Philadelphia

         Philadelphia is a side trip, and not too many Loopers take the time to go up the Delaware River to this wonderful city.  This was a relatively recent decision of ours.  I’ve never been here, Dan was only here once, and he can’t remember the reason why or what he spent time doing.  For a cruiser, it’s pretty easy half-day cruise at 6 knots up river from Delaware City, if the tide is with you.  There are several little reasonable marinas tucked in among the riverfront condoes, and we chose Pier 3 to stay at.  This is between Penn’s Landing and the Benjamin Franklin bridge, and everything in the historic district is walkable from here.  Public transit (buses and subways) are also available at Penn’s Landing, so virtually everywhere nearby is accessible.  

        We set off at dawn and arrived before noon and set off on foot shortly afterward to find a Philly cheese steak for lunch.  We found Sonny’s on Market street, which we later heard was the second most popular place to go according to locals.  It certainly was busy when we were there.  

        We have spent a day and a half roaming this town, two nights at the marina. (May 16-17)  We walked down Elfreth Alley.  We visited Benjamin Franklin’s house, print shop, post office and grave.  (People throw pennies on the grave because Franklin was a penny-pincher.)  We saw the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.  We toured the US Mint and the Jewish-American Museum.  We’ve seen the Rocky statue and the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum that he made famous in the movie.  We walked up and down Chinatown, and enjoyed lunch at the Reading Terminal Market.  We’ve taken the Big Bus tour that gives a really nice overview of what is here.  Our tour guide was also a history professor and had a lot to say about the architecture, the various levels of society, and who did what where.  We then walked much of tour’s route to get a closer look at many of the buildings, and we stopped at a couple beer gardens for refreshment in the afternoons.  

        There are many, many things we didn’t see - the Revolutionary War Museum, the Constitution Museum, the many Art Museums - but we feel we’ve gotten some of the highlights.  This is a very proud city filled with art and history; it’s worth coming back to.  I also have to mention the people who live here.  They are, to a person, friendly and welcoming, and eager to offer help, directions, and advice.  Several times we stopped to consult our map and each time a passerby stopped to offer cheerful assistance.  As you’re cruising between New Jersey and the Chesapeake, you should seriously consider a side trip to Philadelphia!

A side note:  it is not always sunny in Philadelphia.  We didn't see the sun until this morning, and then only briefly.  It's supposed to drizzle the rest of the day.  We are awaiting the tide to take us back downriver to Delaware City.

Rock Hall

          We thought we’d hug the Virginia shore as we made our way up into the Chesapeake, but the weather forecast didn’t look good for crossing the Bay to Rock Hall in the near future, so we took advantage of the weather at hand and crossed over to Crisfield on Thursday (May 9) and then proceeded to follow the exact same path we traveled last year - Crisfield to an anchorage in the Honga River and then to an anchorage near Queenstown just south of Kent Narrows.  This put us in Rock Hall on Sunday, May 12.  

We love Rock Hall.  Such a friendly small town.  We have already many memories of this place.  This is where my cousin Denny lives. This is where we first ate soft shell crabs. This is the where Tommie jumped ship and where half the town kept an eye out for her for two weeks, and where the local feral feline caretaker lent us traps to catch her.  Denny was there to greet us, and came back later in the afternoon with his wife Laura so we could all go out to dinner and catch up on what’s been happening since we saw them last.  

Dan & Bonnie.  Notice the Lewis R French sweatshirts!

        Rock Hall is also where a long time friend of Dan’s lives with her husband.  She was a regular schooner passenger, not just on the schooner we used to own, but also the schooner Dan worked on as First Mate when he was in college, and often sailed with her family.  Bonnie and her brother Vin collected us and brought us to her home on Monday.  We had an incredible spread of food for lunch and then walked it off with a visit to the nearby Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge.  What a gorgeous spot!  We could look out over the marsh and straight across the Bay to Baltimore.  We didn’t stay long enough to see much of the wildlife, but we did manage to bring home a couple of ticks.  Bonnie’s husband Bob put together barbecued chicken and roasted potatoes for supper, and Bonnie’s mother Susan came over to make it a real family experience.  We had such a nice day reconnecting and reminiscing.  

