After our brief 2 day Atlantic jaunt along the Jersey shore we are now in protected coastal waters again, travelling up the Delaware river, through the Chesapeake and Delaware canal and into the sailing haven of the vast Chesapeake Bay. We have had some awesome sails, hung out with boating friends, and attended the Annapolis Boat show.
We left our anchorage with glassy waters and entered into the vast Delaware River at 7am the next morning. It was utterly windless and the opposing current slowly waning. We saw more and more boats joining the trek up the stream and we were all gaining a little speed with the tide coming in. Under motor we generally are slower than most sailboats, but we usually get there by starting out a little earlier. Some boats stayed on the north side of the mouth of the Delaware, in Cape May – and if their air draft permitted had gone through the Cape May Canal. Our friends on Foggy had come that way and were now a few miles ahead of us. Being such a large river the Delaware sees quite a bit of freighter traffic in the shipping channel. A few of them were making their way down this morning and the pilot would warn the pleasure craft by addressing every boat personally, just to make sure they were aware. We could clearly see them coming on our AIS system. Most boats stayed out of the channel or close to the edge to leave lots of room for the large commercial vessels, but then a thick fog set in. We knew that another container ship was going to go by us soon. As we were just in a curve, the pilot of the vessel called to Vitae to make sure we gave him lots of turning room. This meant we had to actually get out of the channel and go around the wrong side of one of the red channel markers. No problem, except that just as we do so – and we can only see the buoy at the last moment before we are by it, there’s also a fishing boat with no AIS hiding in the shadow of the buoy. We saw them on the radar at the last minute, and we sounded our horn and quickly steered around him. Luckily, he wasn’t moving very quickly and we were also going slowly. We heard the 800 plus foot container ship pass by very closely, but never even saw a glimpse of it in the thick fog!
By 3:30pm we had reached the C and D Canal, now making 8kts with a good push from a favourable current. There are 6 bridges crossing the canal, of which only one is a low rail bridge that is usually open unless a train comes. By 5pm we were through the canal and by 6 pulled in behind Foggy at one of the first anchorages at Bohemian River Bay. We joined Shane and Lori on their boat for Happy Hour and met Matthew and Judy from SV Juma, another Canadian couple travelling south.
The next few days we spent anchored in the Sassafras River, by Loyd’s Creek. It was a large open anchorage but since the winds were calm we decided to hang out with Julie and Patrice on Raftan and their friends Don and John on Child’s Play (a C&C44). We also took our dinghy to Georgetown (no not the one in The Bahamas!), a small hamlet about a 20min ride up the river, walked the 2km to Galena where they have an excellent little farm grocery store “Cross Street Food and Garden” and a great butcher/liquor store “Sassy River Market”. The day after, we hiked the Sassafras NRMA trails from the Turner Creek Landing, which gave us a great view of our anchored boats. The trails weren’t super exciting but it was nice to be able to stretch our legs and get some exercise while chatting.
The winds were starting to increase and come from the west so it was time to head across the Chesapeake to the more sheltered west side and make our way to Annapolis. The show was only about 5 days away and finding space in the busy anchorages around there would get tougher every day. So when the west wind started the next morning we hoisted sails and put 2 reefs in the main. It was a great fast ride making 9kts at times with a 30kt wind, salt spray flying everywhere. We tucked in at the Magothy River and anchored north of Dobbin Island and Little Island. Elated from a great sail, we discovered that we had taken on a bit of water in our bilge. The CS sailboats are infamous for their shallow bilges, and when our boat is healed or bouncing through heavy seas, our bilge pump has a hard time pumping all the water out, as their is no deep well to gather the water. But where had all the water come from. Most of our thru hulls are above the water line, at the stern of the boat. We had been on a starboard tack most of the day, so the port side thru hulls had been under the waves. A few years back I had spent a gruelling day in 30 degree heat in Gananoque at the dock fighting with the old scupper hoses that had rotted out. I had been stuck in the back of the lazarette for hours, past the autopilot and the swim platform. My son Josh handing me tools when I needed them because once you are in there it’s hard to get out. I had replaced all the hoses and leaks had stopped, but that was the starboard side. Port had never been done as they still looked decent at that time. Well, guess what – that side had now rotted through as well. So the afternoon was spent getting more bruises and swearing while the offending rusted out hoses were ripped out and new ones installed. Love it when you have the stuff on board and you know what to do – and this side of the lazarette was much more accessible!
