Every Chesapeake Bay Cruising Trip is Just a Bit Too Short...
Waking up in a new creek… especially to a blue sky following five grey days. Watching a blue heron wing its way across marshland. Noticing the cat’s paws of breeze along the water. Discovering a few “for sale” signs along this new creek, knowing you couldn’t afford it but pretending maybe someday you could. Imagining you lived there, how you’d maximize your waterfront lot, place the Adirondack chairs facing the sunset, rack the paddleboards just so, line up the kayaks, arrange the boat lifts---there’s be more than one, of course, one for the sailboat, one for the skiff (it’s my fantasy after all).
One of the many things I love about traveling by boat and then exploring by paddleboard or kayak is the ability to get up close and personal with neat waterfront properties. We wonder who lives in these places and often remark how many seem empty. We’re thrilled when we spy someone doing something so basic as scrub the boat on the dock or read the paper on the terrace while drinking coffee—really enjoying waterfront living.
Carter’s Creek off the Rappahannock in Irvington, VA, home of the Rappahannock River Yacht Club and the Tides Inn, is one of the prettiest creek neighborhoods we’ve visited recently, and the creek’s many branches go on and on, which makes it a great creek to paddle.
When we arrived on Wednesday evening in our 40-foot sloop, the RRYC was conducting a Typhoon (14.5-foot dinghy) race at the mouth of the river. We went around the race course and thereby past the RC and joked that we were there to check in. They laughed and played along, asking what our sail number was. We liked the place already.
We had a pleasant mix of chicken and vegetable leftovers on deck last night and a good night’s sleep. After exploring the creek by SUP this morning, we sailed around in 12-18 knots of breeze on the wide river, the “Rivah” they call it around here. I only learned today that the Rappahannock is 195 miles long and extends to Fredericksburg. I have much to learn about this interesting river, much more than a two-day visit can give me.
As I sit writing this evening from Dozier’s Marina in Broad Creek, watching the sunset colors as my laundry dries, I know that I’ll be back. Two days is never enough, but it’s a big Bay, and it will take two days to work our way back up, so we can get to work after this long holiday… But before then, we have miles to go and friends to meet. On we go.
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