Jackson Creek, Piankatank River

Today we are going to Deltaville, about 20 miles south of the Greater Wicomoco. The weather is sunny, mid 80's high with a very light northerly wind -- a wind we really can't sail.

The trip down to Deltaville was straightforward, albeit boring. The seas were calm, the current not against us and in general, there was little to do but baby-sit the autopilot as we worked our way down the bay.

Sue researching "what's hot" and "what's not" in Deltaville

You can get into Deltaville from a creek on the Rappahannock river (the Northern approach) or from a creek just off the bay itself (the Southern approach) -- we opted for the latter since it looked less crowded, prettier and would be shorter to "kick-off" from when we leave to head south on Monday.The channel in was well marked but very narrow in spots and barely 6 feet at its lowest point --  we dropped the hook in the Northeast branch of the creek, just north of the Deltaville Marina. This would be our home for the next few days -- apart from the Marina, the shore was lined with nice residential homes, our kind of place.

Well, almost -- unfortunately we also saw nettles (a.k.a. stinging jellyfish) in the water as we dropped the anchor. This was the first time we had seen them on our trip and a big disappointment -- we wouldn't be swimming off the boat in this anchorage. Indeed, there is a cottage industry in the Chesapeake area for "Nettle Pools" -- basically a swimming pool sized net that you can put in the water to keep them out -- unfortunately, we didn't have one :-(

A Chesapeake nettle

Not being able to swim, we decided that the next best thing would be to go ashore. So, we set up the dinghy and motored the short distance to shore, conveniently finding a dinghy dock at the Marina. Sue went off to talk to the Marina owners to see whether it'd be OK to leave our dinghy for a couple of hours -- my theory is that woman generally get a better response than men when asking to use a facility.

As it turns out, the Marina owner was there and was very nice to Sue and explained all our options (we could dump garbage and/or user the showers and/or take a slip, all for differing fees of course) -- he also told Sue that the local grocery, while a distance, generally was willing to drive cruisers back to their marina once they finished shopping. He even offered to drive us to the grocery. Wow, talk about service oriented businesses !

Naturally, we had our "ever present" grocery list with us (we had to get ready for the arrival of our guests on Saturday) and were interested in getting some exercise, so we opted to walk to the grocery -- perhaps a 3 mile jaunt. It was hot but there was a pleasant breeze in the air. On the way, we happened upon another cruising couple -- Brits and in a different marina, they were out for an afternoon walk. Linda was the more talkative of the pair (we never get her mate's name) -- among the things she shared in her clipped British accent was that they had gotten too close to a Naval Academy facility in Annapolis and had been "shoo-ed away". She also "just mentioned" that they had about 60K miles "under their keel" -- that's one heck of a lot of cruising !

The Deltaville Market was a delight -- the Customer Service desk assured us that they would be happy to drive us back and encouraged us to ask their staff for anything we couldn't find in the aisles (which we did and the uniform response was very polite and cheerful help). Once we checked out, the store's owner, a nice woman in her late 50's, drove us back to the marina in her personal car -- try that in NY/NJ!

She and her husband lived locally and have owned the grocery on and off for 30 years -- they actually had a 10 year "break" a while back when they sold the business, but a combination of the new owner deciding he wanted out and her not finding more satisfying work, had caused them to buy it back. She told us that in past years, sh would get about 10 transient cruisers like ourselves per month, but that this year it had been much fewer (perhaps 2/month). She was happy to hear the praise both Sue and I heaped on her staff -- in her words, "the training had worked". By the way, the car was a late model BMW SUV -- guess you can make a decent living owning a rural grocery in America :-)

Deltaville Harbor scene

Talk about being "protective" of your boat, on a lift and in a garage!

By the time we got everything back to the boat, we were both "good" tired -- the balance of the day was spent quietly reading and/or blogging on our hook.

Sandy Point, Greater Wicomoco River

Having no need to rush to Deltaville and being in a pretty spot, we spent the day in our Sandy Point home. The sun was out and there was a North wind at about 10 knots -- this kept everything and everyone "cool".