We had another day of brisk sailing under the Chesapeake Bay bridge the next day and then anchored in front of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, thanks to Julie from Raftan who texted me the email for the Academy. One has to ask permission to anchor right in front of them and they limit the boats. Great, so this would be our spot for the time of the upcoming show – nice and close to the dinghy dock and access to the show grounds. We were helping out our friends from Barefoot Yacht Charters again, as we had done the year before and also at the Toronto Boat Show. We had even brought some of the banner material on our boat.
The hustle and bustle of everyone arriving in town and getting ready for the show was infectious. Boats were continuing to pour in and we were glad we were not right in the middle of the anchorage. In our rush to get anchored, we had not been able to stop at a dock to fill up our water tanks, so this meant borrowing some water 20l water cans from fellow boaters – thanks Raftan and Gerti for helping us out – and taking 5 trips to the Eastport Yacht Club dock to fill our tanks the hard way. Good practice for The Bahamas where water will be harder to come by. The Eastport Yacht Club was very accommodating. We had reserved a slip for the Sunday night after the show, but they let us use their dinghy dock and also let us get water and pick up packages we had sent to them. It’s a wonderful club with a great bar/restaurant overlooking the busy harbour. Their staff, especially Preston, and the members were very friendly and welcoming and we were happy to represent our own Thousand Islands Yacht Club. We were lucky, because many other anchored boats had a hard time finding water as the show had turned off water at the dinghy dock.
We were able to help set up the booth for Barefoot on Wednesday, which was still relatively quiet. There was of course time to check some of the merch out early and we got ourselves some great foul weather gear from Gill – we had still been using our old Canadian Tire camping rain gear and old Goretex jackets until then. Of course, we spent money on a few other vital items – this show is like a huge candy store for sailors and watching them manouver the boats in and out of the show and the docks is quite a site. In the morning we would dinghy to the dock, find a spot for our little red runabout and by the time we were done at the end of the day, there would be a major bottle neck, trying to get it back out. It was kind of funny and people would take videos from the show docks, while the poor owners of the dinghies, us included, tried to work out a plan to get out. This usually involved a slow process of moving and retying many a boat.
Of course there was so much cool stuff to see at the show and so many friends to see and new ones to meet. So many of the sailing channels were at the show again too, and most of them had their boats anchored or moored close by. We had a fun night hanging out with Women Who Sail for Happy Hour, chatting with friends at the Boat Galley booth as well as Andrea and Shane Paleshi from Indie Marine (Dave and Shane are high school friends).
Ah, and one of the packages held at the Eastport Yacht Club for us had this: Our new espresso maker! So happy!
On Sunday, we moved the boat to the club and finally, bracing ourselves, attempted to fix our raw water leak on our raw water pump. We had ordered the part from Marine Parts Express. for the exorbitant sum of $16 and Scott had given David valuable instructions to get the little lip seal seated right. Dave had also watched a few YouTube videos and now at the dock we were ready. We removed the impeller, the spacer and pried out the old seal, destroying it fully in the process. All good – we knew that was going to happen – the trick was to get the new one in carefully without doing the same. It wasn’t that tricky and, and… it worked. No more dripping! Phew! We were relieved. After filling up water, washing the boat and vacuuming, we were happy to get back on the way the next morning.
Sails went up right away and the engine off. We had a beautiful sail in pleasant conditions with NW winds at 7-12kts. Many boats were leaving Annapolis to get south and we soon saw Raftan, who had left the show a couple days before, catch up with us from the East shore. We sailed with them for a while, and ended up anchoring together in Mill Creek north of Solomons Island.
