Sunday October 20th, 2013

Solomon, MD to Reedville, Va

I finally broke down this morning and put on the blue jeans.  It's getting cold! Once the anchor was raised by the windlass and washed off, I motored out of our anchorage trying not to disturb the other sailboats.  No one else was moving about so I figured they were all still sleeping.

We stopped down the creek at Solomon's Marina to fuel up. The winds were blowing quite steady and blew us away from the diesel dock on our first approach....the second attempt was a success!  The dockhand  thought the wind was great and told us that it was to gust up to 30 kts today!  I don't know where he was getting his weather from but we checked 3 different sources and they all were showing at the max, 19 kt gusts.  When I heard his report, I was tempted to suggest that we go back to our cozy and calm cove and stay another day......we were glad we didn't and continued our move south.

Once we got out of Back Creek and into the Patuxent River(8:30am),the winds were out of the NW with 5-10 kts and following seas with rollers from 3-4' and a few 5 footers.  All was good!  The sun was shining and we were making great headway with the waves pushing our stern....7+ kts with an incoming tide....not bad.  It didn't seem to take us long to get to the Great Wicomico River where we would motor in to find  Cockrell Creek.

The town of Reedville is on the Cockrell Creek.  From reading other sailors' reviews, many felt this was not a good place to anchor

A Fish Processing plant is still in operation along its shore and at times if the wind is blowing in the right direction the smell is disgusting. 

 

We didn't have that problem.  We motored up past the plant, a few marinas toward a cove where two other sailboats were already anchor.  We decided to pull in behind them when Chuck tried to cut a corner and guess what?  We felt a sandy bottom!!  All was not lost because he just backed off of the shallows and continued to our anchorage.  It is very nice and peaceful here.......

We had read in an Active Captain review that eating at the Crazy Crab is a must.  So we hopped in our dinghy to find this restaurant which during this time of the year is only open on Saturday and Sunday.   After not being able to find it, we tied up at the Reedville Marina to eat at its restaurant.  Surprise, surprise.....the menu had Crazy Crab written on the front cover.  The fish and chips were to die for and very reasonable. 

They let us keep our dinghy tied to the floating dock while we did a little exploring of the town.  We didn't walk far because the sun was starting to set and it gets cool.  So back to the boat where Chuck changed the oil and the oil filter. 

**The town of Reedville referred to itself as the menhaden fishing capitol of the US. In 1874, Elijah Reed brought the processing industry to the Bay.  The fishing fleet netted these inedible oily fish and the plant extracted the oil to produce fertilizer and meal.  There is only one plant that remains on the Cockrell Creek.