Cape Charles is on the lower eastern shore of the Chesapeake, north of the entrance to the Bay.

Subject: Cape Charles Town Marina just keeps getting better.
Cruising News:
UPDATE. Now you really have to come to Cape Charles. The showers are outstanding and private. Smitty and the staff really go out of their way to be helpful. Chad even helped unload the truck and carry it to the boat. What a swell bunch of people. The Wi Fi is snapping fast. The piers are beautiful. We’re going to try the new restaurant, “The Shanty” tonight for dinner. I know it’s going to be great!
Jim and Talley Powell

As Jim and Talley cruise northward leaving our coverage, Salty Southeast Cruisers’ Net would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their many colorful and informative postings. This editor is sad to see them move on. But I know from experience that the Chesapeake casts a strong spell that is difficult to ignore. I wish them much continued success on their voyage.

Top Rack Marina is just north of the Steel Bridge in the Virginia Cut at Mile 8.8

Cruising News:
Here we are again at the Top Rack Marina. Everyone knows about the great restaurant here, the Amber Lantern. And everyone knows about the great staff and service you get here. And everyone knows Brian and how he makes sure everything about your stay here is perfect. And Brian knows everybody. Need something? Ask Brian. This is the perfect location between the North Landing River and the Chesapeake Bay. Slip fees are free if you eat in the Amber Lantern. Diesel today (May 17, 2012) $357.9.
That’s why we’re here again. And will be, time after time.
Jim and Talley Powell

Click Here To View the Cruisers’ Net’s VA to NC Bridge Directory Listing For Steel Bridge

Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Steel Bridge

Top Rack Marina is just north of the Steel Bridge in the Virginia Cut at Mile 8.8

This morning as we exited the Deep Creek Lock, we turned south 1.5 miles to Top Rack Marina where we paid $3.79/gallon for diesel and you can stay at their dock for free if you eat dinner in the restaurant, which unfortunately is closed on Mondays, so we’re paying $1.25/foot while we wait for a diesel engine part tomorrow.
Cathryn and Bob aboard “Next to Me”, 42′ Jefferson Sundeck

Click Here To View the Cruisers’ Net’s VA to NC Bridge Directory Listing For Steel Bridge

According to their web site, Horn Harbor Marina lies on Horn Harbor Channel at “HH,”the Mo(A) buoy 4.3 nautical miles southwest of Wolftrap Lighthouse.

We kept our Boat at the Horn Harbor Marina , Boatyard & marine railway over the summer months while we went home. The staff at the marina took great care of our vessel. She went thru Hurricane Irene well protected and cared for. We have nothing but good things to say about this marina and the facilities that it has to offer. Floating slips, covered and open, gas and diesel, water and electric 50/30 amp. ship’s store , a pool, a very nice kitchen area and lounge, boat ramp, on site service and repair and wi-fi . Check them out on line @www.HornHarborMarina.com or call 804-725-3223, you will have a wonderful staff waiting to help you. Safely tucked away, Just inside the Chesapeake Bay at Port Haywood, Virginia.
Thank you Horn Harbor marina for taking care of our vessel, a catamaran
Sheila & Chris
” Neverbored”

Cruisers needing a good harbor in a storm or excellent boat yard repairs or just getting those hard to identify and locate boat parts could not do much
better than the Atlantic Yacht Basin in Chesapeake, just south of Norfolk, Virginia. Our boat, True North, spend two days in their capable hands and
felt blessed.
We have no business association with Atlantic Yacht Basin other than very happy customers.
Stay Safe,
Tom

And, a very different point of view:

As a counter to your good experience with AYB, my experience with them last year left me with a bad taste and unsettled as to the actual condition of my boat. Let me suggest that staying with your boat while its being worked on, or having pockets so deep as to not care, is probably the key to an acceptable outcome. Last July, I left my just acquired 1985 sundeck for some engine work recommended in the pre-purchase survey. AYB was recommended by the hired capt. I had at the time to help get acquanted with the boat and the intercoastal. I had estimates from the engine surveyor in Charleston and from AYB of around $3800. When I returned two weeks later
to continue our travels, I was presented with a bill 3 times the estimate and way beyond expectations. Since then, while continuing repairs and updates on the boat, I have seen enough to infer poor workmanship (replacement ofthe wrong ignition keys at the wrong locations), and even the possibility of items not done (all desolved zincs in the supposed dismantled and cleaned heat exchangers after only 2 months in seawater and 2 months in fresh!). Clearly, I was a new owner, on a schedule, and with other distractions related to a business. Time and travel have improved the first handicape, the second, scheduling, has been a little slower to overcome, and the work related distractions are nearly gone now that I’ve retired for good. Please, avoid the situation I found myself in, even with a business like AYB. A good reputation or recommendation can’t make up for poor staff or distracted management.
Jon Patterson

This is not the first posting we’ve had here on the Cruisers’ Net concerning the great dining at Amber Lantern Restaurant, hard by Top Rack Marina. Really must give this place a try SOON!