We considered taking a dinghy ride over to Reedville, the main town on the Wicomoco and home to the Omega Protein corporation, a large processor of fish into lipstick and food supplements. Reedville and Omega both live off of the menhaden -- a small, oily fish that thrives in vast numbers off the Atlantic Coast and that has been fished from pre-colonial times. Quite coincidentally, Jack recently had read a book, The Most Important Fish in the Sea", that lays out the case for the humble menhaden's role in food chains and the damage that Omega is potentially doing by its "over-fishing" -- a worthwhile read.

The Humble Menhaden, perhaps more important than its appearance would suggest

Did you know:

• The colonials learned from the Indians that burying a menhaden in with their seed would greatly improve the yield of their crops.

Well we decided to pass on the trip in -- it would be a long dinghy ride and Reedville is noted for the smell of its processing plant -- not exactly an enticement for us to visit. So we just hung out.

Around 4pm we went swimming off the back of the boat. The water was clean (we could see our knees, the deepest limb so far on the trip :-) and warm, a stark contrast to the cooler temperature of the air -- drying off would involve lots of goosebumps.

A short time after settling onto the deck for our evening libation, we watched Mike and Liz put up the sail on their dinghy -- taking a sail around the cove was apparently their afternoon activity. They sailed by our boat and we invited them to come and join us for a glass of wine; soon, they were on our deck and we were all chit-chatting.

Mike & Liz in the "mini-me" Hinckley

Mike is an Oral Surgeon and Liz is a Family Physician, they had 7 kids and lived and (still) worked in Buffalo -- wow, we couldn't have thought of a more unlikely combination for a cruising couple. Mike told us he had bought the Hinckley from an old gent who had ordered it (it was the gent's 3rd Sou'wester) but never got to sail it (it took 2 years to build and he was 86 and ailing by the time it was ready). Even Mike's dinghy was a Hinckley -- it had lovely lines and was varnished to the nines. They kept their boat "in charter" for many years in Maine, but recently decided to move it to "South of the Mason Dixon Line" so they they could be warm -- he was quite emphatic about never venturing above that line again :-) Cruisers are the most interesting people !

After a nice conversation where we all shared our stories and got to know each other a bit, they left to return to their boat. We wouldn't see them again this trip -- they had to fly home on the weekend and had changed their plan, rather than leaving their boat in Deltaville, they had decided to put it into a marina in Herrington Harbor, much closer to Annapolis (and Buffalo!). Perhaps our paths will cross again.

Sandy Point, Greater Wicomoco River

Today we are leaving Solomon's Island to head further south. Our goal for this week is to get to Deltaville where we expect to meet Rachel (Sue's daughter), her husband Jon and their daughter Scarlett next weekend.

We had a few days to get to Deltaville, so we decided to make our next stop an anchorage in the Greater Wicomoco river that was recommended by an "live aboard" we met at Zahniser's Marina. It was south of the Virgina border, a 25 mile or so run down the Western shore and would position us nicely to make the remaining 20 or so miles to Deltaville later in the week.

We were up and off the hook early because we were expecting a long day. The sky was sunny, the wind out of the West and variable over a 10 to 20+ knot range; the current was with us and apart from some lumpiness in the seas, the conditions were perfect for our sail south. Indeed, with the boat on a beam reach and "in the groove" and Sue smiling at the helm (there was a reef in the main), we had a rollicking good sail down the bay averaging well over 6 knots all the way -- indeed, the stronger gusts accelerated the boat well into the 7's and occasionally, over 8.  It was exciting and exhilarating, the best sail of the trip thus far.

We arrived at the entrance to the Greater Wicomoco, doused the sails and motored our way in -- the entrance was easily navigated and we soon were rounding Sandy point, which formed one side of our cove for our evening -- it was large, lined with homes on large lots and just lovely -- it would be a serene place to spend the evening.

