Cruising into Cape Charles What we originally thought was the lighthouse actually was just a water tower designed as a replica of it The actual Cape Charles lighthouse (we got no pics of it) is the tallest in Virginia and the 2nd tallest in the US at 191
Many Tanker ships cruising up the bay as we approached Cape George
It was a very pleasant morning for the cruise from our anchorage at Onancock to Cape Charles with mostly cloudy skies and temps in the high 60’s and low 70’s and light winds making for fair seas. After following the charts and channel markers closely out the few miles of the winding Onancock Creek it was a pretty straight shot down the bay. The total trip was 43.7 miles and took us about 3.5 hrs as we arrived in Cape Charles just before 2pm. Our usual routine of settling in at our slip and we walked Riva into town which was only 100 yards from the boat. Stopping in at several small shops as we made our way up and back the Main Street we found a couple souvenirs (we try to get a fridge magnet to put on the boat at every town we can) and some goodies to add to our dinner menu. We made one final stop for the afternoon for a pre dinner ice cream treat…YOLO! The Brown Dog Creamery makes their own homemade flavors and coffee crunch was of course our selection and proved to be the bomb!
Renee emerging with a scoop of ice cream to share Riva was patiently waiting with Erik on a bench outside for he pup cup
One neat shop had hundreds of crystal clear pictures (this one of Tangier Island) taken by the owner while flying over things to get spectacular aerial shots which he then prints onto aluminum backings
Talented young street musician
This was an original he’d written earlier this summer
Back at the docks Erik cooked up a medium rare T-bone ðĨĐ and cut it into pieces to put over top of a local made red pepper fettuccini drizzled with a sweet onion and garlic balsamic vinegar we had picked up in one of the shops in town earlier accompanied by sweet corn we had scored at the Onancock farmers market this morning. Two thumbs up for the concoction. With satisfied tummies we took another bike ride up to the very nice park where 100’s of folks had gathered for their Sunday music series. It was an entertaining evening listening and dancing to the big band music of ‘Good Shot Judy’. The busy day finally landed us back aboard for showers and bed. We highly recommend Cape Charles as a stop for anyone passing through.
Gorgeous large park on a very active evening There were kids and adults playing pick up games of soccer, lacrosse, whiffle ball, cornhole, and other games all throughout the park in nooks
Realized we hadn’t taken any selfies this trip Also realized Erik’s hairline is receding and he needs a razor ð
Bahaha ðĪĢ
Lots of people enjoying the show on a very comfortable July evening
Big band tunes with ‘Good Shot Judy’ No videos of Erik’s two left feet stepping on Renee’s though
Back at the boat after the music to catch the last of the beautiful colors in the sky while sipping a cup of joe
Erik ALMOST missed the sunrise as he slept in until 5:30am…..unheard of! ð. After relaxing aboard for a while and having a light breakfast we set out on the bikes again, this time with Riva in her basket to enjoy the cool morning air blowing into her face. Pedaling through the streets of Cape Charles we found many beautiful, large, well kept old Victorian homes to look at. There is definitely some money in this town. On the outskirts of the fairly small town is a new neighborhood of obscenely large homes, many right on the bay.
One of many well kept old Victorian homes that lined the streets (many of them boulevards)
Newer homes in Cape George along the bay
Neptune Maquette just off of the sand dunes that separate the streets from the beach
Returning Riva to the cool boat as the day warmed we had a light lunch and suited up for a beach day. The beach was very nice. Soft, fine sand that met the bay and water depths that were very shallow for 100’s of feet out. The afternoon was perfect for laying on and walking the beach with quintessential blue skies and temps in the upper 70’s….ahhhhhh! Conveniently enough the beach access we emerged from just happened to be right up the street from the Brown Dog Creamery, go figure. They did not have our newly beloved coffee crunch today so we ‘settled’ for a regular coffee flavored and a Carmel swirl latte flavored cone. The struggles we face are extraordinary but we somehow made it through.
Love is in the salt air!
