Sassafras River, MD to Delaware City, DE

Sassafras River starts in DE, then flows through MD

There is a Sassafras Riverkeeper: https://www.shorerivers.org/sassafras

On Sassafras, just east of Betterton near the inland pond, we wonder if this boat is also a Bruce Roberts design, a metal hull

Still morning on the Sass. We kayaked to the shore, to the pond, saw vulture hanging out and sunning themselves.

Now out of the river heading north, from safely outside the channel, ships sneak up.

T here are a few houses on cliffs at the mouth of the Sassafras. Notice the area on the right has stone on the shoreline and trees established above them, holding the soil in place, while next door area has nothing. Having rocks deposited is expensive, I'm sure.

Pre-canal channel buoys are close together. We follow just outside the channel to stay out of way of ship traffic, until we have to go inside the buoys by the Elk River.

https://buttonwoodbeach.com/

On C&D Canal:

Back Creek Mooring Basin

Schaefer's restaurant in the shadow of the Chesapeake City Bridge.

The Route 1 Roth bridge then the old Route 13 St Georges bridge. I love the old next the new.

Chesapeake City Chesapeake Inn was hoppin', but too shallow for us

The train lift bridge would be too low for us if it were down, but the radio is quiet now - no sign of train.

I missed some bridges, but this is Reedy Point Bridge below. The last bridge before exiting the canal to the Delaware River (Bay). We'll take a left and go north to entrance to Delaware City - old canal branch.

Below, The entrance to Delaware City branch canal, is too shallow for us now since the water is below the crossbars on the green daymarker. We'll anchor for an hour or 2.

We are not alone, ship at the port of Delaware City.

Rhode River to Sassafras River

Sunrise on the Rhode River, looking toward the river entrance to West River and Bay

Thomas Point Lighthouse looking north to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge

 chart of where I took the photo below

It's been a bunch of times for me, but you never forget your first time under.

Leaving the bridge behind:

Sandy Point Park entrance to Mezik Ponds

Baltimore Harbor Light

Choptank, across the bay to Rhode River

The good 15 knot wind only lasted for about an hour on our way out of the Choptank. We noticed the digital and magnetic compasses disagreed 90 degrees! We couldn't remember moving anything magnetic in the boat that could have caused this, so I took out all the canned goods from the pantry and the music speakers on the shelf. These things are in the vicinity of the digital compass, but really should be too far to make a difference.

We motored a few circles once we were away from the crabpots and crab boats to synch the compass again. We got them to closely agree and i put everything back except the speakers and it stayed fine.

We motorsailed across the bay in light winds, while a storm passed south of us through Norfolk.

nice "hat off" to us

by Poplar Island

Cranes north of Poplar Island

http://www.poplarislandrestoration.com/ 

We sailed with the main, to anchor in Rhode River, the cicadas in the trees were REALLY loud!

Swordfish dinner with broccoli and pasta with pesto. No cicadas on the menu!

Dophins in the Rhode River! early June

Wicomico on Eastern Shore to Choptank (Leadenham Creek)

Tues, June 1, We first made conservative plans to sail to Little Choptank for next night's shelter, but after seeing that old James Island had only a few trees left on it at "sea level" (it looked bigger on the chart), not to be much shelter from wind or waves, we figure we might as well sail to the "big" Choptank and possibly see some friends. We made the choice to not turn right around 1 pm, so we had lots of time to to get there by mid afternoon. We spinnakered a bit, then motorsailed when the wind dwindled.

James Island - now 3 separate tiny islands, north of Taylors Island, in the 1660s totalled 1350 acres.

So, we didn't make any of our 5 goal rivers or towns mentioned on the "first page", but we did explore a SMALL portion of the eastern shore shallows, and are glad we did it. We know we just "have a taste" and an idea of how much time we need to make it to Crisfield and Onancock next time.

