It is interesting how different the presence of sea birds is this morning. Maybe it is because we are docked next to a 40 ft low-slung sail boat with a navy blue hull – that is a sail boat with not one, not two, but three large owl mannequins hung in its rigging. Owls are bird predators and a common way of decreasing the bird population. We even had owl statutes mounted on the IBM building when I worked on Six Forks Road in Raleigh. Anyway, contrasting that to being tied up next to the fish factory in Reedville is a pretty significant contrast! So there are no birds this morning and it is raining, but hey, we had breakfast overlooking the yacht basin on Solomons Island (by the way, apparently the name is Solomons – not possessive so there is no apostrophe!)

It was very grey on the Bay today. Crossing the water, we discovered a huge refinery port rising out of the mists. Oil ships could unloaded in the Bay, and the fuel pumped through tunnels to storage tanks on the shore. We made it up the Miles River to St Michaels by early afternoon and the sun and the Hooper Strait Lighthouse greeted us there. This charming little port was founded in 1677. Across the waterfront, there are flags from all the ACC Schools – I am not sure why, but they were a happy welcome. We spent the afternoon walking around the town and visiting the Chesapeake Bay Maritime museum. It gave information about the log canoe sail boats that are unique to the Bay area as well as discussion about all the contention over the Bay. There are continuing squabbles between commercial fishing and pleasure boats, but also between oyster watermen who drag a dredge versus those who use tongs to manually harvest, between Maryland and Virgina, and between sail boats and motor boats. There was lots of focus on sharing the bay for the best of all. It was fun that there was an exhibit showing how watermen would put the “peeler” crabs into a trough to save them until they “molted” so they could have the soft shelled crab to sell. Fun because we saw the real thing when we were on Tangier Island at Mr. Park’s Marina. It was a beautiful walk back to the marina. We found St Luke’s Methodist church where we will go to worship in the morning and the Tarr House built in 1667. Dinner was at the Crab and Steak House – excellent food.

May 9: Solomons

It is wonderful to be back on the boat. We could hear the rain last night giving that gentle rhythm that makes you glad you are snuggled up in a dry warm place. We had a breakfast of strawberries this morning under low hung gray clouds and glazing off across the dappled gray water. You can see sea gulls, classic gray and white, skimming over the water in search of their breakfast. They are laughing to each other because they like the rain. There is a fishing boat docked just beyond us with a seagull riding in the crow’s nest at the top of its net rigging. It is a very peaceful, beautiful scene.

Gallant Tom drove back to Kilmarnock to return the rental car and when he returned we moved the boat to the fuel dock. The diesel fuel price gauge said $4.15 a gallon. At the dock, a fisherman in white rain gear aboard the Janet, small fishing boat behind us, was culling his catch from his nets. The small fish that were culled are eaten by seagulls, crabs and otters. The fuel dock was next to the “processing” building, and we saw several fishing boats pull up. The dock master said that the motor we could hear running was the vacuum system that vacuumed the fish out of the boats! So these men had been out fishing and were delivering the goods by 10:00 AM.

On the NOAA website, the weather looked pretty iffy... thunderstorms in the bay and strong winds; but we had a reservation at the marina in Oxford and decided to proceed leaving about 11:00 AM. We made good progress through the middle of the day but by 3:00 PM we had slowed to a crawl with the waves just pounding us out in the Bay. At that point, we decided to head up the Patuxent River and take shelter at Solomon’s Island. We found the T-head at Zahniser’s Marina and had time for a quick, 3 mile ride around the island waterfront. We saw the University of Maryland Chesapeake Biological Laboratory and the high Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge as a backdrop to a wonderful classic red farm barn by the river. It was a nice ride even though it was overcast and misty. We made it back in time to wash two loads of clothes, take a shower and walk down to the Dry Dock restaurant overlooking the marina. It was interesting to hear all the sailboat wind chimes clinking in the wind. The seafood dinner was delicious overlooking the marina and we are hoping for better weather tomorrow.

May 8: Back to Reedville, Va

We enjoyed the weekend at home and got to see Dr John and Betty Durham at Trinity receiving the Heritage award. It was great to see Julie Anna and check off a few things that needed to be done, including participating in IBM’s Women in Technology conference at RTP. Then I spent this week in Los Angeles along with around 3000 IBM’ers for our leadership conference. I had the opportunity to drive by Wisteria Lane (Desperate Housewives set) at Universal Studios one evening and am attaching the picture of me with Tom Hanks in his Apollo 13 outfit.

I also saw these amazing Jacaranda trees – totally engulfed in purple blossoms. It was a good trip, but it is good to be back. I already miss our puppy dog, Sidney, who is now visiting with Julie Anna.

In the meantime Tom has eaten twice at the Crazy Crab and ridden the tires off his bike. He thought the seafood was great but was disappointed that they charge extra for hushpuppies here (Boy, we love NC). He made a trip to the gate of the Menhaden plant where he discussed fishing with the guard. The guard who grew up here had never been to the museum in Reedville, so Tom held his own on information. He came to pick me up at the airport in Richmond tonight after finding a bike shop to replace his tires. On the way back to Reedville, we went through West Pointe and drove over the White Stone Bridge (no we were not in New York, these were the Virginia versions). Tomorrow, weather permitting, we head North.

