Sailing Back to Chesapeake Bay VA USA

Despite the brisk wind, New York harbour isn’t really the place to try sailing, especially as we had passed close to the Statue of Liberty; the ferries to Liberty Island take no prisoners so we kept well out of their way!  As a result we were past there and the anchored HMS Queen Elizabeth, the new British aircraft carrier, before we switched to sail power.  We had been motoring for 3 hours and so it was blissful to switch to our quieter form of propulsion.  It was 1300hrs on Wednesday 24 October and ahead of us lay a 250 mile passage which we hoped would get us south and back into the Chesapeake Bay.

The weather window for the passage was tight but we knew that after the delays for repairs in Port Washington we now really needed to be ticking off the miles heading south before the winter storms set in in earnest.  We reasoned that we could get to Chesapeake Bay in about 40 hours but that if it all got too windy en routewe could divert into Delaware Bay.  Indeed Escapadehad set off a few hours behind us and would be following that route.  It is longer but would probably be more sheltered.  However, there would be lots of motoring through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and there was a high risk of floating logs given the recent storms and a dam release.  After our ‘logging’ adventure in Long Island Sound, you can understand why we wanted to avoid Delaware Bay just now.

One of several hitch-hikers

We settled into our watch routine and, after having photographed everything in sight as we passed through New York, the urge to take photos was small and the camera had been abandoned in the corner of the cabin for the rest of the afternoon and overnight.  That said, this passage was unusual because on Thursday 25 October Blue Velvet seemed to turn into some sort of floating rest station for small birds.

More of the hitch-hikers

The wind had been blowing offshore at 25 knots from the northwest, which didn’t seem excessive, but maybe it was enough to blow these little guys out to sea (great wind for our passage though!). We didn’t really mind them hitching a ride for a rest except when they realised that it was much more comfortable down below.  It’s the first time we’ve had lots of birds fly down into the cabin and despite trying to shoo them out we constantly seemed to have about 4 of them hiding in the corners of the boat.  Note to bird world: don’t crap in the taxi!!!  In the end we left them alone as it seemed to scare them less and avoided their creating mess.

The camera came out again later in the afternoon when Nicky was off watch.  Glancing behind us I saw a whale breach.  I missed photographing the whale rising out of the water but did manage to get this photo a few moments later to prove that there was whale out there.

Aside from the bird and whale spotting, the passage proceeded uneventfully.  We made very good progress and arrived in Chesapeake Bay in the early hours of Friday 26 October.  I was on watch and we just managed to sneak in under the North Channel fixed bridge with the last of the flood tide.  As we motored north I woke Nicky up because 4½ miles north of the bridge is an unusual breakwater we intended to anchor behind.  The Kiptopeke breakwater is made up of sunken concrete ships and we hoped that they would provide us with a good sheltered spot to catch some sleep for the 6 hours whilst the tide ebbed.

The morning view of the uncharted piles in the southern entrance to the Kiptopeke anchorage. In the distance is the North Channel fixed bridge we went under to get into Chesapeake Bay

Having dropped the sails Nicky motored us in very carefully whilst I stood on the foredeck with a bright torch clearing the way into the anchorage.  I’m very glad that we took this cautious approach because the entrance to the anchorage was partially blocked by uncharted wooden piles.  [Ed: and there was also an uncharted and unlit piled fish weir a bit further south which we only saw by the light of the full moon and got rather closer to than we would have wished!]  The torch picked out the gap in the piles and we continued in to find that there was more than enough space for us to anchor close to a catamaran that was already there.

Views around the Kiptopeke anchorage. The breakwater was built in 1948 by sinking
9 concrete McCloskey ships in order to protect the Chesapeake Bay ferry terminal. 
The ferry terminal closed in 1964 when the Chesapeake Bay tunnel-bridge opened

More below the map

Kiptopeke, Virginia, USA

After 1 day 17 hours and 10 minutes at sea it was nice to get some sleep in more than a 3 hour block.  We had 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep before the alarm clock woke us from our slumber to catch the favourable tide towards the York River, our ultimate destination for this passage.  In the morning light we took the opportunity to look at the uncharted piles partially blocking the entrance to anchorage, as well as the 9 concrete sunken ships which make up the Kiptopeke breakwater.  But conscious that ‘time and tide wait for no man’, we raised our anchor at 0930hrs, 8 hours after we had arrived, to commence the last 25 miles of our passage.

Part of the reason that our weather window had been tight to get all of the way down to the Chesapeake Bay was that the wind was due to drop off to next to nothing.  Whilst we had been sleeping that had happened and so the last bit of our passage across to the western side of Chesapeake Bay, and into the York River, was under power.  Watching the depth gauge like a hawk because in places there was only just enough water for us, we felt our way into Sarah Creek on the north side of the York River. From here we hoped to visit the historic Yorktown and battlefield sites.

Sarah Creek, York River, Virginia, USA