have the final laugh! Ha, ha, ha.
Ok, got that out of my system. Where was I? Oh yeah, I actually talked to one real live person and he said that it could also be a lack of hydraulic fluid or air in the line. Well, that got me thinking so I took a closer look at the steering system and something caught my eye. One valve on the steering manifold was closed and a second valve was all but closed. Ding! I have a power electric line coiler. The electric line had jammed and it had come out of the rollers. When that happened the line had probably wrapped around or hit the steering valves and closed them. I opened the two valves and voila, the steering worked as normal. By this time I was frazzled so I stayed an extra day in Yorktown and treated myself to a large waffle cone at Ben and Jerry’s for my birthday.
On Thursday it was off to Mobjack Bay. I talked to some folks that recommended the East River that feeds into Mobjack Bay as a nice spot to anchor. They weren’t kidding. It is a beautiful place to sit on the hook.
Where did Mobjack Bay get its name?The bay appears in early documents as “Mockjack Bay”; it was said that echoes on the bay would mock “Jack”, a term for a sailor.
I spent a week in Yorktown and touring the surrounding area. Tom and Nancy met me in Yorktown and had nice dinner on the river walk. We toured Jamestown National Park the next day and had more good seafood. That night I was treated to a concert by the band En’Novation. Not exactly my kind of music but still fun to listen to.
I rented a car so I could visit sights in the area: Williamsburg, American Revolution Museum, Watermen’s Museum and Colonial National Historical Park which includes the battlefield and historical Yorktown. I definitely got my history fix. I took an afternoon and went across the bridge to drive through some the countryside. I ended up in Gloucester VA where they had a small historical district and visitors center. I was surprised they have a framers market on Saturday with food from actual farms. I loaded up on some blackberry and pecan syrup and bought a bacon and cheddar quiche. They also had sweet potato biscuits I couldn’t pass up. Made for a very nice brunch and breakfast on Sunday.
Gloucester VA
We had one of those infamous squalls that roll through the area today with gusts over 50kn and some pretty god waves tossing my neighbor around. Terrapin rode out the storm without hardly noticing. On to Mobjack Bay tomorrow to find a nice spot to anchor out.
After nearly two weeks in Norfolk it was time to start my Chesapeake cruise in earnest. To exit Norfolk you go by the huge naval installations at Hampton Roads with very intimidating warships lining the channel. Luckily none were coming or going, or so I thought. A couple of miles before I was going to exit the channel and head North I had a hail on the radio from the Navy. A Navy security boat was off my bow with an even more intimidating gun pointed at my boat. There was an inbound submarine and they kindly asked me to make room and I very kindly complied.
This wasn’t my first encounter like this. On my training cruise in Florida we where going to transit a area normally not restricted but was that day as a submarine was doing a racetrack pattern in the area. They asked us to kindly to go East or West to go around. Yep, some kind folks with guns reinforced their suggestion and we took them up on the offer. That one (below) looks very similar to the one today.
Submarine while training in Florida
The rest of the cruise was uneventful and I managed to arrive at slack current in Yorktown. Which is a good thing because the current is quite strong here. I plan to be in Yorktown for about a week to play tourist and see the sites. Tom and Nancy decided to drop by and look forward to hanging with them for a day or so. More updates on Yorktown and the area later.
The anchorage in the Alligator River turned out to be a nightmare. I have found a pest to rival the infamous Miller Moth. The next morning after anchoring in Alligator River I found the boat covered in little green mosquitos. However, they weren’t mosquitos and didn’t bite. I believe they are non-biting midges. The entire area that was leeward of the wind was covered in these small green flies. Since it was raining when I pulled anchor I hoped they would wash off or be carried away on the wind. No such luck. I had a small run up to the Coinjock Marina and the dang things were still with me. I made use of the marina water supply to try to wash them off, in the rain of course. I made a dent but still had quite a few hitchhikers.
I treated myself to a prime rib dinner at the restaurant connected to the marina. The Coinjock Marina is really on long dock along the ICW. They are famous for their prime rib dinner and it was very good. I even had a slice of their vanilla mouse cheese cake just to make sure I didn’t lose my strength for the next day.
Friday was going to be quite a challenge once I left Coinjock. I had to go through my first lock called Great Bridge Lock. You might deduce there is a Great Bridge as well and you would be correct. You must go through the Great Bridge to enter the Great Bridge Lock. Unfortunately, the Great Bridge only opens on the hour. Greaaate. Get there there at the wrong time and your are fighting to keep your boat in one place for an hour. Life is never that simple, I needed to time three other bridge openings that only opened on the hour and half hour. Being the computer nerd, I got it all planed out on my chart/plotter and had it all figured out. Or so I thought. I woke up nice and early and wanted to leave at slack tide. I was going through my checklists when I heard a rumble of a big engine. Much to my surprise a tug pushing a barge was going by. I really, really didn’t want to try a pass that on the narrow ICW. I checked his AIS data and he was going about 6.4kn. I had planned out my bridge timings at 6kn and I wasn’t leaving for a half hour. With a sigh of relief I thought I was in good shape. Life is never that easy. About an hour after I left I came around a bend and there he was. He had stopped for some reason and appeared to just be sitting across the channel. As I got closer I could see he had straightened out and was under way. Yay! I followed him for a couple of hours then had to pass him because he needed to make some maneuvers to get through a bridge. Since I was going about his speed it wasn’t a problem with him behind me.
