1800 Days – Seg. 15, Ch. 4, Pg. 1-5

Chapter 4 - Chesapeake Explorations

 

    Even studying charts and maps does not adequately convey what a remarkable body of water is the Chesapeake Bay. You have to explore it, experience it first hand and at close range. To realize that it is the country's largest estuary, to know that it is almost 200 miles long, does not tell even a fraction of the story. The shoreline of the bay is immense, scalloped into many bays and peninsulas and islands. Many large rivers enter the bay on both the eastern and western shores, some extending for more than a hundred miles inland, and each of these invites further exploration. We were a little acquainted with the upper bay through our recent cruise to Havre de Grace, and of course we began our life with Summer School on the Sassafras River on the upper eastern shore. But we knew little of the middle and lower bay regions having merely passed through these areas on our way south and north, yet most of the large bays, islands and rivers occurred in these areas. We thought we had a wonderful opportunity for a leisurely exploration of this part of the bay from the end of August through the middle of October, possibly even the beginning of November, until falling temperatures drove us south.

    But first we had to get through Labor Day weekend. We did not want to be traveling on the water during the madness of this holiday weekend. Neither did we wish to remain at Rolph's and be buffeted by the wakes from all the boat traffic that was sure to occur. So we left Rolph's on Friday, August 30, and traveled just two miles upriver to Chestertown where we anchored in the middle of the river opposite the town waterfront. This area was an enforced NO WAKE zone, an established anchorage with marinas on the shore, and we hoped to be able to enjoy the charms of Chestertown, this time from the water, for one last weekend. Friday was Day 110 of our new lives.

    We dropped our anchor at 11 a.m. in the middle of the river and a little south of Kibler's Marina and the Olde Wharf Inn. Considering expected boat traffic, depth, and possible swinging room, we thought that this was an ideal location even though we were about a half mile from the town dinghy dock on the waterfront next to the inn. We made sure that our anchor was very well set in the thick mud of the river and we let out 150 feet of anchor line to give us adequate scope in case of a strong wind. This was a real possibility since Hurricane Edouard, a category 4 storm with winds of 140 mph, was churning a thousand miles away but heading to the mid-Atlantic coast. It could affect us as early as Sunday if it came our way.

    We spent the remainder of Friday quietly on our boat, resting, reading, doing a little boat work, watching other boats come into the marina or anchor off the docks. The weather was perfect with clear skies, light winds and afternoon temperatures in the low eighties. We started the generator at 5 p.m. so we could watch the news of Edouard on television and cool the boat with the air-conditioner. After a dinner of fresh flounder, potatoes au gratin and chilled white wine we settled in for the night, feeling happy and secure in the middle of this beautiful river. After dark, through our large port salon window, we watched a nearly full moon rise through the trees on the shore. We felt worlds away from Rolph's Wharf.

    Our nearly perfect weather continued on Saturday though the temperatures were slightly warmer. The morning weather discussion from NOAA suggested that Edouard may veer away from a landfall on the coast so we were hopeful that we might be able to escape dealing with a hurricane. We lowered Recess into the water off the swim platform, mounted its three horsepower outboard, loaded the life-preservers, spare gas can, oars and various other items that we always carried when traveling in the dinghy, and pulled away from Summer School by mid-morning, anxious to visit Chestertown, which was having its "first annual" jazz festival in the city park on the waterfront. We remained for several hours in the park listening to the music and lunching on hot dogs and beer.

    In the evening we again took our dinghy into town to enjoy a celebratory dinner at the Olde Wharf Inn. The next day, Sunday September 1, would mark exactly seven years since we spent our first night together and this was a much more meaningful anniversary to us than August 1, which corresponded to our actual marriage in 1994 that took place in the office of a ReMax real estate broker while we were on our way to do some shopping in Marathon. This marriage was a merely practical step we took to be certain I could keep medical insurance if I quit my job. The September 1 date, in contrast, was the anniversary of our emotional commitment. After large and satisfying dinners we took Recess back downriver to our boat, weaving through the other anchored boats in the darkness with only the light of the moon to show us the way across the water. It seemed magical riding across the river in the moonlight where we could easily see the small ripples and eddies caused by the current. Back onboard Summer School we turned on the generator and the air-conditioner because the night was still warm.