We said Good Bye to Patrice and Julie as they were going to take some more time in the Chesapeake before meeting up with the Salty Dawgs (a sailing association that helps organize cruisers with their sail to various locations) and eventually departing from Hampton, Virginia directly to The Bahamas and avoiding the low bridges and shallow waters of the ICW (the Intra Coastal Waterway to Florida). We wanted to catch up with our friends on Foggy and so we sailed wing-on-wing with our little whisker pole the next day until the NW-W wind died just past the Potomac River, which also marks the state line between Maryland and Virginia. A few miles past we entered Ingram Bay and headed into Mill Creek anchoring just behind Clay Point. There were only a few boats here and it was a still night, where we felt like the boat was sitting on the ground, that’s how still it was.
The next day we were able to join Shane and Lori at their anchorage in the Severn River at the south side of Mobjack Bay. We had motorsailed most of the day in light North wind but we made it just before sunset. Shane took a great little video with his drone of Vitae coming into Bryant Bay
A short day of motor sailing brought us both into Hampton, Virginia the day after, where we anchored in Phoebus by Fort Monroe for a couple of days. It’s a bit of a weird anchorage as it seems to be sheltered on all sides but to the west the only protection is a low bridge that makes the entrance to the tunnel over to Norfolk (the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnels). Needless to say, there’s a bit of traffic noise but a marina gives you access to fuel and water, which we took advantage off, as well as the trails along the water of the Chesapeake bay to the east. We went for a nice run and had Nachos on Foggy after.
We were able to dinghy into Hampton past the bridge/tunnel the next day. We explored the waterfront and ended up at the Virginia Air & Space Science Center and Nasa Langley Visitor Center which was fascinating. The ceiling of the facility had all kinds of original aircraft hanging from the ceiling. You can explore space craft and lunar rovers, but the highlight was an IMAX 3D documentary about Ancient Caves. We got to see some of the beautiful caves we would probably never get to explore in real life, some as deep as 300m below the surface.
With Shane and Lori we did do a provision run to a grocery store in Phoebus, and then we also had to stop at a local art gallery, Art Central Phoebus, where we met local artists Joe Skelly and Everna Lee Taylor, who shared their passion for art and life stories with us.
Phoebus also has a lovely Pub, the Sly Clyde Cidery, where we tried some of their great ciders and sat in the back yard just by this famous fig tree – which I assume they use for their fig cider.
| Date | Description | Distance | Travel time |
| Oct. 4/23 | Lewes, Breakwater Harbor anchorage, DE to Bohemian River Bay anchorage, Chesapeake, MD (via the C and D Canal) | 71.04NM | 10:39h |
| Oct. 5/23 | Bohemian River Bay to Sassafras Bay, MD | 10NM | 2:19h |
| Oct. 6/23 | Sassafras Bay | | |
| Oct. 7/23 | Sassafras Bay to Magothy River anchorage (behind Little Island) | 29.69NM | 5:02h |
| Oct. 8/23 | Magothy River to Annapolis, Naval Academy anchorage | 12.75NM | 2:12h |
| Oct. 9 to 15/23 | Annapolis, Naval Academy (last night dock at Eastport Yacht Club) | ||
| Oct. 16/23 | Annapolis to Solomons Island (Mill Creek anchorage) | 43.76NM | 8h |
| Oct. 17/23 | Solomons Island to Ingram Bay, Mill Creek, anchored just behind Clay Point, Virginia | 41.85NM | 8:05h |
| Oct. 18/23 | Ingram Bay to Severn River (Bryant Bay1 anchorage), Mobjack Bay | 44.82NM | 8:58h |
| Oct. 19/23 | Severn River to Hampton (Phoebus anchorage) | 27.6NM | 6:25h |
| Oct. 20/23 | Phoebus anchorage | ||
| 17 days | Total | 281.51NM | 71:40h |
| 136 days | Total trip so far | 2,521.02NM | 463:54h |
Sailing Vitae 