It has been a long and arduous month in Deltaville. Living on the hard – that is, living in the
boat while it is on jack stands in a boat yard - is about as unpleasant as it
can get. You have limited water and
electricity, and no toilet facilities.
That means middle of the night trips to the bathroom require getting
dressed, descending an extension ladder, and walking or riding a bike in the
dark to the marina facilities. Boatyards
are dirty, dusty places, and all that crud gets blown or tracked into the
boat. And, finally, in 90 degree
temperatures, the hull heats up fast and becomes an oven for those inside. During this time, the boatyard removes 20 years
of bottom paint, re-fairs the hull, and applies multiple coats of barrier and
antifouling paint. They discover our cutlass bearing is failing, so that is
replaced along with new engine mounts. Meanwhile,
we are hard at work rebedding two fixed windows and one genoa track, varnishing
various interior and exterior wood pieces, servicing winches, cleaning and re-stitching
the genoa, and sewing UV covers for all the jerry jugs and fuel tanks we carry
on board. Once the work is completed, some serious cleaning is in order. Tempering this is the fact we are in a pretty
location with nice marina facilities and many pleasant people to share our few
hours away from the grind stone. And,
finally, we do take ten days to travel to Ohio
and Wisconsin
to visit family and friends.
But now we are happily afloat and heading north. We plan to spend about a week slowly making
our way to Annapolis, stopping along the Bay at
spots recommended by long time Chesapeake
cruisers. Our first stop is less than
ten miles from Deltaville, in Irvington,
VA. The town sits on a creek on
the north side of the Rappahannock
River. It is home to the Tides Inn, an exclusive
resort, and numerous beautiful waterside homes.
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| Nice setting along Irvington's waterfront |
It is also home to zillions of
osprey that make their nests on top of every decked pole and inside every
channel day marker.
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| And a happy home for an osprey |
We chill out on the boat, disinterested in even heading
ashore, as the wildlife, views, and sunset are what makes the place so
charming.
The next stop is just a bit further up the Rappahannock
at Urbanna, an historic town dating from the Revolutionary war era. It’s a quiet place with little to offer
except two beautiful, privately owned estates dating from the late 1700’s
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| Historical home in Urbanna |
and a
general store from the late 1800’s which features rolling ladders for the upper
shelves that sport “Made by F E Myers, Ashland, Ohio”. Ah, so far and yet so
close to home.
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| Look hard and you'll see the FE Myer's inscription |
Next we travel across the Chesapeake
to the eastern shore and the town of Onancock.
It is a several mile motor up a rural creek to the town and our anchorage just
off shore. This is one of the nicest
towns on the eastern shore with mostly century homes that are well maintained
and have beautiful gardens.
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| Home with hydrangeas in Onancock |
It’s a
gentrified sort of place with upscale restaurants, antique shops, and even a
knitting store that fills my longing for some hand work. At the far end of town is a large mansion,
built in 1799, that now houses the Eastern Shore Historical Society.
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| Home of the Eastern Shore Historical Society |
It is past
closing but the director still invites us to take a quick peek as they are
preparing for an event later in the evening. We wander around the beautifully
restored main floor and are surprised to find a Gilbert Stuart portrait of
George Washington hanging in the dining room.
We enjoy a dinner on the waterfront and meet another boat of cruisers
who later email us this remarkable photo of Exuberant at anchor on a very still
morning.
It’s off to Tangier
Island, an unusual and
very authentic destination that we visited several years ago. Tangier is home
to a tight group of loyalist families that have maintained a very traditional
life style and a slightly different dialect of speech. The locals mostly have last names of Parks,
Crockett, and Pruitt; very few outsiders take up residency here. Physically, it
is a maze of guts (shallow and narrow creeks that often dry at low tide) and
creeks through marshes of tall grasses. A long point of sand dunes extends
south from the island.
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| Several miles of beautiful beach at Tangier Island |
Herons, ibises,
and osprey abound. The only industry here is fishing and crabbing with boats of
all sizes far outnumbering golf carts or bicycles; cars are totally
superfluous.
It is the home of traditional Chesapeake watermen, and our small marina is
owned by Milton Parks who made his living for 60 years from the sea. He is a wealth of information and tales
(perhaps some of them tall) about the island.
It is also the home to many cats.
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| Only four cats where there used to be at least a dozen |
Rumor has it that the Virginia Humane
Society made an effort to spay and neuter the population, but the local
residents took umbrage with the interference and hid some of the cats when the
vets showed up. The authorities must
have had some success, though, as we were tripping over cats three years ago,
but now they seem merely plentiful.
We zig zag back across the Bay to Smith Creek which is just
inside the mouth of the Potomac River. The Bay is like glass and we see numerous
skates (relatives of rays) hunting in schools near the surface of the water. We wander up the creek through a rural setting
to a marina. It is very hot, and we are
desperate to plug into electricity to run our air conditioning. Unfortunately, one unit is not working; we
apparently clogged the water inlet with huge quantities of sea grass while at
Tangiers. The only solution is to take a long soak in the marina pool, and then
eat dinner in the adjacent, air conditioned restaurant. Again, we have found a very quiet and
picturesque area that seems to be typical of the Chesapeake shore.
The next hop is a long leg up to Galesville, MD,
again motoring in still water. This is
where we launched the boat last fall after the Hurricane Irene fiasco. It seems fitting to return, but we also want
to visit with friends we made during our Bahamas cruise who permanently dock
here. We have a pleasant alfresco breakfast with Vickie and Mike, but they warn
us that this will not be a quiet Saturday night in the typically quiet
Galesville. A group from Annapolis is coming down
for their annual raft-up that includes two live bands playing on the back deck
of a large power boat. Mid-day the boats
begin filing in, and we watch with fascination as they raft up a short distance
away. Kids are in swimming; adults are
floating along on water toys. At 6:00
the music starts amidst a progressive Happy Hour and dancing on back
decks. The featured band is the
Tiki-Barbarians, and they are actually pretty good.
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| The Tiki Barbarians entertain the crowd |
We join the many dinghies that float in front
of the raft-up for a close up experience, and rejoice that the music stops at a
civilized 11:00 pm. It’s just another of those sublime experiences you have
while cruising.
With the apparently broken air conditioning unit, a dinghy
that is hiccupping, and a replacement head awaiting us at West Marine, it is
time to leave for Annapolis
where boating services and supplies are readily available. We pick up a mooring ball just off the Naval Academy
for the night. It is a Sunday, the Bay
is alive with boating action, and we have front row seats.
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| Annapolis waterfront from the mooring field |
The next morning we
move into Spa Creek to anchor near our friend Stan Mathey, fondly known by the
locals as the Mayor of Spa Creek. Stan
used to dock near us in Sandusky but now is
permanently in Annapolis.
Amazingly, just after calling the air conditioning repair technician, the unit
miraculously comes back to life. We will
spend a few days here attending to other boat repairs, reprovisioning, and planning
our next leg of the voyage where we will make our way down Delaware Bay into
the Atlantic and on to New York City. Meanwhile, our weather service is hinting
that Tropical Storm Debbie may grow into a strong hurricane and head up the
Atlantic coast. Once again, weather
issues may impact our plans.
