Saturday May 21: On the Chesapeake Bay

We are finally at the top of Chesapeake Bay! I had no real appreciation of how LONG this bay is - even though we have traveled it now for the third time.

Total travel length is 250 miles from Norfolk to Delaware City (actually on Delaware Bay - our destination for tomorrow). Four travel days with an average day being about 65 miles or 9 hours.

It was really nice being able to spend an extra day in Deltaville on Wednesday with Randy and Cindy as we had two long days coming up on Thursday and Friday.

The Bay has been pleasant travel except for about 3 hours on Thursday when we were fighting the waves and wind before it finally started calming down.

Bad thing? Water in the front cabin and we're not quite sure where it came from! Steve thought from several waves that washed over the front of the boat and possibly came in the hatch??

Not very many places it could have come in - no big deal though - just a couple of wet books and one wet blanket that dried quickly :-)

The stop Thursday night was at the Solomons - south of DC. The neighbors there stopped soon after we arrived and invited us to join them for cocktails.

I wasn't terribly motivated to join them until Steve came back and said they had a cat! And it looked like a leopard!

So I went over - nice cat but quite independent and didn't really like to be held all that much. Really nice boat though - 52' Jefferson. Twin walk in (like with a door!!) engine rooms.

It was an early morning again - off as the sun was just barely coming up. It would be a long day of 11 hours to Middle River north of Baltimore.

Niece Mary and her family (Chris, Shawn, Brian and Jillian) were going to drive over to meet us!!

They live near Philadelphia. Last time we saw them was in DC when they gathered with siblings for Christmas. How great that they were willing to make the drive in rush hour traffic.

A short boat ride around the area and then dinner on the flybridge. Perfect evening (there could have been more sun but at least it didn't rain).

Sadly the only picture I took was Chris sitting on the front with Jillian. Don't know how I managed to not think to take a pic of the whole family .....



On the way north the day was cool but no wind = no waves. Great day :-)

Most of the shoreline of the bay wasn't really visible the last couple of days. Tuesday because of the rain and clouds and Thursday because we were so far from shore!

Yesterday though there were fairly large cliffs on the western shoreline with deeper waters near the shore. Much of the shoreline is very shallow a long way out - similar to the being in the Keys.

Lots of big ship traffic bound for Baltimore or points north. It's amazing how fast they travel (or how much faster than US they travel!).

I'd no sooner spot them coming up from behind before they were up to and then past us.






The only bridge across the Chesapeake Bay is toward the north end of the bay between Washington, DC and Baltimore. Which makes sense since the lower end of the bay is so much wider.

It has a very high part (like 140 feet if I remember) for the freighters at the center of the bridge and a shorter section (but still quite high) at the eastern end for small boats like ours.

Total length: 4.3 miles.

The rains for today came as predicted but not the winds. We decided to stay put and get some rest.

Of course not all rest. The engine oil needed changing (every 200 hours of travel) as well as the filter.

But thanks to the new oil filter install, it was a breeze! (Thanks Jim Murray for helping Steve attach the new easy to reach filter - that meant I didn't have to!!)

Much easier - no muss, no fuss.

Steve also took the opportunity to clear out some things that have been stored under the front berth for - oh, 6 years or so. Really?! What happened to the 'rule' - hasn't been used in a year, out it goes. So we gave a guy on the dock here our dinghy cover (used once in 6 years since the dinghy has to be deflated to use it) and my BC (buoyancy compensator for scuba diving) which I haven't used in a good two years. We now have a snuba type setup where we can use diving equipment with a 100 foot hose and the tank floating on the surface of the water. WAY easier!! Steve kept his for the Bahamas.

More room than ever now :-)


Tomorrow off the 55 miles to Delaware City so we are poised to travel down Delaware Bay on Monday if the weather holds or Tuesday if it doesn't. Or Wednesday. Or Thursday .... you get the idea. We go when the weather says to go on that long body of water.