Nearly in Norfolk — Cupcake Afloat

It has been a busy few days of making tracks. After we departed Lewes, Delaware we headed south to Ocean City. It was a motorboat ride the whole way and at the end we had the treat of entering a fairly choppy channel with a strong current on our nose.

View of the inlet from the Ferris wheel.

The Ocean City entrance is protected north and south by a pair of substantial breakwaters, one of which is labeled on the chart as both “submerged jetty” and “partially submerged jetty.” Neither is conducive to casual navigating. Or relaxing at the end of a long, hot day. I would not want to try that entrance in any kind of rough weather or at night. Fortunately we had calm seas and plenty of daylight.

We entered the inlet in company with a couple of big sport fishing boats, a gaggle of jetskis, some smaller recreational fishing boats, and a big trawler. Lots to pay attention to in addition to the big amusement park on the pier.

The anchorage we chose was to the south of the city, down a shallow riverish channel where hundreds of little powerboats and pontoon boats and jet skis were beached and anchored for the sunny Saturday. We anchored just off the main channel, but not before we touched bottom a few times. Fortunately, the bottom down here is sand and mud. A pleasant change from the granite at home.

Until all the day boaters went home for the night, the anchorage was a mess of confused wakes. We saw all kinds of strange watercraft including a “pirate” ship, a “horse” drawn wagon, and myriad little bass boats.

Launched Mr. Flowerpot so we could check out the town. It was honky-tonk heaven: crowds, noise, neon, food smells, Jeeps everywhere, carnival barkers, music. We walked about and then took a ride on the big ferris wheel. Got a great view of the beach, the town, the inlet. Pretty fun.

One of the things we have noticed is that people from Maryland love to fly their flag (people from Ocean City also seem to love flying their Trump flags, but that is something on which I do not care to dwell). Ellen thinks the person who designed the Cadillac crest also designed the Maryland flag. Or perhaps it was J. K. Rowling. Both flags are very heraldic and a bit Arthurian for our taste.

Then we walked down the boardwalk checking out the sights. Saw a sand sculpture all about Jesus. Although it was well sculpted, the artist was not particularly eloquent in his explanation/missionarying – told us that the Last Supper was full of symbolism: “Jesus was Jewish you know.” We walked on filled with admiration for his technical skill if not for his compelling rhetoric.

Found an Italian restaurant for dinner (no great trick) and tanked up our bellies. Ellen and I were getting fairly antsy to get back to the boat. All the hubbub was a little overwhelming to us country-mice and we missed our peaceful Cupcake.

Moss has been eating lots of potato chips.

Zoom in on this shot to see all the boat traffic.

The boat was lovely in the sunset so we took some glamor shots of her.

Next morning was another early start for the ride down to Chincoteague, Virginia. Our fourth state of the week. The inlet to Chincoteague was dramatically different from anything we had seen before. It looked like a broad river mouth, maybe a mile or two across, with very low-lying marshes on shore. But the channel was narrow – no more than a few dozen feet wide in places, with shoal water on either side…as shallow as two or three feet. We played our first game of Connect the Dots as we worked our way from channel buoy to channel buoy. Out of an abundance of caution, Ellen called the Coast Guard to make sure there was sufficient depth (we need about 4.5’) for us to make it up the inlet. She was assured there was.

The ride to Chincoteague (aka Chicken City because of its former prominence as a chicken and egg town) was several miles long and afforded us views of salt marsh, a summer camper/RV community (this time there were more American flags and enormous crosses than state flags or Trumpery), and a plethora of long long empty docks stretching out into the channel.

A dolphin escort swam in with us part of the way. We also saw our first pelicans. Curious bird, the pelican - its beak can hold more than its belly can.

Our anchorage was in a very shallow spot, just 6.5’ at low tide. A sailboat came by to tell us that the tide was super low because of the full moon (he thought we were aground). About half an hour later he radioed us to tell us where we could rent a slip in town. Very friendly and helpful. But we stayed hooked.

Soon afterwards, a pontoon tour boat came by to warn us about the shallow water, then to tell us we had chosen a great safe place to anchor, then to welcome us to town. Again, super friendly, great way to arrive at Chincoteague. One thing we learned is that the people of Chincoteague have a bit of a chip on their shoulder about Ocean City. The pontoon boat guy wouldn’t even say the name of that town.