The view across the cove

The cove was mostly deep (16') but did have a small 9' deep "island" available -- liking as much scope as possible, we motored over to this patch, dropped anchor, and ran into our first snag of the day -- perhaps I should call it an "unsnag" since the problem was that the anchor wouldn't hold. It kept dragging over what was almost certainly rock at the bottom of the harbor -- we could hear it clunking along.

We tried a couple of tricks to try and get the anchor to set, but were unsuccessful. Just as we decided to move and try another spot, another boat showed up in the cove. Lo and behold, it was Mike and Liz on their Hinckley -- as we later found out, they had talked to the same "live-aboard" in Solomon's and also decided to try his recommendation.

As we were motoring off the shallow spot, we passed their boat and I called over that I couldn't get my anchor to hold. They either didn't hear me or decided to try their own luck, because they basically motored over to the same spot and dropped the hook.

I watched Mike's boat drag backwards along the same line mine had -- eventually, his hook grabbed something and he stayed put -- grrr!!!!! Meanwhile, Sue and I tried our luck in the deeper water, further away from shore. Unlike Mike, our luck was poor, the anchor dragged here as well -- we were getting frustrated.

The Hinckley, peacefully at anchor

We abandoned the deeper water attempt and moved to yet a third spot, still relatively deep but closer to shore -- my "theory" being that things might be "muddier" there.  This is a case where the "third" was a charm, the anchor held and we were finally settled into our home for the evening.

The trip down had been exhilaration, getting the anchor down had been maddening -- a "typical" boat day :-) We were both burned out to do much else so we just hung out and enjoyed the scenery, including a starry night with a prominent milky way, multiple shooting stars and a satellite arcing brightly over our head. Life is good.

Back Creek, Solomon's Island

The morning brought more clouds and rain -- we weren't going anywhere today. Kerry and Jen had both planned to leave early, needing to be home to attend to chores and the like. Of course, Sue insisted on sending them off with their belly's full -- so breakfast was what is becoming our "guest" standard: a large batch of bacon and eggs !

After breakfast and some final chit-chat, I dinghy-ed the girls in to get to their cars. Just as we arrived at the dock, another cruising couple were getting into their dinghy -- I saw that he had an "electric" outboard and I asked him about his experience with it as I had considered (and ultimately rejected) buying one.

Breakfast conversation

One thing led to another in  the conversation and I soon discovered that like me, he was from NYC (the Bronx in his case) and our respective high schools had been rivals in football, track and basketball. They (Mike and Elizabeth) had a 45 foot Hinckley (perhaps the "Bentley" of American boats, hand made with loving care) sitting on a mooring close to ours. They had brought the boat down from Maine and were planning to explore the Chesapeake on it for the next few years. Like us, Deltaville was their final major stop -- they planned to leve the boat there when they returned home.

A much as I was enjoying the conversation, I needed to get back to helping the girls off, so I  excused myself with a "see you in Deltaville".

Once the girls were gone, I picked Sue up from the boat so we could get some exercise and do some laundry (we have carpets/throw mats all over the boat and they needed some "freshening" after a few weeks at sea).

We opted for exercise first -- on the way to the grocery store, we passed the Calvert Museum and noticed that they were preparing for a concert -- they had 4 "headliners" coming: Smash Mouth, Sugar Ray and two other groups whose names I rapidly forgot. The concert would be loud, outdoors and, in fact, in our boat's backyard as the crow flies -- we unwittingly had a "front row" seat to the concert and given the acts and our musical tastes, we weren't sure we were gong to enjoy the show.

Once we returned to the Marina, we did our laundry and some "electronic" chores. and retreated to the boat for a quiet afternoon. Naturally, the quiet didn't last -- the first set started at 5:30 or so and we were continuously "regaled" by the rotation through the 4 headliner groups. Some of the music was actually familiar, even enjoyable, but we were definitely relieved when they ended around 9:30, well past the normal "cruiser's midnight".

Back Creek, Solomon's Island

We awoke to a partly cloudy day -- there was a 50% chance of rain, but we had Kerry & Jennifer arriving and just as long as it wasn't down pouring, we were going to try and sail.

