Back to Deltaville

It was a long few days, 60 hours to cover 379 nautical miles, from the Cape Cod Canal to the Chesapeake Bay entrance. The first half of the trip was a bit boisterous, with 15 to 20  kt winds, gusting 22 kts, fortunately on our port quarter. This gave us 4 to 6 ft quartering seas and boat speeds from 6.5 to 8 kts, keeping our autopilot very busy. Sunday afternoon was a mild sail down the Jersey coast. Then we motor sailed in very light winds until we were run over by an evening thunderstorm off Cape May. We motor sailed past Cape Henelopen and Ocean City MD during the night, and passed Chinquoteague shortly after dawn. Long days, but everything worked well, and we're glad we did it.  Now we're in Deltaville, safe and sound, tied up in a nice big slip for the next 2 months or so.

The last day of our trip was uneventful, no waves, big long swells, and almost no wind.  As we approached Cape Charles and the mouth of the Chesapeake we watched a very large, fast boat going through the bridge span that we wanted.  It looked a little funny, white splashing all around it instead of just at the bow.  A hover craft!!!  Military, of course, taking a wild ride on top of the water.  It was so cool!

Sailing under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge ---- back in the Chesapeake!!

Our schedule had gotten us there around 5:30 p.m. so we sailed for about an hour more to a Virginia state park, Kiptopeke.  http://www.baygateways.net/general.cfm?id=40  Kiptopeke was an old rail road ferry wharf, connecting the Eastern Shore to Norfolk before the Bay Bridge was built.  To create breakwaters to protect the wharf, the state used discarded ships --- concrete ships from Word War II.  There are 2 big lines of them.  The old ships have taken a beating over time, but certainly still serve the purpose.

Entering the Kiptopeke, area we saw the familiar Chesapeake fish weirs  http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Fishing_and_Shellfishing_by_Early_Virginia_Indians   (go to the section about "Fishing Methods")  These weirs seem to be somewhat still in use.  At least the birds thought so - one bird per each weir pole.

When I anchored, Smokey came to help me, as usual.  This time she was also pretty interested in finding out if that little tern might still be on the bow pulpit.....it wasn't...

She liked being back in the flat, calm waters of the Chesapeake.  We allowed her to sit on the side of the boat and watch her world float by (yes, that pink thing is her harness).

We are truly back in the Chesapeake.  Late summer haze, flat water, and a sole fishing boat.

So, the New England adventure for summer 2011 is over.  It was a very good trip.  We traveled about 1600    miles in almost 3 months.  Also, we managed to explore 12 new places this trip, plus many of our favorites.  We saw old friends, made new friends. We are glad to be back, though, and really look forward to going home to Roanoke to see family and friends.  I'll keep the blog up, a little less often, but a bit for the 6-8 weeks that we'll be home.