Our 2014 boating season on the Chesapeake had been close to perfect by Labor Day's official closing of summer, unusually trouble free with respect to weather and mechanisms, especially when compared with my typical luck at the helm. Mother Nature had never welcomed us like this for a complete season, with conditions exceeding expectations every time we were on the water. Equally strange was the lack of any mechanical issues over this same period; no bent props, no loss of power, no hazardous oil spills immediately following loud clunks from the engine room.
Knowing something eventually had to go wrong, it was with some trepidation I made family plans to cruise the Chesapeake well after the end of summer onboard with my parents, who make their annual snowbird migration through our nation’s capital in late September. Without exception, something has always conspired against our nearly October excursions: torrential downpours, frigid temperatures, big-time waves, or the more likely mechanical issues. But I plotted and stored a course in advance anyway, punching contingency telephone numbers and locations into my chartplotter as waypoints to follow.
Unlike most normal people, I actually enjoy pushing the expected limits; after all, you can’t have an adventure without overcoming some amount of risk, so I also included some impossible waypoints into my charts before the parents’ arrival, just in case. Fortunately, my (boating) family understands something always goes wrong, so they don’t get too nervous when things don’t go as planned.
However, September 20 was a day of met exceptions, proved as we cruised to those impossible waypoints. So spectacular a day, I kept pushing our perceived boundaries (and throttles), as if to challenge those typical limits, stumbling onto a bucket list oasis well within reach of most Chesapeake Bay cruisers along the way.
A Great Start
Even though our primary destination was only a 36-nautical mile round trip from our marina, we decided to leave the pets at home, fully expecting some kind of trouble that day. By our arrival at the marina shortly before noon, we could see weather wasn’t going to be the reason we had to turn back; air temperature was perfect, with almost no breeze as puffy clouds hung still in the bright blue sky. In such perfect conditions, we dropped all our ‘glass for the cruise south through Kent Narrows, en route for Lowes Wharf.
I typically don’t publish my favorite destinations (having 100,000 fellow boaters show up to investigate while I’m trying to find a slip is not my idea of fun), but Lowes Wharf Marina is the type of destination to make exceptions for. Located at 38.766N, 76.329W in Sherwood, MD, Lowes is easily within range of bass boats and house boats from Severna Park to Solomons, with enough depth to handle the largest cruisers. Though location is certainly a key feature, it’s her ability to handle tons of boats and guests that make finding a slip not so scary after traveling 30 miles around the Bay. While her number of slips is relatively low, the Chesapeake is Lowes’ front lawn. The staff is more than happy to drive you to and from your anchored boat with their Zodiac fleet.
Our entire crew enjoyed great food, drinks, and service from the attentive staff at Lowes Wharf, while a live band jammed excellent music for all in attendance that glorious day. Not merely a bar, a restaurant, a marina, or fuel dock, Lowes’s easy-going outdoor atmosphere has plenty of picnic bench seating along their beach-sand wharf, allowing anyone to play typical beach games, swim, or just relax while taking in the scenery created by beautiful boats.
Enough is Never Enough
Though we could have relaxed at Lowes the entire day, with non-stop (yummy) appetizers and ice-cold beverages sipped from chairs under beach umbrellas before heading home, the weather and water conditions were too perfect to sit idle. I felt compelled to push my luck (as is always the case), packing up everyone for our Zodiac ride back to our anchored boat by 4 p.m. I wanted to test the waters of the Choptank, which is the longest river on the DelMarVa Peninsula at 71 miles.
Continuing farther, our cruiser danced past the once-thought-impossible waypoints as we headed east up the Choptank. Unknown to my crew, the furthest destination I had entered into my chartplotter was a restaurant 31 nautical miles southeast of Lowes Wharf, located in unknown water that I wanted to reach before dusk. I pushed the throttles, chewing up those absolutely flat miles on the Choptank in under 90 minutes as the crew basked in the splendor created by the setting sun, arriving well before dusk and just in time for dinner in Hurlock, MD.
The Suicide Bridge Restaurant, located at 38.6325N, 75.9475W, couldn’t have been a more perfect choice for dinner or destination. The food and view from this restaurant’s expansive windows were nothing short of awesome, boasting an extensive menu that details the rich folklore of how they got their name. Interestingly enough, they have a large marina in front of the restaurant with only a few transient slips that they say are never full. Maybe caused by the relatively skinny water as you head up the Cabin Creek off the Choptank (I recorded a minimum of 5.3 feet at dead-low tide), but out of all the restaurants we’ve been to by water, this restaurant’s slips should be full all the time.
OMG, What is THAT??
Seven and a half nautical miles before we reached the Suicide Bridge Restaurant for dinner, our cruiser passed under the US Route 50 bridge at Cambridge, headed east. While up on plane, we were taking in the sights of the bridge and Cambridge itself, not paying attention to an awesome spectacle immediately ahead of us on the southern shore of the Choptank, until it was almost too late. Though the sun was setting and we were making way to other priorities, the massive resort for boaters was unmistakable, from almost a mile away.