We mainly sat around and relaxed the remainder of the afternoon and into the evening. Prepared another pasta dish with the remaining fettuccine from yesterday; this time with chicken, garlic infused olive oil, mushrooms, caramelized onions, and red peppers. We sat and made some plans for the coming couple of days and reserved a slip in Hampton Virginia. As we were preparing to make a trip down to the beach to enjoy the sunset Renee noticed that one leg Of our power to the boat was not working. After some investigation it was found that one of the two 30 amp power inlets was melted and scorched pretty badly. Yikes ðģ! Lucky that we didn’t have a fire aboard. The disconnects and breakers did their job fortunately. We shut down everything on that portion of the electrical and removed the inlet. Renee found a replacement on Amazon and ordered it to be delivered to Hampton tomorrow where we will make the repair and in the meantime manage with power to only half the boat. A late evening of some coffee, showers, and writing this blog, rounded out another wonderful day trudging the waterways of happy Destiny before we headed Off to bed.
The culprit for loosing power to half the boat ðŪ Not good
Our first night as previously described was pretty quiet and uneventful. We were not able to get a second night at the marina because they had a yacht club coming in and they were completely booked. We decided to anchor in the small, quiet harbor so we could spend another day in town. One advantage, aside from the tranquility, of spending nights on the hook is that with the money we save we can spending more on food and entertainment! Erik had found a musical happening at the local playhouse that we were excited to check out. About 11am we moved the boat and dropped anchor a short distance from the marina so we could use the dinghy dock. Shortly after making sure the anchor was holding, we dropped the dinghy and head back to the town where we walked to a small AA meeting at noon. After the meeting we visited the Ker House. the Ker place is a beautiful old mansion built in 1799. Next we stopped at Mallards on the Wharf for a delicious lunch of a Cobb salad and Avocado/mozzarella/BLT both of which we shared. After lunch we got Riva off the boat and brought her in for a walk and potty break.
One of the beautiful homes in Onancock
Another beautiful home
Mural in Onancock
Church
City building
Local theater
Main Street
Park at the marina with Happy Destiny in the background
Another big home!
Very cool Methodist church where the meeting was
Bill W bobble head ð
Ker place mansion and museum
Our view from our anchorage
Rive being chauffeured
It was now time to dinghy in to catch the show “It’s On!” The show was very entertaining with great actors and singers. It was written and directed by Stan Zimmerman who is credited for his writing work on shows and movies such as “The Golden Girls”, “Married With Children”, “Gilmore Girls”, and “Roseanne”. The show was a comedy featuring many old TV theme songs and was quite entertaining. On the way back to the boat after the show we stopped and got dessert; raspberry lemon cake, and cheesecake which we took back to the boat for our bedtime snack with coffee ð. Erik took Riva to shore one last time before bed. We had a peaceful night at anchor with cool breezes, no wind, and only a little light rain.
At curtain call the cast encouraged the audience to join in singing a couple additional TV theme songs
Upon awakening the inverter was sending a low battery alarm to Renee’s phone. We had hoped/planned to not use the generator this trip because we did not unwinterize it, but, decided we would like to charge the battery and make a pot of coffee so we started it up. The generator fired right up on the first try, Always a relief ðĪŠ. Probably good that we did anyhow because motors don’t like to sit that long without being ran. After some sitting aboard and relaxing we headed back to town in the dinghy to check out the farmers market. We got a few little things and some fresh sweet corn ð. Breakfast on the boat then pulled anchor to head for our next stop, Cape Charles!