        And to make the visit to Rock Hall a trifecta, on Tuesday (May 14), our cruising friends from Sequel, Eddie and Gail, drove over from their home on the Delaware shore to meet us for lunch.  As Gail puts it “Boating friends are the best.”  We have met so many people on our big adventure; some of them, like Eddie and Gail, have become ‘forever’ friends.  We know when we part, it’s not forever, it’s just for now.  We spent a great afternoon together.  

    

    This morning (Weds May 15) Denny came out in the rain to see us off.  We will see him again this summer at a family wedding.  We headed off into the foggy Bay, out of the Chesapeake and on up to Delaware City.  This is a charming town similar to Chesapeake City, but much smaller and much quieter.  The City Marina is one long dock in a narrow canal that used to be the route into Chesapeake Bay before they built the Chesapeake and Delaware canal.  We took a walk around town after dinner, before the rain set back in, and we met another cruising couple from Maine.  Turns out we have mutual friends back home.  Small world!  More forever friends.  

Delaware City 

Manteo to Virginia

    

    We moved from Ocracoke to Roanoke Island (where the Lost Colony with Virginia Dare was established and subsequently disappeared from) and the town of Manteo for two nights.  The fog dropped in as we reached Manteo harbor, and we felt our way in just before dark and dropped the hook in what we hoped was equidistant between the town and the small island where the First Friday Festival was going strong with loud music and lots of cheering.  

         The next day (Saturday May 4) we awoke to a beautiful calm morning, with a view of the Elizabeth II, the replica of the boat that brought the Lost Colonists from England.  We moved Willie Dawes over to the town’s free dock, and walked uptown to the Ford dealership that professed to rent cars.  Well, they claimed to have no cars available and we strongly suspect they never have rental cars available, but the people were exceptionally nice, giving us water and discussing our options, and the retired owner gave us a ride back to the town dock.  

        We called an Uber and got a ride across the bridge to Bodie Island, to Kill Devil Hills where the Wright Brothers National Monument and Museum was.  Our Uber driver gave us a short tour of the ‘old’ houses on the seashore that have survived many hurricanes before dropping us off at the National Park.  It was an incredible museum - very informative - and we spent about an hour in the museum and another hour touring the grounds to see where the Wright brothers’ first flights actually took place.  Very cool, we were so glad we toured it.  

        We walked to a nearby restaurant for lunch and Ubered back across the bridge to Manteo.  Unfortunately their marine museum was closed, so we spent some time just shopping around in town and returned to the dock to find a strong SE wind whipping up Shallowbag Bag and the harbor.  We were on the lee side of the dock, so we just doubled our lines, but we helped a fellow cruiser who was being blown flush up against the dock by tucking in extra fenders.  We spent the second night there at the dock.

        Sunday dawned calm and pretty and we set off fairly early, as the SE winds were forecast to pick up again and Willie doesn’t really care for a following sea.  We made it into the Albermarle and Chesapeake Canal without a problem and found ourselves at Coinjock just after noon.  We’ve heard a lot about Coinjock - this is thee place to stay for people transiting the Virginia Cut.  The town in unincorporated and offers nothing for the passers-through, and the marina is basically one long face dock with a restauarant and small ship’s store.  But they certainly know what they’re doing - they line people up as close as possible to each other.  Our anchor was literally overhanging the swim platform of Miss Lillee from Texas in front of us, and the bow of the boat behind us was about a foot away from our dinghy.  By dusk the entire face dock was packed with cruisers, and there were boats rafted to some of them.  

        Most of us ate at the restaurant - it’s famous for their prime rib, and you must reserve the meal in advance.  They offer a 16 oz or a 32 oz steak.  Dan ordered the smaller one, and it’s given us two meals so far.  I’m not that fond of prime rib, but Dan said it was great.  

        Monday, May 6th, we finished the Virginia Cut without incident, fueling up at Atlantic Yacht Basin just before the Great Bridge (best fuel price on the East Coast!) and spent a relatively quiet night at the free dock in Portsmouth VA.  Relatively quiet because the ferry that shuttles people across the Elizabeth River blows its horn every twenty minutes for every departure from about 5:30am to about 11pm.  It was a new moon, and the high tide, which routinely washes over the dock, was up over the concrete steps.  This area is a geological subduction zone; not only is the sea level rising, but the land is sinking, and this is causing some major flooding throughout the entire Norfolk region.  

