Since we’re here for a bit, we’re taking advantage of the opportunity to cruise the Chesapeake. One of the things I love about cruising Long Island Sound is that you can just go out and sail without a specific plan and choose a destination based on wind – and that’s true here too… there are so many great places to explore!
Linda and Brian told us about Fleets Bay and Antipoison Creek, and it sounded like a good place to start our exploration. We had a perfect sail – one of those days where Silent Sky feels almost alive and the sailing is near-effortless. Coming to sailing later in life, I never truly developed that sense of connection until this trip. I remember a gusty windward sail down the Sea of Abaco where the velocity shifts I used to struggle with suddenly, out of nowhere, made sense. As I beat my way out of the Piankatank River, I realized I was reading and reacting to those changes without even thinking about it. Conditions were perfect – 5-10, gusting maybe 12-15 – and Silent Sky just ate it up. In the past when I said I needed to go sailing, I meant in reality that I needed to be out on the water. This time, the act of sailing was a full mental reset, and it was incredible.
Fleets Bay wasn’t far, so we took a couple long tacks that added time but made the sailing easier. The first anchorage, right off the beach, was well protected from the south but was exposed to anything with a northerly component. While the forecast called for the wind to stay southerly, there were also thunderstorms in the forecast for Sunday morning, so we opted for an anchorage farther up Antipoison Creek with better all-around protection. On our way south, that anchorage would have stressed me out. It was relatively shallow (7-8′) with only enough room for one boat to safely anchor and be clear of the channel, shoreline and crab pots (a second boat might have fit, but it would have been tight), but it didn’t faze me at all. (I remember a similar situation with more room in Solomons where I was all freaked out at being so close to shore.)
Once some afternoon showers passed, we launched Squall to explore our surroundings. We followed Antipoison Creek up to its navigable end and then turned around to check out the beach. Apparently in good weather, the beach is loaded with people, but only four cruising sailboats were anchored up, and the only other people on the beach were two local couples from one of the boats. We chatted about the Abacos and Chesapeake Bay cruising (they were excited to hear we were spending some time here since so many cruisers skip it in their haste to get elsewhere). It felt good to have sand under foot again and I wished we weren’t running out of daylight.
The night was peaceful as could be, and we woke to a dead calm… the calm before the storm. We’re constantly checking weather when we’re out cruising, and our morning weather check confirmed that we wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. Most of the morning was calm and dry but overcast, and the rain didn’t show up until around noon. I spent the morning reading over a cup of coffee, and Chris decided to bake bread.
When the thunderstorm hit, we had near-whiteout conditions and the wind wall brought some impressive gusts. The cell that passed over us was intense – there were several cloud-to-ground strikes in our immediate area, including one that couldn’t have been more than a few hundred yards away. But we were close enough to shore that we didn’t get any wave action at all and even the wind was tempered by the trees. Once the storm passed, the rain shut off as though someone had turned off a shower.
A short time later, we hauled anchor and headed back to Deltaville Marina. We ended up motorsailing the whole way home as we beat into a short chop (1′-2′ waves, building to 2′-3′, every 2-3 seconds), but it was still a gorgeous sail. As the storm clouds dissipated, the sun broke through and we were glad for the reef we’d tucked in as the afternoon breeze built.
It was late when we got back to our slip, which meant there would be no one there to catch our lines. I HATE docking without a dockhand… with my supermodel long legs (ha), getting from the boat onto the dock is always a challenge and I’m never not terrified that I’m going to fall in. But the wind calmed the farther we got into the Piankatank, and by the time we were in Jackson Creek, we only had a light breeze gently pushing us onto the port side of our slip (these slips have finger piers to both port and starboard). It ended up being a really low stress docking and I was able to step off onto the dock easily and get her tied up.
Linda said they’d been worried about us all day and thought about texting to check in since a bunch of boats came in during the height of the storm, and I appreciated her concern. It’s nice to know that even though we’re on our own out here, people are looking out for us (and I really appreciated that she kept our slip open for us… we could have anchored for the night, but it was nice to get back into the slip and be done – especially since we’re entirely out of food and need to grab the car and go shopping in the morning)! I feel incredibly lucky to be part of this amazing community.