Careful planning takes the first hit. The coast guard announces maintenance work of a railroad bridge with closures of an hour. I knew I had to go under two railroad bridges that are normally open. This didn’t sound good. Careful planning hit two came when one of the bridges I need to make had just closed about a half mile in front of me. So close and yet so far. Luckily, there was no current or wind to speak of so waiting a half hour for the bridge wasn’t bad. That threw off my timing for Great Bridge so me, a few boats behind me and the tug/barge who had caught up were all crawling along to kill time. Since I was first at the previous bridge, I led all of the little ducklings and whale to the Great Bridge. Once again, I had a little luck and there were no currents or wind. I took the opportunity during the 45 minute wait to get my fenders and lines ready for the lock and listen to the ensuing confusion on the radio. The tug behind me was planning to go through the lock which meant I needed to pull over and let him go into the lock first. A little later, the tug captain said he wasn’t going through the lock because the railroad bridge, mentioned previously, was closed and might open in an hour. Well the lock attendant got confused so there was all kind of confusing back and forth as to whether I need to proceed or pull over. This did not help my nerves being already on end about going through a lock single handed. By the way, the Great Bridge wasn’t all that great.
Locking through turned out to be a breeze. I had one line that I managed and used my thrusters to keep the bout against the wall. All of that worrying for nothing. Sure enough, about a half hour after leaving the lock I came up on a row of boats sitting in front of me waiting for the railroad bridge to open. There was a slight current but another 45 minute wait went by fairly smoothly. Finally after getting through the railroad bridge and the road bridge opening behind it, I cruised into Norfolk. Wow, what a site with these huge naval ships either under construction or being refit. I saw two aircraft carriers alone.
It was a tight squeeze to get into the Waterside Marina and into my slip. Not having been in a real marina, excluding Coinjock and “Jacksonville Free City Dock” here, for several weeks made anything less than 150 feet wide seem small. With great relief I was able to shut everything down, including myself, and looked forward to playing tourist!
Now that I am good with the insurance folks, it is time to start the fun. After two relaxing days in a wonderful anchorage in Belhaven NC my next goal is Norfolk VA. For the first leg I stopped on the South side of Albemarle Sound where the Alligator River feeds into it. Nope, not swimming logs spotted. Not much to look at but should give me a little shelter from the winds tonight. It wasn’t a long journey but was needed to line up the next two days to get to Norfolk. This will be my last anchorage for a while. Up to this point, since leaving Jupiter, I only spent the one night in Jacksonville not on the hook. I need to fill up with water and get some groceries so it is time to start doing the marina dance.
For my first extensive cruising experience it had a lot of ups and downs. Lets get the negatives over with first.
No Worky’s
Stabilizers
Autopilot stopped working on a couple of occasions at the wrong possible time.
Periodic alert on main engine injector
Anemometer. Stopped working then healed thyself.
Pilothouse Air Conditioning (minor)
Bad Times
Scraping the “Bridge of Lions”. How embarrassing.
Scraping the “Bridge of Lions”. Really bad so I list it twice.
ICW
No rest for the wicked. Have to be on high alert at almost all times.
Limited anchorages
Shoaling and skinny water
Currents. Seems like they are always against you.
Holiday and weekend traffic suck. Seriously, what are these fools thinking?
Lack of Experience
Missing anchorages and routes
Boat handling with high traffic and “nautical” conditions
Now the good stuff.
Cruising: I didn’t really have a chance to get into the cruising mode. There were a few places I would have liked to stay longer at anchor and explore with the tender or find a marina and look at the sights on land. Being on a tight schedule it was always go, go, go. I definitely had a little taste and want more.
Open Ocean: I absolutely love going in the open ocean. I can relax, get up and walkaround darn near any time I’d like. I can even take a potty break. No worries about running aground and can even work on the computer or do quick engine room checks. At 8 knots and a clear radar it would take 15 minutes to even come close to running into anything. Crab pots being the exception.
ICW: If I wasn’t on a tight schedule the ICW would be a little more enjoyable. I could slow down and take advantage of marinas and do shorter days. Now that I have more experience, it is getting easier to pilot the boat and navigate. While there are some cool things to see, there is a lot of the same old, same old.
Anchoring: I just love anchoring out. You are mostly by yourself and you can chose when to leave and where to drop the hook. Even for the not so great spots it was nice to have that control. Some anchorages were awesome either because it was easy in, easy out or just a beautiful spot to be at.
I am starting to feel more comfortable operating the boat and getting to know her. Once I get a few problems fixed I will have confidence that I can go anywhere with her without worry. That being said, she is still a lot of boat. It is still fun but a challenge to keep up with everything that needs to be done. I think this will get easier over time as well. I am going to take a small break and figure out what is next and begin my summer adventure.