Once ashore, we set off in search of icecream. On the way we stopped in a bookstore and met the owner, a man who identified us as Mainers from our hats (mine is a “Maine Law” hat, Ellen’s is a “Save the Goslings - Casco Bay” hat). He told us he used to vacation in Freeport. We talked a bit longer and learned that he, like me, grew up in the secret hub of the Universe: Schenectady, New York. Small world.

The ice cream was cool and creamy, just as it should be. We found a nice-sized grocery store and provisioned for the coming week, then went back to our girl Cupcake.

Next morning, up with the sun for another long drive to Machipongo Inlet, Virginia. This inlet, like Chincoteague, was broad and shallow everywhere but the narrow channel. Line Chincoteague, you can't distinguish the channel from the broad mouth of the inlet.

Unlike Chincoteague, the land on either side was so low we couldn’t really even see some of it until we were very close. In fact, the landmass to the south behind which we planned to anchor wasn’t visible at all, it was so low-lying.

Because invisible land doesn’t offer much protection from wind or waves, we worked our way, very cautiously, behind a spit of sand to the north. There has been so much erosion and rearrangement of the dunes that our GPS and paper charts were way off. We managed to download the most recent NOAA chart (from late June 2018) to our phone and used that to work our way past a super shallow spot of around 3' so we could anchor just off shore.

Even the newest NOAA charts were inaccurate - the Coast Guard moves the channel buoys regularly to reflect the changes to the inlet approach. But several buoys were missing, others were not where we anticipated they would be. For the final several hundred yards, I piloted us in from the helm while Ellen stood on the bow throwing the lead line to sound the bottom. Moss stood on the deck and relayed. “Twelve feet…ten feet…eight feet…FIVE FEET!…ok nine feet…” and so on. We got hooked without incident. (That anchor is fantastic, by the way.)

Launched Mr. Flowerpot for a ride to the beach and a look around. We saw footprints in the sand, but did not see any people. We did see lots of huge dead horseshoe crabs, lots of tiny little sand crabs, and plenty of birds. The water on the ocean side stayed shallow very far out so we just waded. The water on the inlet side was murky enough that my primordial fear of swimming where I can’t see what’s around me kicked in. We all promised each other we would swim off the boat upon our return, but as Ellen and I jumped in from the bow, we spotted jellyfish with tentacles. We don’t know our stinging from non-stinging jellyfish and decided not to push our luck. Everyone showered and we ended the day with a delicious lamb, rice, and apricot dish for dinner.

We were completely alone in our anchorage. There were no lights from shore, there was only one building visible - some kind of fishing shack about a mile up the beach, there were no other boats in sight. Nothing for miles and miles. Just us and the moon and the wind and the sand and the dunes and the marsh grass. And the greenhead flies. We have good screens and a good flyswatter. Whack!

We all went to bed early because our last long day of open ocean travel for a while was the voyage from Machipongo to Norfolk, Virginia. In the morning, the exit through the inlet was uneventful because we had our GPS track from the day before and because this time the tide was rising, not at dead low as it had been when we arrived.

It was a hot hot sweaty day and plenty hazy as well. Nothing much of interest happened all day besides sighting dolphins and pelicans until we approached the Chesapeake. Then things got hopping. Saw an aircraft carrier head out to sea, saw a submarine head out to sea, saw two more warships head out to sea. Saw two Coast Guard cutters, saw four speedy little Navy RIBs with guns mounted fore and aft, saw plenty of helicopters, saw eleven (!) oil tankers waiting at anchor. Saw two enormous container ships and a smaller tanker pass us. Then we got hailed on the VHF by a Navy security boat asking us to please go to the side of the channel to make way for another submarine to head out to sea. Very cool.

Tonight we are anchored across a creek from Hampton University (in Hampton Virginia, just across Hampton Roads from Norfolk). Everyone is so wiped out from the long day and the heat that we retreated to the cabin once the anchor was down. We are trying to muster the energy to launch Mr. Flowerpot and head to town to see what is what.