The Chesapeake Bay

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The Coan River

The Coan River is the first deep water tributary of the Potomac on the Virginia shore above Smith Pt.  It combines a convenient access from the bay with peaceful and isolated anchorages.  Constant shoaling of the river and unlit marks are its only negatives.

This is the entrance to the left branch of the Coan River looking from inside toward Lewisetta in the Glebe Creek branch.  Entrance to the left branch is very narrow as you can see from the official mark and the local mark next to it.  A number years ago friends reported that this channel was so silted in they could not get through (on a catamaran no less!).  So we have not been back since that time.  I planned to go back to the Coan soon and see if the channel has been cleared, but that has not happened in the last 20 years.  There are few businesses on this branch who would need the state of Virginia or the Corps of Engineers to clear the channel, so I am prepared to be disappointed.

At one time the Coan River was a major port on the Potomac.  The tobacco freighters and the excursion packets stopped regularly at a dock on the Potomac.  This is the overgrown ruins of an old hotel that once served that trade.  Reportedly it served in style.

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