Boating with Sunset Delight: 2024 October: Arrive Hampton Virginia

16 October 2024
Depart: Mill Creek anchorage, Solomons, MD 7:40
Arrive: Fort Monroe anchorage, Mill Creek, Hampton, VA 6:10
Distance: ~ 91 nm

We anchored in yet another waterway named Mill Creek. Clark seems to be able to find "Mill Creek" wherever he goes, so when he says, we will anchor in "Mill Creek", I just shake my head at the non-information.

This morning, I found the rising sun hiding behind trees. After several attempts at a good picture, I finally gave up and helped Clark get the anchor up and underway. As we exited the anchorage, I managed to capture a sun picture.

As we passed the Point No Point lighthouse, I looked up its history. I wondered about the name which came about because the promontory is much less pointed up close than it looks from the water. The lighthouse was funded in 1901 and began operation in April of 1905.

We were happy to see that the auto pilot behaved properly today after Clark's work to clean out the carbon last night. The following seas we had as we traveled the bay, however, drove the auto pilot crazy. It was constantly correcting left or right. We were surfing most of the day as the tall waves picked us up and carried us.

For a while we saw the speeds fluctuate from 7.8 knots to 9.8 knots back down to 7.8. Later in the day, while passing the Potomac River, I noted the spread of speed increase to from 5 knots to 12 knots as we rode the waves.

We saw a few sailboats traveling south on the bay. Off in the distance I noted an Evergreen container ship. Overall it was very quiet traffic wise. I was quite excited to see my first (this season), and only, pelican today.

As we passed the entrance to the Potomac River, the waves picked up with wind against current. The seas are always worse here as it far less protected than other areas on the bay. I look forward to getting beyond the Potomac as quickly as possible. Today I watched a sailboat being tossed about in the swirling waters and was glad I was not on their boat.

Many of the Chesapeake Bay lighthouses have a similar appearance. The one below is Smith Point Light.

The autopilot did the heavy lifting piloting a route today. While we looked for non-existent traffic and crab pots, the autopilot followed the track Clark had entered moving from Waypoint to Waypoint mostly without human intervention. To pass the time, we pushed play on an audible mystery book that I have Bluetooth-attached from my phone to a wireless speaker.

With the up and down wave / speed action, the navigation calculations fluctuated by large amounts. Clark said we should arrive at our anchorage around 4:30. At 4:30, however, we were still an hour away from our destination. We have been traveling about 10-hour days, but today it got up to 11 hours of travel time. I used the last half hour before anchoring to pre-cook dinner using the electricity coming from the running engines. Once settled, we could quickly sit down to a nice hot meal.

The sun was going down as we pulled into the anchorage near Fort Monroe and motored past the Old Point Comfort yacht club to look for a place to drop anchor amongst the sailboats already sitting there.