By the time we cast off from dinner at Suicide Bridge, darkness completely enveloped the Christina Rose and her crew on this warm, nearly moonless night. We retraced our exact tracks back to that resort in Cambridge, which was far too dark to explore. Monitoring the radar on high sensitivity, we continued home at a near-constant speed, cruising those 47.8 nautical miles in exactly two and a half hours, somehow ending a perfect 100 nautical mile day on the Bay by 10 p.m., without a single mishap. Unfortunately, that massive resort in Cambridge, seen only briefly in the lowering sun, demanded a visit from me after our snowbird guests continued south.
So, we plotted a new course back to Cambridge to investigate…
The Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Golf Resort, Spa, and Marina, located on the Choptank at 38.5652N, 76.0465W, is a stunningly impressive resort catering directly to boaters on the Chesapeake. Embarrassed that I’ve been boating here over a decade without knowing about this gem, my wife and I returned to the Hyatt Cambridge River Marsh Marina to take in everything this resort has to offer.
This is a full-service resort like no other we’ve cruised to, with an attentive staff of 10 devoted to the marina alone. We met marina director John Harper and his team who monitor VHF-09 at the fuel docks, the entry point to the marina by boat. The marina has an outside floating breakwall that protects the 150 floating and fixed slips with 30A, 50A, and 100A-service and a minimum depth of seven feet. This green marina has the obvious gas, diesel, water, and pump-out facilities, but also includes men’s and women’s showers, laundry, WiFi, cable TV, fire pits, and grills for all marina guests. Their ship’s store has all the grocery, snack, alcohol, ice, and basic marine equipment any transient cruiser could want, plus Cambridge is only a short bike ride away if anything additional is needed.
As impressive as the marina is, that’s just one small part of this spectacular resort. While transient slip rates are really economical ($2/ft), an additional $25/night resort fee gets transient slipholders access to three pools, indoor/outdoor hot tubs, tiki bars and pool bars, plus their cheerful staff will escort guests to one of their five restaurants, 400 hotel rooms (some are pet-friendly), or nationally ranked River Marsh 18-hole golf course by golf cart.
Catering specifically to the boating guest, the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake has coves with sandy beaches, live DJs or musicians during the peak hours, “Camp Hyatt” for kids, “Dive-In” movies at the pools for families, and designated tracks for human and pet exercise. John said transient slips are almost always available, but Cambridge’s fireworks show for July Fourth is right next to the marina, which is usually fully occupied on holidays.
Although the Hyatt Regency has five onsite restaurants, and our favorite Suicide Bridge Restaurant is only seven and a half nautical miles northeast of the marina, we chose to cruise back under the Route 50 bridge and grab lunch at Portside Seafood in Cambridge along the Cambridge Creek waterfront at 38.5702N, 76.0732W. This restaurant had good food and service, and is the type of place you’d be comfortable wearing boating attire. Calling for the drawbridge to open at Market Street is pretty cool, too!
by Mike Edick
Knowing something eventually had to go wrong, it was with some trepidation I made family plans to cruise the Chesapeake well after the end of summer onboard with my parents, who make their annual snowbird migration through our nation’s capital in late September. Without exception, something has always conspired against our nearly October excursions: torrential downpours, frigid temperatures, big-time waves, or the more likely mechanical issues. But I plotted and stored a course in advance anyway, punching contingency telephone numbers and locations into my chartplotter as waypoints to follow.
Unlike most normal people, I actually enjoy pushing the expected limits; after all, you can’t have an adventure without overcoming some amount of risk, so I also included some impossible waypoints into my charts before the parents’ arrival, just in case. Fortunately, my (boating) family understands something always goes wrong, so they don’t get too nervous when things don’t go as planned.
However, September 20 was a day of met exceptions, proved as we cruised to those impossible waypoints. So spectacular a day, I kept pushing our perceived boundaries (and throttles), as if to challenge those typical limits, stumbling onto a bucket list oasis well within reach of most Chesapeake Bay cruisers along the way.
A Great Start
Even though our primary destination was only a 36-nautical mile round trip from our marina, we decided to leave the pets at home, fully expecting some kind of trouble that day. By our arrival at the marina shortly before noon, we could see weather wasn’t going to be the reason we had to turn back; air temperature was perfect, with almost no breeze as puffy clouds hung still in the bright blue sky. In such perfect conditions, we dropped all our ‘glass for the cruise south through Kent Narrows, en route for Lowes Wharf.
I typically don’t publish my favorite destinations (having 100,000 fellow boaters show up to investigate while I’m trying to find a slip is not my idea of fun), but Lowes Wharf Marina is the type of destination to make exceptions for. Located at 38.766N, 76.329W in Sherwood, MD, Lowes is easily within range of bass boats and house boats from Severna Park to Solomons, with enough depth to handle the largest cruisers. Though location is certainly a key feature, it’s her ability to handle tons of boats and guests that make finding a slip not so scary after traveling 30 miles around the Bay. While her number of slips is relatively low, the Chesapeake is Lowes’ front lawn. The staff is more than happy to drive you to and from your anchored boat with their Zodiac fleet.
Our entire crew enjoyed great food, drinks, and service from the attentive staff at Lowes Wharf, while a live band jammed excellent music for all in attendance that glorious day. Not merely a bar, a restaurant, a marina, or fuel dock, Lowes’s easy-going outdoor atmosphere has plenty of picnic bench seating along their beach-sand wharf, allowing anyone to play typical beach games, swim, or just relax while taking in the scenery created by beautiful boats.