We left Rebel Marina on Wednesday morning May 17. The sky was lowery and the winds were forecasting strong easterlies coming. It was either go now, or waiting until the weekend, and we decided to go. David Briggs - marina owner and dockmaster - gave me a lookover when I settled up, and bid me to come look at the chart of the Chesapeake Bay he had on his wall. He suggested the direction to take and gave us a couple of options for anchoring, his manner telling me he was thinking if we really meant to leave, he was going to make sure we had a safe place to go. “You don’t want to be over here -“ he motioned to Mobjack Bay on the west side of the Chesapeake “Not with a strong east wind.”
We followed his advice. It a lumpy run out of Willoughby spit into the Chesapeake - the NNE wind was against the favorable tide and current. We had thought about trying for Crisfield, but it was too uncomfortable to endure these conditions all day, and the wind was picking up, so we took the channel toward Cape Charles and followed it just north of that harbor and turned into King’s Creek. Navionics was dead on saying the turn was confusing; there were markers all over, some private, some official, and most of them weren’t in our chart plotter. We figured it out, though, and slowly motored our way between the very shallow oyster farms into a small basin in front of Oyster Farm Marina.
They hailed us and offered us a slip, but we found the small anchorage and decided to stay there, hoping the tide didn’t leave us on the bottom. David had understated that this area was “tricky” and “shallow”, but it was well-protected, and we spent a quiet night and the tide didn’t affect us.
We had another lumpy day on Thursday, clinging to the shore as much as possible to find a little shelter from the east winds, and this time made our way to Crisfield. This was our first time in this town, and the picture below sums it up fairly well: most of the town is for sale. We got there early afternoon and anchored in a very well-protected cove, in front of the US Coast Guard facility. We rowed ashore to find a town that offered very little beyond a couple candy stores and restaurants. Most of the main street was not just shut down, but shuttered over and for sale. We’ve seen many a depressed waterfront town, but this one tops the list. It offers ferries over to Tangiers and Smith Island, but both islands are sinking (and Smith is all but inhabited now), and there’s little to attract tourists beyond the novelty of a one-time visit. Hopefully Crisfield will find a way to reinvent itself, but right now it’s pretty sad to walk through.
On Friday morning we moved from there up into Tangier Sound to a nice little anchorage in Duck Point Cove, off the Honga River. Again the passage was rough, and a barge we passed en route advised us not to go out into the Bay itself, as it was “really sloppy.” We hadn’t planned to anyway - we were just fine making short hops up the Chesapeake as we waited for things to quiet down.
We found that quiet today - Saturday. The day started out with a misty fog and a SE wind blowing about 10. The forecast kept changing, and we were prepared to stop at any time should the wind shift to the west or thunderstorms brew up suddenly . Both had been predicted in various forecasts. But the winds died down and the waters took on that glassy calm that the Chesapeake can achieve so suddenly, and we had a pleasant day traveling northward. We spotted other trawlers creeping out of their protected spots to take advantage of what is probably the calm between two fronts. The sun came out and as the afternoon wore on we entered the Eastern Bay heading toward Kent’s Narrows, and pleasure boaters started to come out to play as well. We dropped anchor in Kirwin Creek, off Prospect Bay. We'll have an easy run to Rock Hall tomorrow.
One of many weirs we passed today.
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