        Tuesday we moved to Rebel Marine, Willoughby Spit, where our friends folksingers Jeanne McDougal and Bob Zentz collected us for dinner at Wickers, a seafood restaurant that began life at Jeanne’s grandparents’ house.  On the way we watched a submarine leave Norfolk.  This area is very, very busy with military ships.

        Today (Wednesday May 8) we toured the museums in Yorktown.  This is the town where Cornwallis surrendered the British Army to the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.  It would be a few years before all the fighting stopped and the country of USA was recognized as official, but this place was where the end began.  There’s an excellent American Revolutionary War Museum, and a smaller but no less superb Waterman’s Museum, both within a short walk of the free town dock.  We capped our day there with dinner at the Yorktown Pub.  

From the Waterman's Museum - a local artist makes these models 

Revolutionary War Museum.  We watched the daily cannon firing.

        Now we are anchored in the quiet, well-protected Sarah’s Creek, across the York River from Yorktown.  We’ll continue our way north up the Chesapeake tomorrow.  

North Carolina

         We zipped right through the rice fields of South Carolina in four days, spending the last night (Saturday April 27) at the Grande Dunes marina in Myrtle Beach, the place we’d left Willie Dawes for a month last year, when we drove home for a visit.  We contacted our friend Chris who lives nearby and she came to meet us for dinner.  We found a great, quiet little Mexican restaurant and spent the meal catching up.  

        We crossed into North Carolina on Sunday and made a late lunch/early dinner stop for takeout from Fishy Fishy in Southport to eat on the way to our stop at Carolina Beach.  Monday night we were in Mile Hammock, the anchorage adjacent Camp LeJeune.  We found out later they began live fire exercises the day after we left, keeping boats huddled off to the side and unmoving, but when we were there all was quiet and the only concern we had was for the Onslow Beach Bridge.  This is a swing bridge with a 12 foot clearance when closed, so most boats need it to open to pass through.  

        We’d been hearing for at least a week that construction of a much-needed new bridge was altering their opening schedule.  Some reports said the bridge  wasclosed between 8am and 5 pm, others said they would open at 12 noon, and one report said as of April 29 it was closed to all marine traffic until the weekend.  I called the bridge tender to find out what the reality was - open on the top of the hour, they said.   We timed our arrival for 9am and squeezed through the opening with the construction barge taking up part of the channel.  We continued on to Beaufort and dropped anchor in Taylor Creek, between the town and the Rachel Carson sanctuary.  We had time for an afternoon walk and this time ashore, we saw the little Maritime Museum was open.  In our past visits, we’ve always managed to be there when the Museum is closed.  It’s a great little museum, with exhibits on the local ecology (salt marshes), economy (fishing), and history (Blackbeard.)  They have a really nice section devoted to pirate artifacts, with a focus on Blackbeard’s vessel Queen Anne’s Revenge, which had been excavated outside the Barrier Islands in the late 1990s.  I didn't take photos in the Museum, so I'm showing you the Beaufort shrimping fleet.

        After Beaufort we moved on to Oriental, another of our favorite North Carolina towns.  We tied up to the free dock next to one of the shrimp docks and made good use of the little Captain’s Quarters, a small house with a lounge and free wifi.  Dan was part of the MTOA (Marine Trawler Owners Association) webinar that night (Wednesday May 1) on cruising New England.  Dan gave a four minute presentation on seven different cruising destinations in Maine.  (I will post the link to that webinar in the next blog.) 

        From Oriental we moved to the Outer Banks.  We have not cruised this area before.  Thursday was a gorgeous, perfect day for cruising out the Neusse River to Pamlico Sound and over to Ocracoke Island.  The Sound was flat calm.  Ocracoke was a little reminiscent of Tangiers - isolated, with a long, proud history of ten family names in the settlement, dependent on fishing - except Ocracoke is much more accessible and thus, touristy.  But despite the many shops and many, many rental cottages, it has a unique charm and pride and we really enjoyed walking around and taking in the sights.  There’s a great little historical museum, a waterman’s exhibit in fishing shack on the dock, a lighthouse, and a small cemetery dedicated to the four British sailors who washed ashore after a German U-boat sunk their ship during WW I.  We spent yesterday afternoon and this morning (Thurs & Fri May 2 & 3) exploring Ocracoke.