    Sunday morning brought both good news and bad. The good was that we had escaped Edouard. The morning NOAA weather report stated that the hurricane had taken the hoped-for turn to the north and would stay well off shore. This was a major relief and we felt that now we could proceed with our cruising plans.

    The bad news was that on my routine morning check of the engine room, the battery voltage of our house batteries was low at 12.32 volts under no load. This value indicated that the batteries were only about half charged despite the fact that the generator, and therefore the battery charger, had been run overnight for 12 hours. This length of time should have been more than sufficient to charge the batteries fully, which would have produced a no-load voltage of 12.6 volts minimum. I did not know whether our golf-cart batteries that we used for the house batteries had begun to deteriorate or whether we had some other electrical problem. In either case the problem had to be resolved. We needed to be able to stay at anchor for extended periods of time without constantly running the generator.

    Despite the nagging worry caused by the battery problem, Sunday was a quiet peaceful day. Except for a dinghy ride through the anchorage we stayed onboard, had a good brunch followed by short naps, watched the opening game of the NFL season, and talked about the various possibilities for our fall cruise on the Chesapeake.

    We consulted the charts and the cruising guides and discussed the areas we would most like to see. There were so many possibilities that we knew we had to be very selective. In the end we decided that we would take September and most of October to explore the middle of the Chesapeake, the area roughly between the Bay Bridge connecting the eastern to the western shore near Annapolis, and the Maryland-Virginia border. The highlight of our cruise was to be a 100 mile trip up the Potomac River to Washington, D.C., which we wanted to do a little later in the fall when the temperatures would be cooler.

    Before then, we intended to explore the eastern shore of this section of the bay. When we left Chestertown we would follow the Chester downriver in a generally southwest direction. Before the Chester enters the Chesapeake it makes a big sweeping turn to the north to get around Love Point, the northern tip of Kent Island, which is a large island running about 15 miles from north to south, and connected to mainland Maryland by a bascule bridge over a narrow channel of water called Kent Narrows. By transiting Kent Narrows it is possible to go directly from the Chester River to a large bulge in the Chesapeake called Eastern Bay, and we were very interested in this area. At the northern end of Eastern Bay was Wye Island, a Natural Resources Management Area owned and managed by the state of Maryland and known for its wildlife including a resident population of swans. At the southern end of the bay was the Miles River and St. Michaels, which we had enjoyed so much when we visited it by car. St. Michaels itself is on a narrow neck of land on the other side of which is the large complex of waterways at the mouth of the Choptank River, another of the major rivers on the Eastern shore. It was home to the attractive small towns of Oxford and Cambridge, which we had also visited once by car. Good anchorages abounded throughout all of these waters, and any of the towns would make interesting stops to sight-see and reprovision. We thought we would explore these areas before crossing the Chesapeake to begin our trip up the Potomac to Washington. It seemed a good and simple plan, and we were anxious to begin. We had no way of knowing on that Sunday just how much the weather would change it.

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1800 Days – Seg. 14, Ch. 3, Pg. 14-24(end)

The Manor House at Rolph's Wharf

    Rolph's Wharf was more than a marina. It was a multi-faceted business run by a young middle-aged couple, Chip and Sandy, and centered around a beautiful old manor house dating from the 1830s that they owned and operated as a country bed and breakfast establishment named the River Inn. On the five or six acres of beautiful grounds surrounding the house there were shade trees and picnic areas, an in-ground swimming pool (available for use by residents of Chestertown as well as patrons of the marina or inn), a swimming beach on the river, a restaurant and a field that was used as a dry dock area for the boats that were stored there. There was a launching ramp and small boats for rent (both of these facilities used primarily on the weekends by people from town). The marina itself was small, only about 40 slips total. It was comprised of two piers that extended out into the river at right angles to the banks. The northern-most pier was the smaller of the two; it contained the marina office, some slips for smaller boats and a fuel dock at the end. The southern pier contained slips suitable for larger boats up to about 40 feet. When we arrived, there were a few older cruising boats and a number of large houseboats moored on this pier. We took a slip towards the far end where the water was deep enough (barely) to accommodate our four foot draft.


