Chesapeake

We made it to Portsmouth, Virginia, and pulled into Tidewater Yacht Marina. There are military ships everywhere in varying stages of repair or waiting to be deployed. This area is considered to be Mile Zero, the "official" beginning of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. Next we will travel up the Chesapeake Bay. The Bay stretches 200 miles, north to south, and is 30 miles across at it's widest point. The weather forecast looks really bad, so we will stay put for the next 3 days & go sightseeing in Portsmouth & Norfolk.

The forecast finally looked good so we ventured out into the Chesapeake. We had planned on going to Deltaville. Well the forecast was wrong! The wind & waves really picked up, and we got beaten up once again. In fact it was so bad, I got really seasick for the first time in my life. It's not a good feeling. Hooper didn't look so hot himself, plus he was shaking because he was so scared. We headed for shelter on the York River & had to go 10 miles up the river to find calm water & a marina. We ended up at York River Yacht Haven. It really turned out to be a safe haven for us after a bad day on the water.

Thankfully the weather was good the next day & we could continue up the Chesapeake. The water was fairly calm, but the waves continued to grow throughout the day, but they were on the stern & we were pretty comfortable. We had to change our course slightly to hug the western shore because the Navy was conducting live-fire drills right in the middle of the Chesapeake. You would think that they would do this stuff out in the ocean. We ended up at Zahniser's Yachting Center in Solomons, Maryland.

The next day was nice & calm. We went to Rock Hall Landing Marina, MD. It was an easy day because we didn't have to fight the waves today, but we still had to zig zag through hundreds of crab pots & fishing boats.

We had dinner at Waterman's Crab House & Restaurant. We enjoyed a delicious bucket of steamed crabs, shrimp, clams, mussels, potatoes & corn. It seemed like the bucket was bottomless. It took us a long time to peel & eat dinner. The crabs were a lot of work, but worth it. I guess it's worth dodging crab pots all day, when you can enjoy them for dinner.

Tomorrow we will go through the Chesapeake and Delaware (C&D) canal. The C& D canal provides a 12 mile passage between Delaware Bay & Chesapeake Bay. 

We stayed at the Delaware City Marina. We'll have to spend several days here, because once again the weather forecast is terrible, with extremely high winds. We're getting so close to home, but it's taking a long time because the weather just won't cooperate.