Up the Chesapeake (10 July – 14 July)

Oh my Gawd! You will never guess what we saw. Ok, maybe some of you military or naval types who keep track of everything moving might have an idea, but I’ll bet most of you don’t. Are you ready? Well, you are going to have to read through half of the blog to find out. After all, I keep my blog in chronological order and wouldn’t want anyone to think less of me because I put something out of order. BUT when you find out you will truly be impressed!

Ok, back to Deltaville. Although it is a nice enough place, it was time for us to leave. We wanted to be boating again, as opposed to complaining, or paying, or crying – or usually all three. On Tuesday we cranked up the engines and … well we went up the creek about ¼ of a mile and took on fuel in our newly-repaired aft tanks. Then we cranked up the engines and … went up the creek another ¼ mile to Zimmerman’s dock so we could run the fuel through our system for the first time to make sure it worked. And THEN we really cranked up the engines and set out for the Rappahannock River and points north!!!

It was a bit choppy out and we re-learned a couple of lessons. After we have sat in port for a while, we sometimes forget that everything needs to be tied down before we set off. The sea was rough enough to knock many of the books off of our bookshelf (Darn! I keep meaning to fix that!) and some of the stuff in Ann’s galley cabinets was rearranged by the sea so when we opened the cabinets, well, you get the picture. Again, we had seen all of this before and we either know how to prevent it, or we know how to ensure it does not happen again. We just need to get off our duffs and “git ‘er done.”

Sunrise on the Great Wicomico. It is a good thing
you can't smell the fish processing plant!

We only went about 30 miles that first day and spent the night on the Great Wicomico River at Sandy Point, which is one of our friend Sharon’s (on Finally Fun) favorite anchorages. When we first got there it was idyllic. Sandy Point juts far into the Great Wicomico forming kind of a hook with the anchorage in the middle. There wasn’t a boat around, the skies were blue, we were well protected from any weather that might come up and all was right with the world. About an hour after we got there, though, the wind shifted just slightly. For those of you who don’t know, Irvington, VA – which isn’t too far away – has a fish processing plant, and fish processing plants stink.  The smell played with us through the night; as the wind shifted so did the stench. Although it was never “overpowering,” at the end of the night we decided that we would save this anchorage for Sharon and that we would use it only in an emergency to get out of the weather.

Apparently we weren’t the only ones to have smelled the fish because on the way in and later out of the Great Wicomico we saw a huge pod of about a dozen dolphins. I think this is the furthest north I have ever seen them in the Chesapeake. I’ll let Ann talk more about that below.

Wednesday’s cruise was longer; it is about 50 miles from the Great Wicomico to Solomon’s Island on the Pawtuxet River. Solomon’s is a very nice, kind of touristy place and we have been there often. Previously, on our boat Sans Souci we had always gone to a marina, but this time we decided to anchor. It looked like it would be fairly easy to drop the hook in one of the many small coves along Mills Creek. These coves were surrounded by very nice houses, most with docks and boats in their back yard and it seemed like they would be very quaint anchorages.

Unfortunately, anchoring wasn’t as easy as it looked. You see, we all have our phobias. One of mine is to anchor with inadequate “scope.” Scope is a measure of the angle between the anchor on the bottom and its tie-off point on deck; it is indicated by the ratio between the amount of chain you have out compared to the depth of the water (plus the bow’s distance above the water).  You can get away with a 5:1 scope in good weather, but more is better until you get to somewhere around 10:1, then that is as good as it gets.  Some of the coves were 10+ feet deep. Add that to 6 feet of freeboard and we needed to have a minimum of 80 feet of chain (16 x 5 for a scope of 5:1). Add to that a boat that is 50’ long and you have 130 feet between the anchor and the aft end of the boat. Now realize that a boat at anchor can swing 360 degrees, depending on wind and current, and you can see we really needed coves that were a minimum of 260 feet wide – and some of them weren’t, or at least didn’t appear to be. Anyway, we dropped anchor at three different locations before I found a cove where I was comfortable – comfort being relative. We spent the night there, and it really was a nice, quaint little anchorage.



Mike and the Ass't Craneman hooking up the Boston Whaler

The next day we decided to take the dinghy down and go to town. Well, let’s just say that the winch didn’t work as it was supposed to, and while we got the dinghy down, we could not get it back up.  This was a problem. We knew we couldn’t tow the Whaler all the way to our next stop, so we went to Zanheiser’s Boat Yard and asked if they could help. I have to say they were very accommodating. If we could get the boat and the dinghy to their Yard by 12:30, they would use their crane to put the dinghy back on board. Am I a little bit upset at Zimmerman’s, the boatyard that did our work in Deltaville? Well, let’s see, they replaced two parts, used three different technicians, charged me $1000 and said it was fixed. Yea, I am a little bit upset. Anyway, we decided that if we couldn’t use our dinghy to go see the town that we would just take a slip for the night at Zanheiser’s Marina, walk to town, and stroll through the shops and what had changed.

We had to leave Zanheiser’s the following day because the whole marina was booked. That was okay with us because we had been downtown and seen what there was to see. Ann suggested that since we had already “done” Solomon’s that we might as well head up to Herrington Harbor and spend the night anchored in Herring Bay rather than find a new anchorage in Mill Creek. I agreed and after stopping to fill up our wing tanks we headed out.