Our Dock at Rolph's

     Rolph's Wharf was located on the east side of the river as it made a big sweeping bend from the southeast to the northwest before it approached Chestertown, only two river miles upstream. The river was still big here with a width of a half mile. From the shore at Rolph's you had an unimpeded view upstream for more than a mile toward the bend in the river below Chestertown, while you could see three miles downriver to where it curved around Northwest Point. While these clear views enabled us to watch spectacular sunsets and gave us a feeling of space, particularly after the confines of the hill-sheltered basin at Summit North, they also meant that Rolph's Wharf was exposed to long stretches of the river and open to whatever wind and waves developed, a feature that led to some problems while we stayed there. Nevertheless it was good to be on a river with movement and life in the water after the near stagnation at Summit North.

One of our Sunsets from Rolph's (Typical)

    The day after we arrived we retrieved our car from Summit North and arranged to have our mail forwarded to the post office in Chestertown. In this way we quickly became settled in our new location. We were well pleased, delighted by the appearance and facilities at Rolph's, the surrounding rural countryside, and the amenities and character of nearby Chestertown. It did not take us long to decide to remain at Rolph's until the end of August, and Chip seemed glad to have us there. With our status as coastal cruisers and full-time live-aboards we were very much a novelty among the local boats that seldom left the dock and never traveled far.
    Although there were exceptions, our days at Rolph's were mainly quiet and happy and full. During the almost two months we lived there on our boat, our life was essentially a pastoral idyll. Typically, during the morning, I worked on my writing in the office in the forward cabin. Nancy would frequently take a long walk as part of her conditioning program and then work on some of her projects, perhaps an article she was preparing for possible publication in one of the boating magazines. After our sandwich lunch we would work on the boat if that were needed and we would often tend crab traps that we set out from the dock during this time. (The Chester River is justly famous for its number and quality of blue crabs, and we always caught enough, almost without trying, for a delicious appetizer or, occasionally, a complete meal.) If boat work did not demand our attention we sometimes drove to Chestertown for shopping, mail or other errands. Frequently we went for bike rides. There was a paved road, Rolph's Wharf Road, that we could follow for about two miles to the intersection with Highway 213. The road was bordered by fields of corn and other crops, the grades were gentle and the traffic was always light. It was ideal for biking. There was a local vegetable stand near the intersection with 213 and we frequently brought back fresh vegetables. On hot days we sometimes swam in the pool before showers and dinner, after which, in the evening, we almost always walked around the grounds and the marina, or perhaps we would fish from the end of our dock. (In contrast to the crabbing, fishing was unproductive while we were there.) The time after dark was reserved for reading, writing in our journals, sharing our ideas or discussing our plans and future possibilities. We always had our nightcaps before bed.