Boaters know about "boat time". Plans change day to day, hour to hour. Because we WANT them to change or because they HAVE to due to weather, etc. Again, we might have made it farther south if we didn't hang out in the 2 Mill Creeks off of the Patuxent during the stormy weather. With the possible poor holding power of the eastern shore mud and large spaces between sheltered areas, we didn't want to be caught there in bad weather.

We headed up the Leadenham River to Baby Owl Cove. Some friends took us to visit Oxford and back.

Patuxent to Hooper Straight on Eastern Shore

We sailed to the eastern shore to see the sailing and navigation challenges we have heard of, and to see some of the 39 bay vanishing islands before they are gone. Erosion from storms and waves, climate change are causing shorelines to erode away and retreat. I will mention some island information from the wonderful book "The Disappearing Islands of the Chesapeake" by William Cronin 2005.

The 7.9 changed to 8.0 in knot speed under main and spinnaker. Good for 30,000 pound Justice! (in True wind 18 knots. Water temperature 68.63 in 21.2 feet of water.)

Flock of Pelicans and passing fish traps to port

We sailed between the 63' tall Hooper Island Light (location west of Hoopersville on chart below) and the fish traps (not on chart). 

By eastern shore of MD, we mean Dorchester and Somerset counties, southwest of Delaware border.

Here see Upper, Middle and Lower Hooper Islands, connected by bridges. Honga River is on the inside.

Middle Hooper still has dwellings and people living and working there,

left photo

Right photo with overlap

Lower Hooper's dwellings and farms are gone now:

The first opportunity to get in with our 6.5 draft, is below Lower Hooper Island through the Hooper Straight.  We continued east. With Bishops Head to the north and Bloodsworth Island to the south, It goes SE then NE. The channel buoys were findable but I wouldn't want to find them for the first time in low visibility or at night. During the day, sometimes you need binoculars to see the next mark.

I could spend all day counting "Danger areas" on the bay. See the one to the right of Bloodsworth Isl. - 

property of US  Navy, in 2005, was still used for bombing and ordnance testing and training navy Seal teams.

Hooper Straight 41' tall marker, hard to see in haze from afar with it's skinny legs, but we did not need it before we could see it:

I am still trying to find out what these wooden cross structures on Bloodsworth Island are.

The "Straight" is not very straight. Above is "heading up" orientation.

Wide enough for barges and tugs to get through, but i wouldn't want to pass one in the narrow parts to the channel. We saw one coming out before we "went in".

Once through the straight, we headed south toward Deal Island, which would lead to Crisfield about 12 miles south. We examined the vastness of these open spaces between low-lying islands that don't provide wind protection. Most of the bottom outside of the channels is very shallow. Only little slivers of 10 - 7 feet anchorable areas exist. So now that we have an updated weather report, we are safe in most places tonight, but it's nice to find one out of the way of ships.

We decided Crisfield and Onancock would take at least a day down and a day back to the Hoopers, and headed back north to go up the Wicomico River ( not to be confused with the Wicomico off the Potomac River or the Great Wicomico River south of the Potomac River).

Part way up, around the Great Shoals Bell (below), we turned to port into the wind, and had to adjust our mainsail and furl in both headsails. Dave was steering and decided to help me furl in the jib and staysail. It was blowing 15 knots or so, so it was still hard to do. The both sheets got loose in the flogging of the jib, then Dave had to direct his attn back to keeping on course through the narrow channel. I was reminded to get "the knot" at the end and pull it from there, the only safe way to pull it into the boat before it gets caught in the propeller, AND not get hurt. I wanted to pull from the upwind block, between blocks, but that wasn't working. Though the knot stopped at the block was out of reach, I eventually listened, grabbed it and we got them in. We then put knots farther from the end. It was not necessary to have the knot at the very end.

We do use autopilot a lot of the time, but just didn't have it on at that momento.

We found a place to anchor in 15' at Webster Cove SE of the Ellis Bay Wildlife Management Area to the north:

and houses on the south shore accessed by Mt. Vernon Rd:

There is something comforting knowing there are houses nearby.