Ann with her "sunbrella" at a monument to
boatmakers at Solomon's Island, Maryland

My Lord was it a beautiful day for cruising the Chesapeake. It was probably 75 degrees with a nice little breeze, we had following seas almost the whole way and it was just glorious. I am just going to pause here to remember how great everything was ………………………………………

Ok, I am ready to go again. Off in the distance I saw a ship anchored about 2 miles from the shore. That is weird, I thought, as I didn’t think there were any towns in the vicinity and why would you want to anchor a ship in the middle of nowhere? It was kind of oddly shaped and, from our angle, I thought it might be some kind of Chesapeake Cruise Ship that we hadn’t seen before. Ann though it might be a ferry. It was still several miles off in the distance, but I kind of scooched over towards it. I didn’t want to get too close, but I did want to know a little more about it.

I guess we were about a mile away when I heard on the radio, “Motor Vessel approaching the ship anchored at (Lat Long), this is Sea Fighter, over.” Well, the Lat and Long he called out were just about where that oddly shaped ship was, and I was on the only motor vessel I could see, so I responded. I forgot exactly what he said, but he wanted me to give them a little more room. I was perfectly willing to do that, but before I did, I had to ask. “Roger,” I said in my best radio-talkese,” What kind of ship are you?”

“A Navy research ship,” was his reply. Okay, now I know that Navy research ships are designated AGORs (Auxiliary General Oceanographic Research) and that they do not have FSF 1 Sea fighter on its side.  Now in the old days I might have just chalked this up to some secret the navy wanted to keep and that I would probably never discover. But not nowadays. Within minutes, Ann had looked up FSF1 and we knew more about Sea Fighter than we wanted. There were about 20 lengthy entries. Here is the first section of the Wikipedia Entry.

“Sea Fighter (FSF-1) is an experimental littoral combat ship under development (2005-2008) by the United States Navy. Its hull is of a small-waterplane-area twin-hull (SWATH) design, and provides exceptional stability, even on rough seas. The ship can operate in both blue and littoral waters. For power, it can use either its dual gas turbine engines for speed or its dual diesel engines for efficient cruising. It can be easily reconfigured through the use of interchangeable mission modules. Helicopters can land and launch on its deck. Smaller water craft can be carried and launched from its stern. The vessel is being developed under the program title Littoral Surface Craft-Experimental (LSC(X)) with a hull type designation Fast Sea Frame. The first vessel has been assigned the hull classification symbol FSF 1 and also has been referred to as the X-Craft. The vessel was designed by British company BMT Nigel Gee Ltd (formerly BMT Nigel Gee and Associates Ltd) who continue with a role in the development of the vessel.”


FSF1 Sea Fighter at anchor in the Chesapeake Bay.

Navy Research ship my pitooty. I mean you would think that even the Navy could come up with a better cover story than that. But the real question, of course, is what it was doing in the Chesapeake? I don’t know of any military facilities in the area it was anchored. I do have some notions of what the ship might have been up to, but good secret-keeper that I am, I will keep them to myself – at least until the Boat Warming Party then I will spill my guts for a beer.

We were lucky in that our anchorage in Herring Bay worked out just fine. It was a little rolly, but that was okay. There was very little protection from the wind or currents so if had been nasty out we would have had to move or kept an anchor watch. But as it was it was the end to a wonderful – though mysterious – day.

ANN’S NOTES: It has been an interesting week to say the least.

I have to disagree with the strength of that awful stench the fish plant gave. Words just cannot describe the smell. Never again will I stay in the Great Wicomico River...stinky...stinky...and again stinky.

We did have a lot of practice in our anchoring routine...as the anchor person I just step on the "up" or "down" botton on the deck. All the math stuff is not my 'thing' and Michael can do that ratio thing in his head...not me...I just step on the button that controls the windlass. It sounds easy -- and it is most of the time -- but as you may recall while we were in the Bahamas, I was the one outside in the wind, rain and whatever else the weather had to offer. Just saying...

I do have a new toy to play with while I bring up the anchor. We now have a salt water wash down system for the anchor. Remember when I had to clean out the anchor locker and how yucky that job was? Well...I now can wash off the anchor as I bring it up and get most of the mud and smelly junk off the chain and anchor. Good thing I have long legs and arms to control the water and the button for the windlass at the same time. Now the down side of this new system is that while working with the water of the Chesapeake Bay in the summer there are ... Jelly Fish...they FREAK me out. They, or parts of them, get caught in the chain or the line of our snubber. They look like big pieces of snot just hanging there and they can still zap you if you touch them or parts of them. I do have the meat tenderizer just in case I get stung...I won't let Michael pee on me ... just saying.

Now for the spy boat...X boat?...X files?...something to think about would you not agree? I just love my Droid phone. I had the articles for that before the boat was out of sight... I love the net and freedom of information act.

I do have a wild life report :)

10 July 2012    1 pod of  12 dolphins

11 July 2012    1  pod of 12 dolphins...I think the same ones we saw the day before and 1 semi-playful dolphin that broke off from the pod.

I was a happy Boater !!

Traveling Soul ....OUT