Tag: Chincoteague

Other than a few quick visits, we have not spent much time in Chincoteague, Virginia, since my mom decided to sell the camper at Tom’s Cove Campground after my dad died in 1999. It was heartbreaking that we decided not to buy the site from her, but we only made the trip a couple of times the prior year because the kids had so many activities. We just did not have the time to enjoy all that Chincoteague had to offer. Life changed drastically for us when we no longer had J48 at Tom’s Cove.

At the time we had several smaller boats, including my dad’s 20′ Mako, so we sold everything and bought a larger boat that we kept at Podickory Point Yacht and Beach Club. An hour drive to the boat near the Bay Bridge was much easier to make for a weekend, or even a day, instead of the four and a half hour drive to Chincoteague. Boating instead of camping took most of our free time for quite a few years; especially when we upgraded to Liberty, our 41′ Silverton. It wasn’t until we decided to buy The Dirt Yacht to use once we retired that life changed again. With my hearing loss and cochlear implant surgery, vertigo made any long-term boating impossible for me. While i can still enjoy short fishing or boating trips, I can no longer spend hours or days on a boat.

When Kat bought her Tiffin Motorhome last year, she asked us to go on a shake down run with her to make sure she was comfortable handling her new-to-her motorhome. She asked to go to Chincoteague. I was reluctant because it was supposed to be a cool, wet weekend, but I am glad we decided to go. Tom’s Cove has not changed at all, except the campers have gotten older. J48 is still there, but it looks nothing like we remember. Our old travel trailer and the room Randy built onto it are no longer there. Its one of the few that have been upgraded. The town itself still has most of the older homes we remember, but there are more new stilt homes along Main Street. Randy’s favorite “little pink house” is gone! The most notable change we just happened to notice while driving around is that Inlet View Campground was leveled to make room for Sun Outdoors – Chincoteague Bay. Captain Bob’s Marina is now BluFin Bungalows & Marina. And these new businesses look nothing like the originals. No more falling down campers and old docks. We were excited when we found that Sun Outdoors was brand new and still had seasonal sites available for the 2024 season. We again made some drastic changes and cancelled our trip West with Fantasy RV Tours and booked the summer at Sun Outdoors and a seasonal boat slip at BluFin.

I have not been posting anything in my blog for quite a while, but now that we are going to somewhere new for the summer of 2024, I have started posting again. Maybe not so much new, as a return to the old. We left the Keys at the end of April to head to Chincoteague, Virginia, where I spent many fun days with my parents and later with Randy when our kids were younger.

This year’s trip North was one of the easiest trips we have encountered. We left on a Sunday with very little traffic, especially around Miami. We stopped at Sunshine Travel RV Park outside Vero Beach which is where we typically stop for our first night. The next day was another easy day of traffic with only one small traffic backup. We again stopped at our normal stopover at South of the Border. We had more traffic through North Carolina the next day, buy still not bad so we made good time to get to Ryan’s for the night. We arrived in time for Randy to help Ryan install a new dishwasher to replace his old one that had died the day before. We still had plenty of time to get to Smithfield Station for dinner. Since we were only staying one night at Ryan’s we knew that Station was where we wanted to go. Randy and Ryan both enjoyed a Station Bloody Mary. We shared a plate of Oysters Rockefeller and Randy and I shared our dinners. I had fried oysters, Calabash Style, and Randy had a seafood platter. Since the platter does not come with oysters, I shared some of mine with him, and he shared his flounder, crab cake and shrimp with me. It was delicious as always!

The next day we had a short drive to Sun Outdoors at Chincoteague Bay. The only part of the trip I dreaded was the 20+ minute drive across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. Fortunately the traffic was light so the drive across was easy and not as bad as I feared. I did not particularly like towing the utility trailer with the golf cart through the 2 tunnels, but I did not have any problems. Again, the traffic was light so only passed a few semi trucks that caused me a little bit of anxiety.

We had been told prior to arriving that there was a problem with BluFin’s occupancy permit so our boat slip that we had rented for the season would not be available. We were fortunate that we could get a slip for the month of May at the city owned dockage at Curtis Merritt Harbor that is next door to Sun Outdoors. We got a partial refund from BluFin which paid for most of the monthly rental. We were told today the permit has probably been approved and our slip should be ready to use shortly. I am not sure which one will be the nicer slip, but the city dock slip is not available for the rest of the year. We were able to get gas for the boat but the wind picked up so we decided not to go fishing. We did take a quick ride down to BluFin just to look at their entrance from the water. Looks a lot like it did when the marina was Capt. Bob’s. Just 2 bubba stakes outlining the narrow channel. Hopefully it was dredged so we can get in once it opens.

We have gotten most everything set up for the season except for the fence we ordered for Skip. He will like having an area to get outside without being restricted on the leash. It is scheduled to arrive in about 2 weeks. We had one concern that the Airstream that backs up to us was over the property line by several feet. Katerina, the resort manager, talked to the renter today and they told us they will move their RV forward a few feet so we can put our fence along the back line without them being in the way. Now that we have gotten permission for packages to be delivered here at Sun Outdoors hopefully there we not be any problems with shipping. The local Pack N Ship company closed about 10 days ago so the only other option for getting mail is a P O Box at the Post Office. However, they do not have any way to receive packages delivered by UPS or other carriers after they are closed for the day/weekend. Small packages that are shipped USPS are just kept in a storage box or our mail box at the Post Office, until we can pick them up, but they will not accept larger packages. We found this out when Skips canned dog food was returned as undeliverable. Even though Sun Outdoors says they will not accept packages, they have been very gracious about accepting them since there is really no other option. Katerina did warn us that we would have to take any return packages to Pocomoke City or Berlin for pickup. Hopefully someone else will re-open the local packaging shop.

I am looking forward to the weather improving so we can get out to do some exploring on Assateague and hopefully some flounder fishing. It is a big adjustment to the cooler temperatures here in Chincoteague . And the fog has been heavy at times. We are definitely not in the Keys anymore! We did find time to make one quick trip to Assateague but it was very windy so not a good day to explore the island. On our way back from Assateague, we made a stop at Island Creamery for 2 small sundaes. They were great but I miss their Fruit & Fudge sundaes. I will have to see if I can get them to make me one! Skip had a terrible flare of his inflammatory bowel disease during our move so hopefully staying stationary for a while will help him. Stress is a big trigger for him so all of the moving around did not help his condition. He seems to finally be stable and eating consistently again. Now if I can just get him to sleep overnight without having to go outside, we can enjoy our time here! Ryan is coming to visit tonight so maybe Skip can sleep with him.