Our sail from Yorktown to Reedville on June 3 was God’s
birthday present to me. It was a cool morning, long pants and long sleeved shirts,
but a lovely sailing day to make the 50.1 miles on a port reach with winds just
right and small waves. We declined the ill buoyed “Swash Channel” north from the mouth
of the York River, which would have saved us about four miles – safety first. In fact, just when Lene went down to make our
salads for lunch, the wind lessened, reducing our heeling. We anchored in Cockrell
Creek, at Reedville but did not lower
the dink to go ashore because we had visited Reedville in 2006. It was a very
wealthy town; the home of the Menhaden
fleet – fishing boats that rounded up whole schools of what we call “bunker” in
Long Island sound – baitfish -- very useful in all kinds of products. The main
street is known as Millionaires Row for the lovely old homes of the captains. The only problem in
the small anchorage, which we did not experience last time, was that our anchor
dragged – three times – before it set properly for the night. The mud is too loose.
Next day we planned to sail to Solomon’s, MD, where we had also
stayed in ’06 but we did not get that far. We went only 40.1 miles because the wind was too
strong from the north, even motoring with reduced sails. I had read that there
was a creek that fed into the Potomac near its mouth on the Virginia side, and we
diverted there. But this destination required two more hours, beating to the
west on the other tack. At one point, when a 38 knot gust heeled us to a severe angle,
Lene, at the helm, started to cry. I told her to "round up" (head closer to the wind). She did; we
righted; and she stopped crying and went on with steering. Ya gotta love this girl! We headed for the
Grebe River, which had been recommended. It shares an entrance harbor with the Coan, which was better buoyed, so we went up the
Coan, past red 22 and anchored in a cove. The bed of the river, I’d call it a creek, twisted as we followed it up and our anchorage was thus well
protected from the wind and waves. It was a lovely spot with farming and
boating. Here are four panoramic views on a peaceful morning at sunrise: NE, SE, SW and NW
 |
We ended up staying two nights because the strong north wind
persisted the next day. The internet showed that there was some sort of dining
place, the only one, and open only for breakfast and lunch, about two miles walk from the end of
a .6 mile dinghy trip. Lene did not
want to go, so we spent the day aboard. This was our laziest day of the trip.
Lene cooked but I did nothing but read, write and plot courses and distances
for the rest of the journey – a very lazy day.
Next day, however, we
had mileage to make up because we had not gotten as far as Solomon’s and had
taken a lay day. So it was 65 miles to the area of St. Michael’s on Maryland’s
eastern shore. We got underway at 6:45 and later in the morning called Janet and Mike and their friend, John, all alumni of the Harlem Yacht Club who live in this beautiful area, to see if we could
take them to dinner. “Come to my house” said Janet. It is up another creek into
the south side of Kent Island through Eastern Bay. “We don’t know how long it will take us with the
tide partially adverse and the winds too light to propel us.” “Don’t worry; you will get here when you get
here.” Sailors are very hospitable people. The last time we had seen these
folks was in 2006! Except for one half hour of 16 knot wind, we had the motor
on the whole way. The final few miles
showed us the value of the InavX program Lene installed on her iPad. It displays
the actual paper chart with all of its soundings, except zoomable to larger than the original, and also our position
on it, and a yellow line showing the direction we are going. The RayMarine
system shows only some dark blue colored areas, indicating shallow, without
much help in getting us through the deep enough parts of this shallow water. We
got to their house about 6:45 after anchoring, lowering the dink and going up
Thompson’s Creek to the dock behind Janet and Mike’s condo. The only other
boaters who have visited them in this manner were Craig and Kathy on Sangaris,
currently sailing somewhere in the Adriatic; so we are in some pretty high
powered company in this regard. The food was delicious and healthy. Here are Janet, John and Mike.
After dinner, Janet drove us to a nearby Food Lion to
provision and gave Lene a towel to wrap around her shoulders for the chilly
return dink trip. And we were invited back for breakfast; which we accepted in order to bring back the towel. John and Janet in the electric powered dink.
The next day’s sail was only 33.6 miles to Annapolis,
specifically to Weems Creek, up the Severn River, past the Naval Academy.
This is not a big ship race; they are anchored here due to lack
of work.
This was a motoring day due to lack of strong wind and punctuated
by a fueling stop in Annapolis’s Back Creek. Weems Creek is a popular (crowded) place to anchor during the height of the snowbird
migration seasons, according to Dean and Susan, of Autumn Borne, who we anchored next to
and invited over for some wine.
We had not seen them since Charleston. The place was 1/3 filled with boats that live
there on moorings but the anchoring area was wide open except for our two boats. They
suggested a few local restaurants and liked Lene’s suggestion to dine at the
Annapolis Yacht Club, where our HYC membership gives us reciprocal privileges.
I did not realize how near that Club was to our dinghy beach, only about 1.5
miles by foot (longer by water) each way, just enough to work up an appetite and walk off the meal. We
compared notes on the rest of our trips and realized that we would probably not
meet up again until after we both got to our summer destinations: they at Hop O Nose Marina, way up the Hudson and we at the Harlem at City Island in Long Island Sound. We said we would check the tides
and if fair in the afternoon, would have breakfast with them. But the tide was
favorable in the morning so we headed off to Baltimore before breakfast.
So: four passages to four different creeks in five
nights, with two sets of friends brings us 187.8 miles closer to home.
No comments:
Post a Comment