June 2, Day 342 – Norfolk to Jackson Creek, Deltaville

We were up early this morning and readied the boat for departure. By 7:45, we were on our way. It was very overcast, with even a bit of fog, but the seas were calm. We had originally thought we would go to Broad Creek at Deltaville and stay at Dozier’s Regatta Point Yacht Center as they are both AGLCA and MTOA sponsors and offer a discount to those members. However, after spending the past 9 days at a marina, we were ready for some anchoring, especially from a “pocket-book” standpoint. Free is always good, and that’s what anchorages are. So, with all the guidebooks in hand, Linda researched where a good spot would be. We decided on one of the other creeks that serves as a harbor for Deltaville – Jackson Creek off the Piankatank River.

We had an easy cruise leaving the Norfolk and Hampton areas. There were several freighters, tugs and warships out and about but we had no difficulty keeping out of the way of all of them.

Once we were officially in the Chesapeake, Gerry got out his fishing poles and stuck them in the water. We have a license where anyone on board the boat can fish in the waters of the Chesapeake, regardless of the state. As we cruised along, the fog disappeared and soon it was a nice warm (almost hot, but not quite) day. We arrived at our anchorage around 3:00.

Linda spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and reading. Gerry worked on his binoculars. He has a pair of Fuji stabilized binoculars, but several months ago the stabilization feature quit working. Anyway, he got out his volt meter, soldering iron, wire and wire cutters and went to work. He seems to have fixed them, at least for the time being.

We grilled steak for dinner and then went exploring the area by dinghy. While cruising around we saw a boat that looked familiar at a dock across the creek. We went to investigate and found it was David and Judi on JeJuda. We’d seen them several times during the past few weeks, the last time at Norfolk where they docked just a few slips away. They invited us aboard and we had drinks and chatted for awhile. Finally, we decided we better see if we could find our way back to the boat (it was very dark by now). Fortunately, we had our dinghy lights with us so we could be “legal” on our way back and Monk’s Vineyard has a secondary anchor light that comes on automatically when it gets dark, so we had no problem finding “home”.

We read e-mail, worked on the blog and then off to bed.

As we left the Waterside Marina, it was a very overcast, gray day.

This is the spot where the Intracoastal Waterway officially begins.

As usual, we saw many huge Navy ships as we departed the area

Through the haze you can make out Warship 15. They were continually on the VHF alerting all boat traffic of their departure and course out into the ocean.

After about an hour, the fog cleared and we had nice sunny skies. Notice the flat water -- very easy traveling today.

As soon as we officially entered the Chesapeake, out came the fishing poles (no luck, not even a nibble)

A couple of the ubiquitous osprey you'll see in the Chesapeake

This is our anchorage for the night - Jackson Creek, off the town of Deltaville, VA

Gerry putting out the breeze booster. With the warm temperatures, we wanted to take advantage of any breeze. With the forward hatch open and the breeze booster installed, we get a pretty good airflow through the entire boat.

Monk's Vineyard at anchor

A marina closeby our anchorage -- but just for sailboats

Tonight's sunset (taken from JeJuda)