Chesapeake Watermen

The Watermen begin their day in the early morning on the St. Marys
River.

Dawn breaks on Tippity Whichity Island

Mist on the St. Marys River

Sunrise over Horseshoe Point

Today we are anchored in the upper reaches of the St. Marys River.
The sunrise this morning was beautiful. Horseshoe Point lies directly
in front of our anchorage.

The "Maryland Dove"

About 5 miles up the Potomic River is the mouth of the St. Marys River
and as one contnues upriver the heights of St. Marys City comes into
view.

As the fourth permanent settlement in North America in 1634, it served
as Maryland's first capital until 1695.

The golden brown "Dove", a representation of a 17th century square-
rigged trading vessel that carried supplies for the settlers across
the Atlantic is tied up on Church Point.

Smth Point Lighthouse

Tuesday dawned fair and sunny with temps in the mid-60's. We fueled
at the Tides Marina and pushed away from the dock to continue our
voyage northward on the Bay's western shore.

Guarding the entrance to the Potomic River is the Smith Point Light.
We turned west and made for the 10 mile wide entrance to the river.

The Tides Inn and Marina

Finally the sun made an appearance today, but the winds continued to blow at around 15 - 20 knots.  We decided to stay at the Tides Marina another day, use the shuttle to reprovision and the laundry to take care of the pile of clothes that had accumulated over the last two weeks or so. It was also time to change the oil and filter in the new generator.

Since it was a sunny day, we walked around the grounds a little and took a few pictures.  Built in 1946, this is looking at the Inn from the dock.  The laundry room is the little building at the end of the dock.  It was conveniently close to the boat (and free).

This is looking from the patio down Carter Creek towards the Rappahannock River.

To the right of the patio is a croquet field.  There is also a par 3 "Executive course" on site as well as a regular 18 hole course.  They even have loaner clubs.

Katy loves croquet, maybe we can get a game in tomorrow before we leave.

The chairs at the end of the croquet field also looked inviting.

The grounds were nicely landscaped.   Around the Inn were several cottages.

Looking past one of the cottages over Carter Creek.

Inside the Inn was one of the nicest lounges we had seen.

There was a fire in the fireplace.  Unfortunately Ted could not find any firewood to "stoke it up a little".

What an inviting place to relax.

I  also took a few more pictures of the classic wooden yacht, Sunnyland.

The oil lamp and binnacle at the helm is a nice touch.

The yacht is a 38' Elco. Elco stands for Electric Launch Company that developed a series of electric and gas powered boats which became the premier recreational boats of their day, beginning in 1893.

By the time of World War I, the company had hit its stride, building high quality yachts for the likes of Thomas Edison, JP Morgan, John Jacob Astor, and hundreds

of other notables, including Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh took a 38’ Elco (only ten were built) for the summer following his marriage in order to escape the crowds who followed him everywhere. While others produced lovely wooden boats between the two wars, many felt none compared to the Elcos. During World War II Elco built 399 PT boats including the famous PT 109.

After the war the interest in recreational wooden boating declined and Elco closed its doors. It is estimated that of the 7500 Elco boats built, only 400 remain today. The name was purchased in 1987 and a new company produces small boats, but the days of wooden Elco yachts are gone.

Tomorrow we continue northward on to the Saint Mary's River, a tributary of the Potomic.

The Petersons

John and JoAnne relax after a hard day of cruising, napping, eating and cheering for Penn State. Tomorrow we must return to the Tides Marina for John and JoAnne to depart for home.
Sad.

We wish the weather would have been sunny and warmer, however John and Ted beat Katy and JoAnne at Rook repeatedly. We were humble in victory.

Carrotoman River

Cruising up the Carrotoman River this morning, we passed a deer swimming across the river. This photo was greatly zoomed in as we did not want to get close and maybe frighten him.   The river was about 1/4 mile wide and deep from bank to bank.  He seemed to be making good time.  John named him Wayne the waynedeer.

Sunnyland

This classic wooden beauty, Sunnyland, was just down the dock from us
at the Tides Marina and Resort. It invoked visions of leisurely
cruises up the Rappahannock River in a bygone, more gentil era.

Rappahannock River

Today we learned what 20 knot winds out of the northeast, gusting to 30 knots looks like out on the Bay: very uncomfortable 6 foot waves that had our boat heaving side to side and rapidly nose diving into the waves . We left the comfort of the Piankatank River to move up the Bay to the Rappahannock River.  Fortunately, from river mouth to river mouth was only about 8 miles,but Katy felt like it was 100 miles of a stomach churning roller coaster.   Once in the calmer waters of the Rappahannock, we cruised up Carter's Creek to the Tides Marina and Resort. 

We have dinner reservations for tonight and look forward to a good meal that we didn't cook ourselves.

John and JoAnne Peterson are on the way to meet us here and will stay with us for a few days.

Piankatank River

Today we are anchored in the piankatank River behind Berkeley Island.
A cold front is forecast to move through the area today wth rain and
some wind. Since we have no Internet access I can only send one
picture at a time via my iPhone. Here's a shot of our cove. You can
just begin to see a little color in the foliage.

Update 10-15-09: Here are a few more pics of the cove.

Gwynn's Island sits at the southern side of the mouth of the Piankatank River and a swing bridge connects the island's western tip to the mainland. The swing bridge was built in 1939.  The tender works around the clock out of an unusual, small house attached to the top of the bridge.  It is considered one of the busiest bridges in Virginia.

