October 13, 2008

Colonial Virginia

We left Deltaville and headed south ultimately sailing 10 miles up the York river and anchoring in Sarah Creek just across the river from Yorktown. From there we rented a car and spent two days visiting Yorktown, Jamestown and Williamsburg, with Williamsburg being our favorite. All, though, were very interesting and well balanced for kids and adults, with good museum quality exhibits mixed with hands on displays like carving canoes, which Jake really enjoyed. Williamsburg has been kept in essentially colonial "condition", although most of the buildings have been rebuilt. There are no cars, just horse and buggy or walking. We ended our very fun day there in a tavern hosting a Gambol, which consisted of a light fare, peanuts, games, live music and a magician - notably ample beer!. Fun was had by all.

As payment on all the fun above we had one long anchoring adventure in Sarah Creek. Although noted as a "good" anchorage, we had a very difficult time getting our Delta anchor to set, at one point using two anchors in series to calm the nerves while we were away from the boat. The anchorage was also small so we needed to reposition for the wind shifts throughout the week.

Lastly, we entered Sarah Creek at high tide, seeing on 7 foot spot (we draw 6 foot, 7 inches) attributing this to being pushed out of the channel by an exiting sailboat. However, upon further inquiry we came to understand that the entrance is only 6 foot at low tide not the 8+ feet our chart suggests. I went out then in the dinghy to sound the entrance finding the lowest and highest spots at low water. Armed with this intelligence we left on the 7:00 am high tide on Saturday, following the winding path with nary an incident.

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