Cruising News:
Wow what a great gormet meal and the dockage is free. We highly recommend this Restaurant, Could be the best on the ICW.
Ron & Audrey aboard Lucky Girl

Cruising News:
We stayed at Top Rack Marina, ( just before Dominion Highway Bridge) Chesapeake VA last night. They have the cheapest Diesel in the area. They also have some slips available. We have a 62′ Vicking. She is really too big to stay here but they made it work. For smaller boats it is perfect. The folks here are very nice and helpful. If you dine at the Restaurant and spend at least $75.00 the stay at the Marina is free. The Restaurant is five star. Food, presentation, service, ambiance is perfect. Will be back.
Claudia Young

Cruising News:
Still the best stop for either the Coinjock jog, or the Dismal saunter. Free overnight and electricity if you eat in the really outstanding Amber Lantern. $336.9/gallon diesel.
Dock boys waited for us until after 6:00pm due to a delay at the Gilmerton Bridge and a really long coal train. Fuel, pump out, outstanding dinner, and a good night’s sleep. We’ll come back this way again and again.
Jim & Talley

Cruising News: Amber Lantern Restaurant Top Rack Marina
Wow, what a great gormet meal and the dockage is free. We highly recommend this Restaurant, Could be the best on the ICW.
Ron & Audrey aboard Lucky Girl

The following discussion has been copied, with all author’s permission, from the MTOA List Serve. All of us at the Salty Southeast Crusiers’ Net continue to highly recommend a membership in the MTOA for ALL trawler owners. You won’t find a better bunch of cruisers anywhere.
The one and only lock on the primary AICW North Carolina – Virginia Cut/Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal route, is located at Great Bridge. The discussion below centers around dockage and shoreside opportunities at this location.
I have never had the good fortune to sample the dining attraction reported on below by Captain George, but it WILL be on my to-do list, effective immediately!!

Just a Note we passed through Great Bridge on 9/28 and stayed at the south dock before the bridge and found a couple of boats had been there for a few days and were staying longer the stay is posted for 24 hours but some are not doing that so the wall can get over loaded very fast. You can also tie up to the wall on the other side as long as you stay back from the bridge so the tow’s can get by, you have to tie to the trees or drive a stake in the ground. When we went through the bridge the dock on the east side had signs on it that it was closed for the park construction my guess is that you can use it but it looked very hard to get off the boat because of the construction fence barrier.. just our observations.
Larry & Margie Ross
Wanderin’ L&M
55′ Hampton

While you are at Great Bridge DO NOT FORGET to eat at Franks 2 Italian Restaurant.It is located north of the Great Bridge in a shopping center just past Kellys Pub.Frank is from NY and his food is very good.If you like N.Y. pizza then you must stop at Franks.I love good Italian!
George Kay
Summer Slopes
36 Marine Trader

We came through Great Bridge on Oct 19. The Lock Master told us that the dock across from Atlantic Yacht Basin had been closed off and docking banned by the company building the museum on that site. The usual wall between the lock and bridge had been full the night before and the locktenders let people tie up to the entrance wall on the Norfolk side of the lock. She also said that tying up to the trees on the left side between the lock and bridge was risky as commercial traffic had priority on that side and could demand that you move.
Chuck Berry

Pungo Ferry Bridge crosses the Waterway at mile 28 and has a vertical clearance of 65ft. The anchorage is charted at 9-12ft.

Subject: shoaling
Cruising News: There is shoaling at the anchorage at the Pungo Ferry Bridge spot just north of the bridge across from the old closed marina. This would be the anchorage to the right of the bridge as you are facing south.
Sami and Barry
s/v Ever After

There is limited tie up at closed marina at Pungo Ferry. There was no hassle for overnight tie up. 40 foot ketch said all anchorages listed in area are shoaled over, so this closed marina is only place to stop. Actually there is channel around back of marina and more space if your boat is shallow.
Fishing boats used Channel to ramp behind closed marina. Channel was about 20 wide. It could handle 10 foot beam easily, maybe 12 foot. At least 4′ deep, probably more.
I suspect that a trawler type boat could comfortably tie up in back. It would provide protected anchorage.
Ed Kroposki

Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Pungo Ferry Bridge

For those of you not wanting to fight with the crowding around Norfolk and Portsmouth, our friend Peter TenHagen suggests a quieter, less congested alternative. The Hampton River departs Hampton Roads north and west of Old Point Comfort approximately 11 nautical miles north of Mile Zero.

