Overtaken by events

We are underway southbound in the Chesapeake Bay, bound for Hampton Roads and the greater Norfolk area. I know in my last post I said we'd already be there by Friday, and, soon after, heading south across the Albermarle Sound. That plan was, as they say, overtaken by events.

I found this 10' tall sign in Urbanna, at the town park near the community pool and playground. It feels like the right way to open this post.

I don't generally bring up politics in this blog, and I don't want to start now, so I will stick to how it affects us and our plans. Suffice it to say we were reeling after we woke to Wednesday's news. We started through the stages of grief, and before cooler heads prevailed, there were discussions of fueling up and pointing the boat out into the Atlantic, or at least turning around. Continuing south into parts of the country, and I include here our own domicile of Florida, where we've never felt entirely welcome and now do not feel entirely safe suddenly seemed like deliberately steaming off the edge of the world.

Louise standing in a giant sculpture of watermen's boots outside the art gallery in Irvington.

What we knew for sure was that we needed to get off the Potomac, and so after crying, cursing, and coffee we weighed anchor and continued downriver with all due haste. About mid-cruise the plotter was saying we could not make the mouth in the daylight, and so we set our sights on a new stop for us, the Coan River, where there are a handful of anchorages and we would have protection from the wind.

We did not need to go far in for the protection we needed, and we dropped the hook just off a set of oyster beds just inside the entrance (map). The experience was a far cry from our first attempt to enter this river, when we were very, very green and got ourselves beat up on the Chesapeake. Back then we only had a chartplotter with NOAA charts that did not have sufficient detail or accuracy to make the entrance safely. Both the cartography and our skills have come a long way since then. We had a nice dinner on board, and did not even splash the tender to walk around the small community of Lewisetta.

Even in the age of cell phone maps, I like to find these visitor maps in town.

By the end of the day we had more of our wits about us, and decided we would continue south, but remain in Virginia, at least until our heads were in a different place or we had a better idea of where we wanted to be. From where we were anchored on the Coan, it would have been an easy cruise around the corner to Reedville, with an anchorage, a free dock, and a couple of dining options. Or a longer cruise to a familiar anchorage on Jackson Creek, in Deltaville. In the morning we decided to get underway and make the decision at the turn around Smith Point.

The Irvington visitor center, in what I assume to be a historic train depot. I am standing in the historic Irvington Town Commons, 

The final leg on the Potomac gave me time to look at the charts. The "necks" of Virginia comprise an enormous cruising ground, and while we've done the length of some of the major rivers like the James and the Potomac, we often just poke in to some of these rivers far enough to find anchorage off the bay. And while I am eager to get back to civilization -- Norfolk was really supposed to be just a few days from DC -- we realized that the decision to remain in Virginia meant we could slow down and maybe do something new.

And so it was that, rather than either Reedville or Deltaville, we decided instead to turn up the Rappahannock. We were already familiar with many of the towns, from the many months we spent in Deltaville and the numerous times we crossed the river on the Robert O. Norris bridge, but we'd never actually cruised the river in the boat. We made our way under the aforementioned bridge, just squeezing under one of the northern spans, and turned into Carter Creek, in the small community of Irvington. We pulled off in the first usable spot and dropped the hook (map).

Sitting outside waiting for The Dredge to open.

We knew that there was at least a resort with a restaurant and a dock, but after some research we found a public boat ramp with a small dock that was not listed in our cruising database. That turned out to be the old steamboat landing; we landed the tender there and walked the half mile into town. We stopped into the small but upscale convenience store, Livi's, before they closed, where I found a four-pack of a lovely Baltic porter, and then made a big circuit of the historic town. We are in the part of the country where the small waterfront towns are three centuries old or more.

Vector anchored in Urbanna Creek.

We eschewed the resort restaurants in favor of a small place in town called The Dredge, appropriately so as Irvington is on the Virginia Oyster Trail, and Rappahannock oysters are famous. The place was cute, the service was attentive, and they had some nice draft beers, but my crab cake and Louise's flounder were both disappointing. I would not hesitate to return to try some of the other options, though. We arrived just before they opened at 5 and there was already a line, but most patrons headed for the bar.

On Friday we weighed anchor at the turn of the tide around mid-day for a short cruise upriver to Urbanna, which our guides said was a very cruiser-friendly place with a comfortable anchorage. We arrived to find that pretty full, but were able to squeeze into a spot between a mooring ball and a daymark (map).

The old tobacco building, now a visitor center and free museum. I made a donation.

We splashed the tender and I headed ashore to the free town dinghy dock to explore. It took me just an hour to see the whole town, finding more restaurants than Google knew about, and scoping out the small grocery store and the nice library, where I rested in a comfy chair while using their WiFi. Early in my walk I stumbled into the town museum, in a 300-year-old tobacco-counting building, and admired their copy of the famous 1755 John Mitchell Map. They have one of the surviving third impressions of the first edition of the map, which they happened upon serendipitously and had exquisitely restored. The docent lamented that the town does not do enough to promote this fantastic artifact.

Best shot I could get of the Mitchell Map through the UV plexi. It is incredibly detailed.