The spring and early summer of this year brought about a flurry of change and busyness which had our hearts and minds on the most important things in life, family, rather than this years planned completion of our Great Loop adventure. We were stressed, but also incredibly blessed, with spending much of April through a June in Columbus with mom and dad Scheiderer navigating serious health issues that dad had and his unfortunate passing on July 1st. There are many lessons to be learned in this life for certain and the most powerful ones are those shown us by our parents. Dad was a teacher of many things to everyone he encountered through his long life. For us he was the perfect model of fatherly wisdom, service, and most importantly love! Rest well dad. Until we meet again we will look toward the heavens for more lessons and messages you’re sending us ð
Beauty coming from the skies on our drive through the mountains
After initially cancelling our trip, changing plans, and all of the other insanity the summer brought, we decided to launch the boat and spend 2 weeks on the Chesapeake Bay instead of completing our loop this year. We arrived to Deltaville VA on Sunday, 7/19, and got the boat un-winterized and ready to launch. We were exhausted from 6 hrs of working in the heat but headed out to a nearby farm to table joint (The Table) and enjoyed a nice dinner polished off with a shared afagato before heading back to the boat for the night. Erik spent a hour our so Monday morning performing surgery on Renee’s bike that we had drug behind the car through some portion of West Virginia after accidentally not securing it to the bike rack correctly…oops….vice grips and JB Weld to the rescue got it cobbled together to hopefully get us through the trip. Fingers crossed. Launch happened on Monday morning right on schedule!
Happy Destiny gets her bottom wet
With bad weather coming in Tuesday/Wednesday we wanted to get to our first stop pretty quickly so we set off about 11am for Crisfield, MD. The 41 mile trip started off a little bumpy, but mostly smoothed out to a small chop on the water and we arrived around 2:30pm at Somers Cove Marina. After getting tied up and settled in we took a bike ride around town and spent some time by the marinas pool where we met a nice couple who were docked across from us that gave us some local knowledge of the area. Shish kabobs had been marinating all afternoon while we were underway and after a quick grilling on the aft deck we filled our tummies before walking to the pier to catch the sunset before off to bed we went.
Birds o the bay…. Osprey
Welcome to Crisfield MD
Fallen soldier memorial at sunset
Sunset over the harbor at Crisfield
A beautiful evening
Old wooden military boat
Ahhhh….
Riva the crab queen!
The next two days were predicted to be really bad weather, so the plan was to make the best of it and see what we could in Crisfield. Before the hard rains moved in we were able to dodge light rain enough to explore the small, local museum and also ride up the road a couple of miles to Lintons Seafood where we shared an order of hush puppies and picked up a couple of pieces of locally famous ‘Smith Island Cake’ to indulge ourselves with later with our evening cup of coffee. As predicted, the late afternoon and evening brought with it increasing winds and storms. A brief break in the precip and we decided to walk to a nearby church for a 7pm AA meeting in hopes that we could get a ride back if the storms rolled back in. At the meeting, a discussion on the days ‘Daily Reflections’ reading, we as usual met some nice local folks. Lo and behold an older gentleman (probably in his later eighties) with 53 years of sobriety was the first to be of service and to offer us a ride back to the marina. Some may call it coincidence that his name was Harold! You be the judge! ðĪ We choose to believe that there are angels among us!
Interesting facts on the evolution of Chesapeake Bay at the museum
Crisfield was big on making duck decoys
Oysters anyone!
Crisfield is the self proclaimed crab capital
Famous Smith Island Cake We tried a piece of original (Vanilla with chocolate) And a piece of lemon cake with blueberry icing
Safely back aboard Happy Destiny for the evening the storms rolled in with a vengeance! The large, somewhat protected, harbor turned into a washing machine sending waves and chop over the docks and slamming into the aft of the boat as torrential rainfall fell with sustained 30-40 mph winds gusting to 60-70 mph for a couple of hours. We were certain we’d have damage to the flybridge and aft deck canvas enclosures as the rain was driven at us soaking everything above that would normally be dry during any ‘normal’ storm. A steady stream of water poured in through the rear salon door which we sopped up with towels, During a brief slow down in the rain and wind we were able to head up to find no significant damage thankfully; only some rearranging of chairs, an 80+ lb dock box had slid forward and bunched up the aft deck carpet, and multiple snaps and fastening points had come loose from the flybridge enclosure. The strong storms continued through most of the night making for a not particularly restful night of sleep with the diva, Riva, snuggled up trembling between us.