Dinner - A Pot of Blue Crabs Ready for Steaming

    Unless you are familiar with the complexities and potential problems of a full-time live-aboard cruising boat it may seem strange that working on our boat played such a significant and continuing part in daily activities. But since Summer School was our only home and, in addition, we depended on it to take us to various places along the east coast through many different kinds of conditions, its proper functioning was absolutely critical to our lives. It would not do to have our main engine, the Perkins diesel, fail as we were crossing one of the large sounds in North Carolina or Georgia, or perhaps cruising the open ocean from Florida to the Bahamas as we had done previously. Such a failure would not only be hazardous, but it would be extremely expensive to have our boat towed to a repair facility or marina. But beyond this, neither could we maintain our planned life-style with extended periods at anchor if our old diesel generator, Tommy, failed. There were potentially serious or dangerous problems with many other things as well: our fresh water system, our air-conditioning system, our waste disposal system, the propane system, the boat's steering gear, the anchoring system, the navigational systems, etc. Not only could our lives be negatively impacted by failures in such areas, repair or replacement of almost anything on a boat could be very expensive and could significantly deplete our small financial resources.
    We knew that regular care and preventive maintenance were absolutely necessary to the success of our adventure. One of our main accomplishments while staying at Rolph's was the development of a series of computer spreadsheets to help us schedule checks, inspections and routine maintenance. We also used this spreadsheet system to help us keep track of the contents of the various onboard storage areas including necessary supplies (engine oils, transmission oils, engine coolant, etc.) and spare parts (impellers for the various pumps, fan belts, oil and fuel filters, water and waste valves, etc.). The spreadsheets listed each task together with the corresponding service interval (weekly, monthly, every 200 engine hours, etc.), and provided a series of spaces where we could fill in the date that each item was performed. Without these spreadsheets we had already found that keeping on top of needed maintenance was difficult and confusing. When was the last time the head drains were treated? When did I last check the water levels in the batteries? When did I last change the outboard gear oil? When did I last change the oil and filter in the main engine? In the generator? When did I last check the packing around the propeller shaft? And on and on and on. Now we hoped to be able to keep track of the myriad tasks necessary to the proper upkeep and maintenance of our traveling home on the water, and we hoped that this would help spare us unnecessary delays and plan changes, major unexpected expenses, and perhaps even hazardous situations. Not only did future developments confirm our expectations, but the boat work we did at Rolph's, both the mental as well as the physical, gave us great satisfaction and helped add depth and purpose to our lives.    