Jack dinghy-ed in to pick up the girls who had arrived separately but on time. After packing the two of them and all there stuff into the dingy, Jack wondered where he was going to sit -- seriously, they had brought a lot of stuff :-)

Once they were aboard and had the mandatory "head" lesson from Sue, dropped off the mooring to go and sail. The wind was out of the SW and variable, averaging about 8 -10 knots. The sailing was good -- we started by taking back and forth across the bay in front of Solomon's but quickly got bored with that and decided to go up the Patuxent.

The Patuxent river is wide (perhaps a mile in the lower reaches) and deep (saw over 90 feet in spots) and is navigable perhaps 30 miles up into the Maryland heartland. Its shores are mostly either residential dwellings (not too many) or natural areas. We got perhaps 5 miles up, mostly by tacking back and forth after sailing under the highway bridge for route 4 (clearance of 150 feet -- high enough for big ships).

The skies were constantly threatening until early afternoon; our persistence paid off however, save for a few minute cloudburst that drove the ladies off the deck and and reduced visibility to perhaps 50 yards, we weren't rained on. The sailing and the conversation were very pleasant -- it was great fun for all of us to catch up on what has been going on in our respective lives, re-live fun family moments and solve the problems of the world :-)

Kerry "chilllin" on deck

Jen and Sue chatting it up

Somewhere in about mid-afternoon, the sun came out and it warmed enough that we all thought a swim was in order. We happened to be close to Leonard creek, a substantial side channel of the Patuxent. We sailed over and found a lovely cove just inside the entrance to drop the hook. Apart from a big house on the point (there always seems to be one on the point) we were surrounded by pristine woodland, a perfect spot to jump in and take a swim.

The house had dogs, one of which was very curious about us -- Jennifer, our resident dog expert, explained to us that his lack of barking, wagging tail and hanging tongue all meant he wanted to come an play with us in the water. The house was set on a bluff that was steep and heavily overgrown -- we all found watching our canine friend probing the shrubbery for a way down to the water's edge very entertaining -- sadly, he never made it so we never got to meet him up close and personal.

The afternoon remained sunny and we really were enjoying the swimming but eventually it became time for us to move on. We "weighed" the anchor, motored our way back to our mooring in Solomon's and dinghy-ed in the Marina for dinner.

C'mon Jen, you have to get in !

Mugging for the camera

Dinner was at the "Dry Dock", which has become our favorite spot in Solomon's -- it has a deck that overlooks the marina, providing a nice nautical (and cool) environment for a dinner of what is generally excellent food. Sue and I had been here a few times, including once on a previous sailing trip with some good friends -- all in all, we highly recommend the place (it's a bit pricey but worth it).

An after dinner photo-op !

By the time we got back to the boat after dinner, we were all pretty bushed from the day's activities -- so it was off to bed. Kerry and Jennifer both opted to sleep on deck; about 2am a squall came through and drove them below where they spent the rest of what turned out to be a restful night.

Back Creek, Solomon's Island

Today is another down day for us -- we are expecting Kerry and Jen tomorrow morning and so, we are staying put; well, almost -- we actually started the day by moving the boat from Mill creek to Back creek so we could take a mooring a Zahniser's Marina -- that would simplify the logistics of picking up the girls and would also enable us to take advantage of the pool and laundry the Marina offers.

Once we arrived at our mooring, we packed up our laundry and dinghy-ed in to check out the facilities. Zahniser's is a large marina with numerous slips, a great restaurant (the Dry Dock, but it's not "dry" :-), a pool, wi-fi --basically everything a cruiser needs. We spent the rest of the morning doing laundry/chores, had lunch at the Pool (great hummus and Turkey with eggplant sandwich).

Now that we are done, let's go have some fun

After lunch we decided to go and visit the local "Calvert Museum" -- this turned out to be a fascinating place; you could pet sting rays and/or skates, watch (large) river otters play in their habitat; explore the kinds of fossils found along the Chesapeake; visit an extensive wooden boat collection and visit the Drum Point lighthouse, which was relocated to the museum when it was decommissioned in the 70's to preserve it.

