"Salt Ponds - Southall Marina" Bloxoms Corner by grandmaR

Our track with inset chart

I was worried about the weather on Monday because afternoon thunderstorms were forecast, so we only went as far as mile 189.0. We went to SOUTHALL MARINA, which is in the Salt Ponds inlet which is technically in Hampton, but is around on the bay side. There are two marinas there.

We went in almost at low tide, and the depth sounder went off a couple of times, but nothing serious - just a little under 7 feet. I picked this marina because it was closer to the inlet than Salt Ponds, and I thought it would be cheaper, which it was.

They have a pool (which wasn't open yet) and a sauna in each bathroom. They have a courtesy car and a free internet connection. We tied up there by 10:30 after 18..8 miles at 7 mph with a maximum of 9.3 mph. We passed 1000 nm - were at 1008 nm total when we stopped.

There is a restaurant at Salt Ponds, across the way, and we were going to dinghy over, but it started to rain so we ate on the boat. The wind did pick up, but there were no thunderstorms.

Entrance channel from the Bay 2003

Winds were forecast to be 15-20 knots decreasing to 10 with 2 foot waves. We could deal with that.

But, when we got out into the bay, it was indeed 20 knot winds, but instead of decreasing the winds got stronger. Bob cooked bacon for himself for breakfast, which made me nervous because I thought he would burn himself.

Later, I saw one gust up to 31 knots. And the waves got bigger and bigger and were very close together. I estimate 8 feet. We were only doing about 2 knots over the ground against the wind. The boat was rearing up, banging down into a wave trough and green water was washing back with considerable spray back to the dodger.

This was the worst weather we had for the whole six month trip. Next is the rest of the story which led to us finally putting into the York River.

• Pros:Two good marinas
• Cons:Isolated
• In a nutshell:Part of Hampton on the Chesapeake