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    But of course we had to deal with some problems while at Rolph's, problems due to the exposed position of the docks on the river, problems due to weather, difficulties with some of the old-timers on the docks who had been coming to their boats at Rolph's for years, and problems with my health. But we tried to learn from all of these, to develop strategies that would help us cope.
    Rolph's was on the east side of the river and the arrangement of the marina was such that the boats, as they lay in their slips, were aligned parallel to the river. The problem with this was that any boat traveling on the river at speed would produce a wake that would send waves toward the shore that would strike the moored boats broadside and cause them to rock from side to side and bounce up and down. If the boat on the river was large and moving at anything other than a slow idle speed the waves it produced could be several feet high and the effects on the boats tied to the docks could be severe; the boats would toss violently pulling hard against the dock lines, perhaps knocking things in the cabins onto the floor or hitting the docks or the finger piers or the pilings. Real damage could be done. People standing on the decks could be knocked down and injured. There was not any Coast Guard sanctioned NO WAKE zone near the marina so transiting boats did not by law have to slow down. Chip had put out two small NO WAKE buoys at either end of the marina, but these had no legal status and were very difficult to see from a traveling boat in the middle of the river. Although maritime law held that any moving boat was legally responsible for any damage caused by its wake, this was no consolation for the anxiety caused by trying to hold the pans on the stove when cooking dinner or, even worse, trying to keep from being thrown off the boat when working up on the bridge. Also, a fast boat was gone and out of sight by the time its wake hit the marina. I think that many of the boats did not even notice the marina because it was small and the river was wide. One day, even a Coast Guard boat passed up the river at speed creating a troublesome wake. When Nancy called them on the radio they slowed down immediately and apologized but of course by then it was too late, the wake had already been created. The wake problem was especially severe on weekends.
    Other worries caused by our exposed position on the river were created by the weather. This was a real concern to us since shortly after we arrived at Rolph's, Hurricane Bertha came plowing through the Atlantic toward the North Carolina coast. Although hurricane-force winds would make the river extremely rough and generate high uncomfortable wave action, the really significant dangers would be caused by the force of the winds on the boats at the docks and the tidal surge that developed. At our slip the surface of the pier was only about two feet above the normal high water mark. The end of the dock at the T-head was even lower. A significant surge could put the docks under water and leave us stranded, if we were on the boat, or unable to get to the boat if we were on shore. An even greater problem would be caused by the effect of the wind and surge on the boats and the dock structure. A tidal surge of five feet, say, would tend to raise the boats five feet in the slips. If the docks were fixed as at Rolph's, as opposed to floating as at Summit North, and the docking lines were not able to accommodate this increase in height, an enormous strain would be placed on the lines, the boats, the pilings and dock structure with consequent serious damage. Yet if too much slack were left in the lines, the boats would be blown about violently in the slips before or after the surge, crashing into pilings and other parts of the docks. In the worst case pilings would be pulled free of the bottom, the docks would break apart and everything would be carried away by the wind and the tides. It is for this reason that many marinas required boats to be removed prior to the arrival of a hurricane, either by finding a sheltered anchorage (a "hurricane-hole") or other safer moorage with strong floating docks, or by having them hauled and stored on land.
    On the night of Thursday, July 11, just nine days after we had arrived, we studied the charts of the local area to see if we could find a hurricane-hole in nearby waters. Bertha was forecast to slam into the North Carolina coast on Friday and then come up the Chesapeake before heading out to sea again through the New York City area. We found that, about ten miles down the Chester, another river entered from the west called the Corsica River, much narrower than the Chester. The charts showed that adequate depths, yet without being too deep, were held to well upstream. Of real interest to us was a place about three miles up the Corsica, sheltered from the larger expanse of the Chester by several points of land, where a narrow creek entered the Corsica on its north bank. This was Emory Creek. Two depth soundings were shown on the chart: one at eight feet and, farther up, another at six feet. If these were accurate, and if we could find our way into the creek past the inevitable shoals near the mouth, we might find excellent protection there, perhaps even being able to tie mooring lines to trees along the banks. However, we would certainly need to explore this creek carefully, preferably by dinghy, before attempting to use it.
    By Friday, our weather began to deteriorate. Although Bertha had made landfall in North Carolina causing major damage, it was predicted that it would lose considerable strength before entering Chesapeake waters. We decided to remain in our slip at Rolph's rather than risk the exploration of new waters in deteriorating weather. We retied our boat more in the center of the slip with as much clearance as possible from pilings and the dock, adding extra lines and securing all our lines in such a way that they were as long as possible. Up on the bridge we folded up the Bimini top. Everything that was not tied down on the bridge and the decks was moved to the interior of the boat. And then we waited. Rain began in the afternoon and by night it was a torrent with rising winds. There were small leaks from the forward and aft hatches and from one of the windows in the aft cabin that kept us busy mopping up. At about 11 p.m. we went to bed amid the sounds of strong wind and lashing rain. I was awakened at 4 a.m. on Saturday morning by the sound of strong winds and the boat tugging hard on the mooring lines. The wind continued throughout the day but it was far from hurricane strength. The highest gust we recorded on our weather station was 39 mph. Nevertheless we experienced a significant storm surge that caused the low tide to be higher than the normal high tide. For a while the end of the dock at the T-head was under water. But there was no serious damage either to ourselves, other boats or the marina itself. By late Saturday afternoon the wind had subsided and the sky had cleared. We felt very fortunate.

