Onancock VA USA

Doug on SY Ithaka

Chesapeake Bay is big! So much so that when we set off early on 2 May we couldn’t see the other side of the bay because it’s over 20 miles away. We left Fishing Bay Harbour, near Deltaville on the west side of Chesapeake Bay, at 0700hrs and headed out northeast aiming for a navigation mark just to the west of our destination; that was to be the rendezvous for us with Ithaka and Dragon Run, the two other yachts escaping for a couple of days to Onancock.

As it happened, Bill and Lydia on Dragon Run were running a little late coming out of the Rappahannock River but Doug, on Ithaka, came out from Fishing Bay Marina pretty much the same as us, and was just a few miles behind us. Lydia spotted our AIS signal and radioed in a new, slightly later rendezvous time and so we backtracked a little to sail in company with Doug.

Doug leading the way through the Onancock Channel. The sea ospreys like to use the navigation marks to build their nest on

The entrance to the Onancock Channel is wide and shallow. Our rendezvous was at the outer marker where we dropped our sails and started to motor the 4½ miles upstream. Dragon Run was still a little way behind and so Doug led the way in Ithaka. Now, it’s always worth asking a few questions when you are following another yacht and so Nicky got on the VHF radio to confirm the most important one; what is Ithaka’s draft? It turned out that she has a lifting keel and so had we blindly followed her, we might have run aground. Doug, however, was up on his game and once he knew that that we needed 7ft of water to stay afloat he checked for any shallower patches. But, there was only one real area of concern because the rest of the channel was dredged and so we made good progress.

Once the river narrowed we passed some beautiful houses with land opening out onto the waterfront. Both of us were reminded of motoring up Beaulieau River on the south coast of England both because of the scenery and the size of the houses.

Onancock Wharf

Turning the last bend, we came into a small anchorage area with, ahead of us, Onancock Wharf. As it was mid-week we had not booked ahead and, to our surprise, discovered that there was no space for us in their slips. That prompted Lydia to suggest that we rafted up alongside them…

Bill and Lydia on SY Dragon Run

…and so we held position to allow Dragon Run to pass.

For us, rafting up is normally an easy affair, certainly much easier than coming alongside the wooden piles of the average eat coast quay (‘dock’). We’d noticed that the US yachts all have a metal rubbing strip running along the widest part of the boat. We don’t have one of those [Ed: yet!] and so our concern was that a conventionally hung fender would just pop out and allow BV’s wooden toerail to grind on the wooden piles. In preparation for coming alongside the quay we had strung all of our fenders up horizontally, which required that we put an extra line onto each of them. It was a true cat’s cradle that needed to be untangled so that the fenders could be hung vertically for coming alongside Dragon Run. That all took us a short while to organise but we were soon nicely positioned alongside Dragon Run. And then we plugged into the USA for the first time and were pleased to discover that our new adaptor plug worked.

Onancock was founded in 1680 and with a population of around 1500 is one of the largest towns on Virginia’s remote eastern shore. It was once a regular stop for the steamboat service which transported passengers and goods around the area and the streets are filled with homes from the late nineteenth century.

Summer does not officially start in the USA until Memorial Day weekend (last weekend in May) and Onancock still had a quiet, sleepy feeling about it as we wandered about.

Being one of the oldest towns in Virginia and it is fitting that the Eastern Shore of Virginia Historical Society base themselves there in the grand-looking Ker house which was built between 1799 and 1803.

The other really old buildings in the town are predominantly the churches, of which the town has several. Architecturally, bricks were used for the footings and the chimneys but the rest of the buildings were constructed in wood. The lapboard and wooden frame construction is still copied today across the state and so generally you have to look carefully to work out what is old and what is new. However, in Onancock pretty much all of the buildings are original and well kept; it’s delightful.

Mini OCC cruise gathering (LtoR: George and Frances Sadler, Lydia and Bill Strickland, Nicky, and Doug Selden)

Tuesday night was spent on board Dragon Run with a lovely pot luck supper, Doug squared away breakfast in the morning and then in the evening we reconvened on Dragon Run for cocktails (pictured above) before moving across to Mallards at the Wharf for dinner. George and Frances Sadler, each recovering from surgery of one form or another, had booked a room in the Charlotte Hotel and joined us for drinks and dinner making a very convivial gathering.

In a previous life, Mallards at the Wharf was the Hopkins and Brother Store which thrived from 1842 to 1966 supplying the needs of the town and steamer passengers. As we entered the restaurant we walked through a mini museum area with the original ledgers, till and accounts office. Comparing ‘now and then’ via the black and white photos was fascinating.

Stepping out onto the decking area we found a found a table and settled ourselves down for lovely meal. Nicky and I both chose the soft shell crabs on a bed of mash and ‘greens’ (asparagus) – delicious!

For our second night in Onancock we had moved BV out into the anchorage area a lovely spot and very photogenic as the sun set whilst we were at dinner.

Onancock, VA, USA