Chesapeake White Caps

I think the only white caps we’ve seen on the Chesapeake are those created by powerboats, water skiers, sea dos or kids rollicking in the water. There hasn’t been enough wind here to cause much wave action.

When there is some wind, the waves set up by the hundreds of thousands of motorboats cause the wind to spill out of the sails and the wake throws us 20 degrees off course and limits forward progress. Then one starts to sail again but within minutes another powerboat roars by. The other day we anchored in Annapolis for 2 nights and the water was so disturbed from the movement of powerboats that we had to stay ashore during the day returning in the evening when the motion was livable.

I can’t recommend the Chesapeake as a long distance sailor’s destination. The water is very silty, the anchorages close to towns have very little in the way of services with shopping centres located miles from town. The water is usually very shallow and the towns are located up long inlets. The one last item to mention is the abysmal public transportation – here’s a story (link) to shake your head at re: public transportation.

Yes, there’s lots of history onshore to discover – if you can get transportation – very friendly people, great crab cakes, yacht services galore, marinas up the yin yang and lots of arts and crafts.

In retrospect it’s a great place to sail to, leave your boat in a marina or on the hard and travel overland. We left our boat in Almshouse Creek with Westbrook and Cindy. Using Trustedhousesitters.com we managed to find an apartment with 2 cats to housesit for a week in Washington DC. It was a great experience, the condo well located to public transportation and in an interesting area called Columbia Heights. For a week we wandered around Washington, visiting museums (all free), testing restaurants, saying hello to Donald (don’t get me going), dancing the nights away in an African bar, wandering through neighbourhoods and joining in on July 4th celebrations on the Mall.

At present we are headed to the Chesapeake-Delaware canal and crossing over from the Chesapeake to the Delaware river and then north to New York. If you have any spare wind please send it our way.

A few photos

We joined an Ocean Cruising Club rally and this was the ‘dinghy drift’ on our last evening

Our generous hosts on Almshouse Creek – Westbrook and Cindy

Almshouse Creek

Connie attending to the painting details

Seen out front of the White House – need I say more

The Renwick Gallery Washington – The Art of Burning Man

Renwick Gallery

A replica of one of the ‘burning man’ temples which are burned at the end of the festival

One of Washington’s newest museums – African-American museum. A beautiful building with an incredible exhibition on slavery from the beginnings up to modern times

The Vietnam memorial. Simple, exquisite, moving…

July 4th on the mall with entertainment, fireworks and buckets of patriotism

Despite the cold, austere and unwelcoming feeling of the Canadian embassy nothing can beat the amazing Bill Reid bronze from the Pacific North West – made me homesick

Finally my next ship – oh to ride the waves in a ship like this