Brushed by Hurricane Bertha - Docks beginning to Flood

    About ten days later we did cruise to the Corsica River and anchor there overnight so we would have ample time to explore Emory Creek. We had a fine anchorage at the mouth of the creek, and we found the creek itself to be just deep and wide enough to accommodate Summer School if we needed secure shelter during some future storm.
    Throughout all our time at Rolph's I had periodic bouts with the ulcer condition that had plagued me for the past year. At times I had a gnawing ache in the pit of my stomach. I regularly took Zantac and, during times of the worst attacks, I took Pepto-Bismol several times a day. On July 16 we drove to Philadelphia for my regularly scheduled visit to Dr. Mason. He was pleased with the status of my leukemia: my white cell count was in the normal range and my platelet count, while still low, had increased significantly. However, he was quite concerned with my continued stomach problems. He strongly urged that I see a GI (gastro-intestinal) specialist and provided me with a list of doctors he would recommend. However, I demurred, still hoping that this problem would go away now that we had our happy lives on the boat. But by the end of the month it had become worse, and I consulted with one of the specialists, a Dr. Ruffini in Delaware. On August 7 Dr. Ruffini performed an endoscopy and biopsy of my esophagus and stomach, a procedure I had been dreading, at Cristiana Hospital in Delaware. The results showed that I had scarring from an old peptic ulcer, a moderately sized hiatal hernia, and small areas of erosion in the esophagus. The biopsy was negative. He prescribed Prilosec, which was at that time a new and powerful drug for the treatment of such conditions, and told me that I probably would have to take it indefinitely. However, he promised it would eventually relieve my discomfort and for that I was grateful if perhaps a little skeptical.
    Our problems with people on the dock were not nearly as serious as those due to Bertha or my health, but they were nevertheless annoying. The dock was populated by three houseboats and an equal number of older cabin cruisers. All these boats were used mainly for live-aboard bases on weekends and summer vacations. The people formed a tightly linked social group that had been coming to Rolph's for many years. For their purposes they had an ideal situation: very inexpensive long term slip rentals; beautiful grounds complete with picnic tables and a large gas grill available for their use; easy access from their homes in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware; excellent crabbing right from the dock and elsewhere in the nearby waters; reasonably good fishing especially for striped bass (usually called rock-fish locally) in season. They usually arrived on Friday evening and took over the dock and the grounds. They had been the only ones on the dock for so many years that they acted as if they owned it, and it was this attitude and the actions resulting from it that we found annoying. Soon after they arrived late on Friday afternoon they would put out their crab traps from almost every piling and post on the dock including the ones in our slip. These would be tended at frequent intervals throughout the weekend. They would set out a lot of equipment onto the dock including their deck chairs, which they arranged in a group so that they all could sit and visit and chat, at a location between our slip and the shore. Every time we walked down the dock we had to excuse ourselves and ask them to move so we could get by. Similarly, they took over the picnic tables and the grill on shore for their pot-luck suppers and crab boils, automatically assuming that they were the only ones to use these facilities, which were thus not available for us or any other transient boaters who might come in to Rolph's for the weekend. Such transient cruisers (and there were not many during our time at the marina) would also have to run the gauntlet down the congested dock through the group sitting on the deck chairs. Most other marinas that we knew would not have allowed the docks to become congested and blocked, but apparently this had always been the way at Rolph's. We were outsiders, different, not part of the group. Although these people were reasonably polite (though certainly not considerate), at least at first, it was obvious that our residence on the dock was not entirely welcome. As we continued to stay, there came to be increasing friction. During the latter half of our time at Rolph's we usually left the marina for much of the weekends, using this time to explore the local area or enjoy the facilities and activities in Chestertown. This practice also spared us the worst of the problems due to the wakes of passing boats.
    Despite the few difficulties we encountered at Rolph's, in the balance our experiences were good and we enjoyed our lives there. Besides, two events occurred that summer that made it easy to put our little problems in perspective. On July 27 a bomb exploded at the Summer Olympics killing 2 and injuring 110. Previously, on July 17 TWA Flight 800 dropped out of the sky off Long Island, killing 230 people, perhaps destroyed by a ground-launched missile as some claimed. What kind of a country were we living in, I asked in my journal. Our lives on the boat seemed far removed from these things, for which we were glad, and our little problems appeared to be very insignificant.
    As we neared the end of August we became very restless. We were anxious to be on our way, to take the next step in our adventure. We had come to the conclusion that we would spend the winter somewhere in North Carolina, perhaps in Beaufort, which we had enjoyed so much on our cruise north the previous year, and where, we had heard, there were good winter rates on slip rentals. We eschewed going to Florida, as ever trying to avoid crowds and congestion. And we thought that perhaps on the North Carolina coast we would have enough of colder weather to satisfy our desire for a change of season without having temperatures so low that there would be resulting problems to worry us such as water freezing. But we did not want to head south toward North Carolina while there was still the likelihood of encountering really hot weather. Instead we decided to take some time during the fall to explore part of the Chesapeake, something that we had always wanted to do.