After my walk I ran the tender upriver to the Saluda boat ramp, where it would be a mile and a half walk to the town of Saluda, where there is a Food Lion, Tractor Supply, and Dollar General. If we put the mast down, Vector could also squeeze under the Urbanna bridge to access a much larger anchorage if need be, for example as a storm measure.

In the evening we returned ashore together and walked to Mi Jalisco on the edge of town for some excellent Mexican food and draft beers. Even though we arrived at 5:30, the place was packed,  and we were lucky to get a table. By the time we left, the line was out the door. It was a short walk back to the IGA Urbanna Market to provision on our way home; the market was small but well-stocked and we found all that we needed.

Mi Jalisco on my walk. It was packed when we arrived later.

Overnight the winds picked up to over 25 knots, and we added more scope at 3:30am, making that anchorage upriver of the bridge look more attractive. We did have plenty of swing room still, and we went back to bed. Winds were still high yesterday morning, pinning us down in Urbanna, and by lunch time we had more or less decided to just stay another night, especially since the tide would become unfavorable in the early afternoon.

Free dinghy dock, with Vector in the background.

That plan changed when we learned our friends Dorsey and Bruce aboard Esmeralde, who left DC a couple of days after us, were just coming off the Potomac and headed for Stingray Point in Deltaville. We were hoping to see them one more time before they zip off to the Keys for the season, and we knew if they passed us that would be the end of it. So when the winds laid down almost completely at 1pm, we weighed anchor and headed back down the Rappahannock.

We can't really get into Broad Creek, off the Rappahannock, where they were headed. The entrance channel is narrow and shallow, and there's really no place to anchor once inside. So we continued out the Rappahannock against the tide, curled around Stingray Point, and headed back in to the familiar Piankatank. It's an extra ten miles vs. Broad Creek, but the channel is deep and the anchorage is large, and we are extremely familiar with both. We arrived to find the anchorage packed, but we headed right for a known spot that was open and dropped the hook (map).

At the Urbanna Boatyard. Hard to believe neither the owner nor the yard trimmed this vine when it first took hold.

Long-time readers may remember that we spent several months here across three visits to the boatyard here, hence the familiarity. Back then the boatyard also had a marina, which had a dinghy dock that was free to use, but required a small fee for access to the facilities like the lounge, laundry, rest rooms, and loaner bikes. The boatyard owner sold off the marina operation a couple of years ago; basic dinghy access is now $5 and there is some charge above that for facilities. A year or so before the change in ownership, the Deltaville Tap Room and Raw Bar, which we used to patronize when it was over on Broad Creek, moved in to space in the marina building formerly occupied by a brokerage. Back then the marina offered courtesy dockage to patrons dining at the restaurant, their tenant.

Evidently the new marina owners and the restaurateurs do not get along, and dockage is no longer offered; the marina is rife with signage saying absolutely no restaurant dockage, a fact we learned only after we were already almost to the anchorage. We decided we'd just tie up at the boatyard, where we "know the owners" and which we knew would be closed anyway. As it turned out, the dinghy dock was still available and we just used that instead, dutifully walking to the office as directed to pay our $5. That turned out to be closed; oh well.

Another identical watermen boot sculpture in Urbanna. I assume these are the trademark of the Oyster Trail and each community paints one. You step in from the back and there is actually a little platform inside -- they're huge.

Saturday turns out to be prime rib night at the Tap Room, so of course we had to split a piece. It was so good that we lamented we ordered the middle of three sizes rather than the largest. The cheesecake was pretty good, too, and they had one of my favorite beers, Legend Brown, on draft. We strolled around the very familiar boatyard after dinner just for a stretch, lit only by moonlight and the headlamps of boat owners working on their hauled-out boats. We decked the tender as soon as we returned, for an early departure.

The Tap Room was busy. I remember the tables and the boat transom from the other location.

This morning we weighed anchor right after coffee and headed back out. Esmeralde also got an early start from Broad Creek, and they passed us as we were coming out of the Piankatank. They'll be in Portsmouth a full two hours or more ahead of us, but we'll get a chance to see them again either tonight or tomorrow. We met them for the first time on this very leg and in this very place six years ago, almost to the day, and it's been a hoot intersecting with them at various other places in our cruising itineraries.

Today started out nicely, but seas built as the day wore on, and in the middle of the cruise we very nearly decided to bail to Yorktown, where we'd be pinned down for a while. I checked in with captain Dorsey, who was a full hour ahead of us by then, and the report back was that seas were starting to lay down, so we soldiered on. At one point I reduced RPM down to 1350 to avoid slamming into them, but I am glad we pressed on because things are much better now that we're just four miles from Old Point Comfort.

The "other" Chesapeake Inn, in Urbanna. IYKYK.

The plotter is saying we'll arrive to High Street Landing around 3:30, where we are hoping there will still be a spot. That's a long shot; we seem to be mid-pack in the last wave of the migration and at least a dozen boats have been southing around us. If not we will backtrack a half mile to the Hospital Point anchorage.

I honestly don't know what's next. We might spend a few days anchored near Norfolk, or we might cruise the James again or just bum around Hampton Roads for a while. At some point we will need to to to Chesapeake for fuel, and maybe by then we will be ready to continue south. I had planned on a round of doctor appointments in Florida this season, and I still need to do something about that. Stay tuned, and I will post the plan when we have one.