Starry Horizon - Exploring the southern Chesapeake Bay

Who: Amy & David
Where: Chesapeake Bay
Multihull: Hélia 44
Blog : www.outchasingstars.com 

After nearly a year on the hard, we were ready to get back to the boating life! We were excited to get out sailing on the Chesapeake Bay and explore all the nooks and crannies we’d been hearing so much about. All in all, we got to spend a lot of time around Norfolk, which we loved, and then explored up to Deltaville. We dropped the hook at Mill Creek next to Fort Monroe, where we stayed for a week. This wide and shallow bay had good holding even if it was a little rolly sometimes. Tropical Storm Elsa was coming, and Mill Creek was far too unprotected. We upped anchor and motored to Mobjack Bay and anchored off Stump Point in the Severn River. This was a very pretty anchorage. The winds got up to 40 knots, and we probably should have anchored further into the river, but we held well and didn’t drag. One of our boat projects wasn’t going well, and we needed to pull into a dock again to send David up the mast. We made our way up to Deltaville. We wanted to stop at Gwen’s Island for two nights, but the bridge isn’t opening on demand anymore, and the openings are only early morning or late evening, so we had to skip it. Because we got to Deltaville early, we anchored first on the south side, just off Deltaville Marina for two nights. The creek is narrow, but there’s enough room for at least half a dozen boats and the holding was good. We had another storm roll through, winds and lashing rain up to 40 knots! We left Deltaville about five weeks after departing Cape Charles. In the bay, the water is very brown and muddy. If you run your watermaker, you will burn through a filter or two per cycle! There are jellyfish in the Chesapeake Bay, especially during July and August. We did not swim. When we came to a marina, we always had a T-head dock. It’s been very still and hot. In fact, somewhere in Mobjack Bay we decided we would be much more comfortable at a marina, so after getting our project done in Deltaville, we hop, skipped, and jumped up to Baltimore where we spent over a month enjoying being plugged in.