Fortunately, the bridge opens on signal and he opened for us right away.

Newport News Shipyards

Today we cruised up the James River and past the city of Newport News.  Leaving the Hampton River, we passed Hampton University:

Newport News is famous for it's shipyards where both military and commercial ships are built and/or refitted.  Below is the USS Enterprise.

The "Big E" was the world's first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, commissioned November, 1961 and is still the fastest in the world.  The flight deck area covers 4.5 acres and it carries 3,500 personnel.  The ship is 1,123 feet long and 257 feet wide.

We also passed two aircraft carriers side-by-side.  The vessel on the right is the USS Carl Vincent, the other is the USS George H. W. Bush.

Across the James River we could also see the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS Harry Truman.  We didn't realize the number of carriers based here.

On the way back into the Hampton River we passed a small sailboat race or maybe a Hampton Univ. sailing class.

And finally back past the Cousteau Society offices adjacent to our docks.

Unfortunately, John and Nancy needed to return home this afternoon, so Katy fixed a late lunch/early dinner of nachos, one of our favorite snacks.  Tomorrow we leave Hampton to find an anchorage further north on the Chesapeake.

Hampton, Virginia

Saturday we arrived at the Hampton Downtown Public Piers on the Hampton River.  The docks are behind the Crowne Plaza Hotel and across the river from Hampton University.  There is a city park just upriver from the marina.  Our friends, John and Nancy Crites drove up from Raleigh to join us for a few days.  John and Nancy have been with us on a number of boating adventures.

Hampton is a pretty town with lots of history.  The first colonists landed here 400 years ago before moving upriver to settle at Jamestown and the city itself dates to 1610.  Hampton's downtown waterfront district encompasses the site of the original 17th century seaport that served as a port of entry for commercial vessels from Europe, Africa and the Caribbean.

Hampton is the founding site of NASA and it was here that the Mercury Seven astronauts trained.  The Virginia Air and Space Center and Museum is on the waterfront about a block from the marina.

The museum features a lot of current and historically significant airplanes, space exhibits, NASA memoribilia, and flight and space simulators.  There was a Boeing Stearman very similar to the one that Joe Riggsbee and I rode in recently.

One block over from the waterfront is Queen's Way, a cobblestone street with shops and restaurants.  John and Nancy lead the way down Queen's Way.

There's also a lot of street artwork in the historical district - a sampling below:

We find a great seafood restaurant - Marker 20 where John and I have a couple of oyster shooters and some great broiled seafood platters.

Currituck Sound to Hampton, Virginia

We left Coinjock Marina about 8:15 this morning (yes, we both got up early) as we had about 60 miles to cover to get to Hampton, Virginia.  Although the day dawned bright and sunny, it didn't take long for the clouds to move in as the front overtook us.  It was our first trip into the Currituck Sound and it was beautiful.

Before long we had attracted a following of seagulls.  Evidently our props stirred up something good from the bottom of the sound.

 The Currituck Ferry boat crossed our path.

After leaving the sound, we entered the Albemarle/Chesapeake Canal which connects the Currituck Sound with the Elizabeth River which flows into the Chesapeake.  By this time we were encountering periodic rain showers.

 

At the end of the canal is a lock that lowers you down to the level of the Elizabeth River.  The appearance of the lock caught us by surprise and set off a chinese fire drill of sorts.  Ted was yelling "Katy, theres a lock ahead!" and Katy was saying,  "That's really cool, I can't wait to watch." She hears Ted yelling "Hurry, get the lines, port side tie up. She says, "So what does that mean? Why do we have to tie up?"  It has been a  number of years since we had been through a lock.  Finally we got organized, took out some lines and fenders,entered the lock chamber and tied ourselves up alongside the lock wall.  The gates closed behind us:

Of course it started raining again.  Katy was on the bow of the boat holding a line and Ted was on the rear of the boat holding another line.  The lines had to be let out as the water level dropped and the boat lowered in the lock.  When the rain started, Ted stepped up onto the aft deck out of the rain, unfortunately Katy was getting wet.  Fortunately (for Ted), Katy was not able to see that Ted was staying high and dry - all she could see was the lines going to the rear of the boat. 

The lock looking forward towards the Elizabeth River:

After the water level dropped to the level of the Elizabeth River, the front gates opened and we moved out into the Elizabeth River.  Several southbound boats were waiting to enter the lock and be raised up to the canal. 

We passed through mile after mile of Norfolk shipyards where several carriers and battleships were moored as well as large commercial ships.

Appears to be a Harrier on deck:

 

We were glad to see that security was tight.  We were even happier that the gun was not pointed at us.

 

We passed by about 10 miles of huge docks (at no wake speeds) and waited for 6 bridges to open, including one railroad bridge that took about 30 minutes for the train to clear.  All this and two more rain showers and we were ready for the Hampton Marina.

Finally we crossed the James River, entered the Hampton River and tied up at the Hampton downtown waterfront just in time to meet our two favorite boating buddies, John and Nancy Crites.  They are some of our best friends.  We have had many adventures with them.  They are fearless in times of boating hazards.  They always think of them as adventures.  We have had many with them. 

We promptly whipped up the usuals.  We each had several.  Then Katy made us the best birthday nachos  I ever had.  Nancy promptly passed out after dinner.  Happy birthday to me.