A sleeper of a municipal pier is the Hampton Piers on the Hampton River which runs north a ways when you come to Old Point Comfort whether north or south bound. A long stretch on the east side of the channel from red daymark Number 20 to a marina farther up is designated for transient anchoring and will comfortably hold half a dozen boats. Hampton Piers recognizes anchorees as valuable visitors to the City of Hampton and provides them a dinghy dock, trash disposal, water, and free use of their fleet of well maintained single speed bicycles for getting around town. They also offer showers for $1 each – as far as I am aware the only thing they charge for. On Fridays and Saturdays in the summer a free jitney bus runs a 30 minute loop up to the huge Peninsula Mall from noon to midnight both days. A Food Lion supermarket lies a 10 minute walk from available dinghy dockage on the short canal west of the Blue Water Marina. And dockage is only $1.25 a foot this time of year usually with lots of available slips. The Hampton River is quiet for the most part (some fish processing docks make a bit of noise) with an enforced 5mph no wake zone throughout – kayaking is pleasant and there are some areas where wildlife abounds. All in all a good layover heading north or south around the Norfolk area with friendly welcoming people to greet you.
Peter TenHagen

Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Hampton River

The following exchange of information is copied from the American Great Loop Cruisers’ Association forum, an organization, by the way, we continue to HIGHLY recommend!
LOTS of good info here about marina facilities in the southern Norfolk, VA region!!!

I have recently purchased a Marine Trader 40 Sundeck and will begin my journey later in July from Charleston, SC to my home in Racine, WI. I need to be home in August for two weeks and am looking for a less expensive slip in a Marina near Norfolk. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Dennis Barkow
Aboard Reunion, Marine Trader 40 Sundeck

We stayed at Ocean Marine for two months in the fall of ’09 and enjoyed it immensely. It is in Portsmouth, very convenient and well run.
Hal

Try Cobb’s Marina, Norfolk, 757-588-5401 and Scott’s Creek Marina, Portsmouth, 757-399-2628. They are most likely to have the lowest transient prices. Both are listed in the Skipper Bob Marinas Guide.
Ted Stehle, editor
Skipper Bob Publications

Check out Rebel Marine. Really nice folks. Not too near downtown, but not far from the airport.They have a courtesy car for local shopping.
Mitch

We stayed at Cobbs Marina last summer for three weeks and found them to be excellent. Close to restaurants, and shopping and buses for traveling into town.
Please be aware that if you choose to use Cobbs, when you enter the channel into little creek you are transitting a naval amphibious base and have to call channel 12 to request permission to transit the inlet. Turn right at the large orange buoys as these mark the perimeter of the base. Also you can refuel across the creek from Cobbs marina.
Mike and Gail Preston
Happy Hours V

Mile Marker 0 marine supply in Portsmouth Virginia has propane exchange/sales and will fill any tank for our customers. We will deliver it to their boat or they can drop off and pick up later.
Bob McBride

Top Rack Marina is one of several worthy facilities while lie along the path of the AICW in the Norfolk, VA area.

Just a recommendation for those in your vicinity
Head over to Top Rack Marina – a new spot on the Virginia cut just north of the Steel Bridge. If you eat at their fantastic restaurant they will give you dockage for free with electric. We found this spot by chance after the wall at the Great Bridge lock was full and we motored on north. The restaurant, the Amber Lantern is wonderful, great food. Look at the review in Yelp.com.
Greg and Susan Han

Cruising News:
Our last stop on our `Carolina Loop’ is the Top Rack Marina, the perfect end to a perfect cruise.
Just about a mile south of the Gilmerton Bridge and junction of the Intracoastal Waterways numbers one and two is the quiet and peaceful Top Rack Marina. Ideal location is only one of the exceptional things about this marina. There are no transient slip fees if you have dinner in the `Amber Lantern’, a really outstanding restaurant worthy of the trip by either land or sea. A great and attentive staff completes this magnificent refuge. They even came by the boat later in the evening to make sure everything was okay, and see if we enjoyed dinner.
The last stop before home and the first stop on our next cruise south. We will be back.
Jim & Talley Powell aboard Dawn to Dusk MTOA # 3826

Cruising News:
The VA Eastern Shore town of Cape Charles has just opened 50 new floating slips
that are available to transients. We just used the new facility paying $1.50/ft – they have a full service fuel dock with pump-out as well. There are face docks available to accommodate vessels to at least 100′. Cape Charles Harbor is a deep, well marked (multiple lighted range marks) small commercial port with a USCG station next to the town marina. These new slips offer a new option to those visiting the southern part of the Bay and are much easier to reach than venturing further north up a narrow and shallow privately marked channel to the more expensive Bay Creek Marina.
Harry Burns