We made it through the stormy night and awoke to a glorious sunrise. It was a special day for us as were celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary. God is good as we continue along this road of happy destiny! After spending some time straightening up the boat from the chaos of the night we lounged around and enjoyed a breakfast of omelettes aboard and we each did some work as it had started raining again; Renee did calculus lesson plans and Erik worked on some staff reviews. The rain stopped mid afternoon so we ventured out on the bikes to enjoy an early anniversary dinner at ‘Home Kitchen’ a new Indian fusion place which was delicious. Erik had called earlier in the day and spoke to the owner, Vinay, to plan s surprise for Renee. He sent him our wedding song (God Blessed the Broken Road) and a song he had made for our anniversary to be played after we arrived and were eating. Brazilian cheese popovers for appetizer were fresh and delish followed by Chicken Tika Masala and Mississippi Chicken both of which were also yummy ð. On the way back to the boat we stopped in at the local ice cream shop to get a quart to enjoy later in the evening. The evening was spent relaxing aboard and planning for our next stops before heading off for what would be a much more restful night of sleep on the now tranquil Somers Cove harbor.
Sunrise on our 20th anniversary Happy Destiny is the boat on the right of this pic
Crabs!
Riva is a boat dog!
We awoke Thursday to light winds and cooler temps which were welcomed. Departing Crisfield at about 9am we headed out into Tangier Sound for a leisurely 14 mile cruise out to Tangier Island. Our excitement for the morning came shortly after departing. About 4 miles out into the bay we were boarded by a the Coast Guard for a vessel inspection. Nice guys, one from Grove City (small world) and we passed the inspection with flying colors. Soon after we were back on our way to Tangier Island. It is a 350 acre island with some very interesting history. It was home to a British base during the War of 1812. Over the past 150+ years it has mainly been a sleepy fishing village. It is now considered to be a disappearing island as the rising sea levels take over and it continually shrinks. It loses 8 acres (15 ft of shoreline) annually and is expected to be totally submerged by 2053.
More birds of the bay Seagull preparing for flight
Well hello Mr Coastie! Guy on right is from Grove City Notice the boat behind us, two other guards hung back after these two boarded
The boat pulls up to ours while we are still underway at idle speed and they board while moving
Renee as we were coming into Tangier Island
Historic Tangier Island from the water
Some history
More history
Riva made it to the beach at Tangier
We threw the lines from the old dilapidated docks at Tangier at 2pm and headed out the cut through toward the bay when Renee hollered that one of the long dock ropes had fallen off the side of the boat and was now entangled in the prop ðŽ. A quick shutdown of the starboard engine and a dicey one engine entry into a nearby private dock soon had Erik goggled up and swimming beneath the boat in his skivvies to free up the rope. With what we thought to be the issue addressed we headed out of the channel and intro the bay only to find that the starboard side was not acting right at all; VERY sluggish. We dropped anchor and Erik again got into the water to swim under and discover there was an additional piece of rope that was still wound tightly around the shaft and cutlass bearing….ugh. He spent the next 1.5 hrs diving under the boat with knives, razor knives, screw drivers, pliers etc trying to free the now melted nylon rope that had hardened around the shaft. He gave up exhausted after getting 95% of it off with the exception of the hardest part that was now on the shaft between the prop and cutlass bearing. After getting back underway heading toward our destination, Onancock VA, we fired up the starboard engine to see how it would do and it performed just fine. We are thinking that last bit of now hardened plastic will likely just remain there for the remainder of this trip until we can get at it better when the boat is taken out. The remainder of the 18 mile trip from Tangier Island to Onancock Wharf was uneventful. The town and wharf sit back off the bay a couple of miles down a nice tranquil river. By the time we got docked and settled in it was about 6pm and we were both tired. We walked up into the small but very beautiful town for a short bit before coming back to the boat to grill burgers for dinner. We sat aboard for the remainder of the nice, comfortable evening relaxing and watching a beautiful sunset before heading off to bed.
