It's the week after Labor Day and we are anxious to start traveling south to Florida for the winter. We've had a great summer in the Chesapeake Bay visiting with friends and seeing a lot of new and old (to us) places.
Our first stop was Hampton, VA which is at the very bottom of the Bay. It's a cute little town, very friendly and a must-stop for us. We stayed a few days anchored out and enjoying not having to travel almost every day as we need to on the ICW. Our insurance dictates that we have to be north of Cape Hatteras between June 1 and November 1 (in other words, out of the Hurricane Zone). So because we don't want to be in cold weather, we don't leave FL until the end of April, which means that we have a little over a month to travel 1,000 miles to get north of Cape Hatteras. It's a lot of time considering that we only travel at about 9 or 10 MPH (or 7 to 8 knots).
Entering the town of Hampton, VA
After leaving Hampton we traveled up the Bay stopping in Antipoison Creek (great name huh!). It's really a nice residential creek that is very protected for us to anchor. We just used it as an overnight stop because we wanted to get to Saint Mary's City. There is a great little college there and a large bay to anchor. We went ashore and did some exploring around and really enjoyed ourselves. You’re welcome to eat in the college cafeteria, which is very good, and walk around and see some of the old buildings and a really old graveyard dating back into the 1700's.
Graveyard at Saint Mary's College
Diamond Girl anchored offshore.
Looking from the college campus.
From Saint Mary’s we went to one of our favorite places…Solomon’s Island. There really isn’t much there but it is a very boating oriented little town where everyone cruising seems to gather. We know a couple of people who live here part of the year (who cruise part of the year) that we have met along the way. We stayed there for a few days and then continued up and across the bay to San Domingo Creek. It’s on the Eastern Shore of the bay and is a long and sheltered creek to stay in. You can walk into the quaint little town of St. Michaels where there are shops and restaurants and just about anything else that would attract tourists.
Once again this year we were invited to our friends Greg and Susie Kaufman, who live on the Wye River, to spend the 4th of July with them. We had a ball! They invite about 12-14 people every year and most of us come by boat. Some anchor out in their bay and some can be accommodated at their dock. Of course, in Maryland when there is a gathering of friends there usually are crabs to be cooked. Greg is the master at cooking crabs. Five or six dozen were steamed up and everyone ate their fill. What a great holiday.
Greg & Susie's dock
A partial pot of crabs.
Fabulous crabs!!
From here we went over to Annapolis. We stayed a couple of days in Annapolis proper then moved to our long time friends Nan & Terry Terhorst's dock. We needed to leave the boat at a dock so we could travel to Phoenix and they offered their dock once again. We were there much longer than expected but finally moved on to Baltimore, MD and visited some friends who live on their boat in a marina, Jim & Cathy Fisher.
We left Baltimore and visited some other of our favorite anchorages and after a couple of weeks on the hook discovered one day that our fridge had quit working. So after some scrambling around to get ice for a cooler, we put everything we could on the ice and headed for Annapolis....again. It was the closest town and we knew that you could get anything fixed on a boat there. Nan and Terry put us up again and we got it fixed.
Now we are on the Eastern Shore waiting out some really nasty weather that has been predicted. It hasn’t shown up yet, but we’re being cautious because we really don’t like to travel in crappy weather.
From here we will start to slowly meander down the bay and begin our trek back to Florida for the warm winter weather.
As always we love to hear from everyone. Let us know what's happening in your lives. Email are always great. And let us know what you think of our blog.
Hope everyone is well and happy!!
BandE