Sue and some Crepe Myrtle on the way to the museum -- the both look "Grand" :-)

This guy was faster than I was -- river otters are very cute when they play

The Drum Point Lighthouse

Did you know that:

• Rays have stingers and skates don't; rays tend to live on the surface, skates tend to be bottom dwellers.
• The Chesapeake was formed when the oceans rose 20K years ago and "overran" the Susquehanna river channel to the sea.
• The Calvert Cliffs, that 30 mile or so stretch of the Western Shore of the Bay that I mentioned earlier which has no "sailboat friendly" harbors, is a very active fossil collection area. Besides innumerable seashell fossils, many ancient whale, crocodillain and megladon (super sized shark) fossils are found there.
• A megladon could grow to be the size of a "tractor trailer" -- next time you are next to a tractor trailer think about that; if man had lived in the same era, he (or she) would have barely been a "canape" for this giant.

The Megladon's Jaws; some of those teeth are 7" long

• The Chesapeake is the only place in the world where "multi-tree" dugout canoes were built -- called "bugeyes", these boats were built for commerce. Like dugouts, the trees were "hollowed out" by burning, shaped with metal tools, they were then "pinned together" to form the bottom of the hull. Then sides (risers) were added. -- the museum had some 3 and 4 tree bugeyes on in their collectio and 9 tree bugeyes are known to have been built.  See the pictures for more.

Your "standard dugout canoe is on the left (behind the sign); local Indians made them by burning out  a tree trunk and then carving out the shape with sea shells.

This is the inside of a 4 tree bugeye; you can see the trees form the floor of the boat and how the risers were attached with "frames".

The 4 tree bugeye from the outside

OK, OK -- enough of this "educational" stuff -- back to the narrative.

After our tour of the museum, we returned to the Marina, showered, (Jack shaved for the first time in 8 days) and stopped for an appetizer and entree at the Dry Dock restaurant -- all in all, a fun and easy day.

Mill Creek, Solomon's Island

The plan for today is basically to hang out, take a walk, get haircuts, do a little shopping and otherwise sit out an expected rainy day.

It rained, sometimes heavily, on and off all morning but by lunch the rain had stopped although the skies were still quite overcast. After a quick lunch on board, we dropped the dinghy and motored to the dinghy dock the town provides for transients like ourselves.

Sitting under the dodger, wishing the rain would go away

Raining on the creek, this was the view across from our comfy little point

The town of Solomon's Island is at the end of a peninsula that once was an island but today is connected by a "street level" bridge to the mainland. The town itself is small and predominantly restaurants, tourist shops and marinas, none of which was of interest to us. Our objective was exercise, a barber shop/salon and a grocery store, all of which could be obtained by walking about 1.5 miles up and along Route 4, the main divided highway through the Solomon's island area.

The walk to the grocery store (with a successful stop for a trim for both of us along the way) was hot and sweaty -- the A/C in the grocery store was on "high" and felt wonderful. After "loitering" around the store to pick up the few items we needed (and take advantage of the A/C), we headed back, stopping for a lemon ice (Jack)/vanilla custard(Sue) at a "Rita's" along the way. It started raining again just as we finished our treats, so the walk and dinghy ride back to the boat were wet (but not too uncomfortable).

Back at the boat, Jack was feeling creative so he breaded and fried some "chicken bites" with a yogurt and egg binder and wokked-up some veggies to go with it -- deee-lish and enough left over for another day!

The day ended with the rain stopping, a spectacular rainbow, the skies clearing, a soft pastel colored sunset and a dazzlingly clear, star studded night sky to sooth our wet souls.

The rainbow went from horizon to horizon -- I couldn't quite get it all in my camera -- Truly Awesome !!

The lighting was ethereal and I love the reflection in the water

This was the view towards the sun as it set; unretouched, you just can't improve nature's palette

Likewise, this was the view away from the sun as it set; simply breathtaking