Cape Charles VA, is a small town with a rich history. Once a major train depot and ferry landing for produce, freight, and people crossing the mouth of the Bay, it lost out to trucking. Building the Bay Bridge-Tunnel sealed its fate as a commercial port. After a period of demise, Cape Charles has reinvented itself. Only an hour from the population centers of Norfolk, Chesapeake, and Virginia Beach, it is seeing steady growth with weekend homes and retirees. In the old town, new shops and restaurants are appearing. Other important economic drivers are the marine facilities with easy access to the Chesapeake which bring fleets of boaters to the town.
For many cruisers their first visit to Cape Charles is planned around one of the several water-oriented festivals. The annual blessing of the fleet kicks off the boating season in early April. The annual Tall Ships Festival in June brings in schooners and Bay workboats. A true square rigger, the barque Picton Castel was in port this year. The most popular event of the year is the annual Cape Charles Clam Slam and Boat Docking Festival, July 31 – August 2. Whereas watermen’s boat docking competitions are a Maryland watermen’s sport, for the Virginians, the Cape Charles event is the only chance for these boats to show off their high-speed docking prowess.
By water, your first sight of the town will be what appears to be the lighthouse towering above the low Eastern Shore topography. Twenty years ago, the town redesigned the water tower so that it appears to be a Chesapeake Bay-style caisson lighthouse. From a distance on a hazy Bay afternoon, it looks just like one.
Cape Charles has two separate boating centers. The Town Harbor, once and still a commercial port, is now home to the town marinas and the new Cape Charles Marine Center, a boatyard and marina. Behind the town in Kings Creek you’ll find a large resort marina: the Oyster Farm Marina at Kings Creek. There is something in Cape Charles for everyone, whether you would like to anchor in the basin and dinghy to town or secure your boat in a protected inlet and have pampered weekend with golf, pools, spas, shopping, and several restaurants to choose from.
Your approach to Cape Charles will be via Cherrystone Channel. On the way in, you will have to cross Old Planation Flats, but there is a deep channel cut through it making the approach quite easy (Note the channel is being dredged in 2015 to bring it back to 20-foot depth, so you may see commercial dredge activity when you are entering.)
As you enter the town harbor, on the right you’ll see the cement plant, a major local employer which makes high-end concrete components for bridge construction and tunnels. The town marina is on your left. Smitty Dize the Harbormaster and his crew will greet you and help you get secured in your slip. There is a nice restaurant right on the marina grounds called the Chanty. Or you can take the five-minute walk across the train yard into the town itself for more restaurants and shopping.
If you are continuing up Cherrystone Channel to enter Kings Creek, you must take care. The actual channel is not at all where the charts show it. The deep channel shown west and north of G3 has filled in along the western side. For about a mile north of the town harbor, you must stay between the rows of crab trap floats until you get to R2A, G3, and R4. Here the channel turns hard to starboard. Stay close to the reds, and you will carry eight feet of water. Proceed about half a mile east to R6.
Between R6 and R8, the channel remains seven feet deep, but it narrows to as little as 50 feet wide. It would be best to check that no traffic approaches from the other direction as you enter this 300-yard stretch of the channel. As of mid-June 2015 there were several two-inch PVC pipes marked with red and green paint marking the edges of the channel, and they are very precisely located.
Once past R8, the channel is deep and wider and leads you to the Oyster Farm Marina (formerly Kings Creek Marina), one of the nicest resort marinas on the Chesapeake, located within Bay Creek Resort. The Bay Creek Resort enclave is self-sufficient; however it is a 15-minute walk into the heart of town.
Along Mason Street, which faces the old train yard, you will find the commercial heart of the town. Here restaurants such as Kelly’s Gingernut Pub, Hook U Up Gourmet, Cape Charles Coffee House, and Rayfields Fountain and Grill offer a wide range of dining options. From breakfast through dinner, you will find a meal to suit any palette.
Mason Street is also home to more than a dozen shops, galleries, and studios. Gull Hummock Gourmet hosts wine tastings every Friday and Saturday afternoon year round. For me, there are two stops I must make with every visit to Cape Charles. Watson’s Hardware, a Norman Rockwell, all-Americana store boasts an eclectic inventory of everything you need, many things you did not even know you needed, and lots of kitchen ware you have not seen since the 1970s. It is quite normal to see customers reclining on the demo yard furniture on the sidewalk out front. Watson’s has sporting goods, hunting and fishing gear, and even ice skates. The other must-visit shop is Brown Dog Ice Cream. And while the staff is pet-friendly there, they do not give you free ice cream if you come with a brown dog. We tried.
There is much to see and do in Cape Charles. There are new shops, restaurants, and more newly refurbished homes every time you visit. You may want to visit every summer, if not several times every summer.
by Tom Hale