April 28: Reedville, VA

This morning, we had a rough but uneventful crossing of the Bay back to the western shore. Tom spent 30 minutes in the rain getting TNTY’s property docked at the Reedville Marina. I am glad we got in to Reedville when we did because this afternoon there are high winds in the Bay with a tornado watch until 8 PM tonight. It is nice to be moored safely in the harbor (even though the Crazy Crab restaurant is closed until the 1^st of May). We are docked right next to the Marine Police boat (seemed like a good place to leave the boat for a few days). Also on guard are about 25 assorted sea birds, so we might need to wash the boat when we get back!

We are in the tiny hamlet of Reedville on the Cockrell Creek off the Great Wicomico River. The criteria for choosing this location was to find a place to leave the boat, south of the Potomac, for our drive home to attend to some things in Raleigh. The town of Reedville is on the National Registry of Historic Places being named after Elijah Reed who moved here from Maine in 1874. When Reed found the Bay full of menhaden fish and no one was harvesting them he established the first Menhaden processing plant in Reedville. We came by a fleet of huge menhaden fishing boats as we entered the River. They were much larger than the shrimp boats we see in NC. At one time there were 60 ships working out of this area. By the beginning of the 1900s, Reedville was the Menhaden capital of the Bay, and had the largest per capita income of anywhere in the nation. We walked by several Victorian mansions including a beautiful four story brick house that was built in 1887 with fish oil money. They fished for Menhaden using seine nets and airplane spotters directing two small boats who encircled the fish and drew them up to the large fishing boat. Menhaden are a small oily fish used to create the Omega (fish oil) vitamin supplement that you should be taking.

Tom and I walked up to the Fishman’s Museum and saw some of the wooden boats that were once used in the unique herding / fishing process. Then we walked Sidney in the pouring rain and had to leave all the wet clothes on the back deck before coming in to get everyone dry. Tonight we are having dinner on the boat; the spaghetti sauce left over from the last Sunday School social was delicious partnered with Sharyn West’s home made bread, we were quite well fed.

April 27: Sunay, To Tangier Island

This morning broke with overcast skies, and Tom and I took the short walk down Market Street to the historical, white shingle- sided Onancock Baptist Church. We were surprised to discover that the front door was locked even though there was a sign promising an 11 AM worship service right next to it. As we were deciding what to do, we noticed couple of kids going around the side of the church and decided to follow them. We went around the corner, down the side of the church and across a parking lot to a large building. There we received a friendly greeting at the door, and inside found a contemporary Sanctuary filled with families with young children, older couples and youth. Based on the variety of acceptable dress, I decided to slip off my dress shoes and put back on the black tennis shoes I was carrying in a bag (relief)! The service included baptism, a message on Jonah (getting a second chance to do what God told him to do) and lots of singing Christian praise songs we knew, so we felt right at home. It was uplifting to go to a strange place and find such assurance that God was working there.

We shared our pew with a young family, daddy, expectant mom and two little boys. The daddy of the family knew all about the tomato farming in the area. The fields we saw yesterday, he told us, were planted by hand by workers sitting on platforms hung out over the rows from a large vehicle. He also explained the hideous smell in the neighborhood where we saw the spreader was chicken fertilizer. Wow... only breathe out. He also said that the harvesting was all done by hand in the same manner as the planting (the pickers ride). Since lots of tomatoes are left in the field, there is a lot of gleaning done (this reminded me of the story in Ruth where Boaz told his workers to make sure they left enough for the gleaners). I really love tomatoes- too bad I don’t live closer!

After church and a plate of lasagna at Stella’s Restaurant, we headed back to the boat to shove off. The Bay was rough today, more like I had expected it to be, and it was about an hour and a half cruise to reach Tangier Island. Here we took a step back in time.

The uninhabited island was first visited by Capt. John Smith (British adventurer and Virginia colonist) in 1608, and he named it Tangier Island. It was used by the British as their sea headquarters during the War of 1812. The British fleet attached Fort McHenry from here in 1814, and that battle was immortalized by Francis Scott Key in the athem, “The Star Spangled Banner.” Our first view of the island was rows and rows of little white fish houses built on stilts over the water. The houses were flanked with docks overflowing with crab pots and mooring white low slung crabbing boats. Over 90% of the income of the island depends on crabbing. We were greeted at the Park’s Marina by Mr. Park, a native of the island and he helped us tie up on the T-head. It was interesting to find that the docks were filled with frisky kitties, that were decrying the fear of water by leaping on and off of the fishing boats, obviously very comfortable with there home here. Mr. Park said that they occasionally fell in the water and “cussed and grumbled as they swim ashore”. One of them was a tortoise-shell cat that made me miss our Sabby cat at home and Tom found one jumping off of our boat later that evening.

Mr. Park was nice enough to give us a ride around the island’s single lane road in his golf cart (the normal mode of transportation). We saw the local school house (1^st – 12^th grades), several sea food restaurants and neat little homes some of which had graves in their front yards. The homes are built at ground level, not like our beach houses at Emerald Isle, NC, and do flood when hurricanes come through. We saw a “crabbery”, or crab prison, which was dock enclosed with fence wire and boxes where they could pump water through them. When they sorted the crabs, they put the peelers in the “crabbery” to fatten up until they shed their shells and could be sold as soft-shelled crabs. Soft shelled crabs are the most lucrative way to market crabs. Mr. Park was impressed that my Momma served us soft-shelled crabs at home, but I confessed that it was a delicacy that I passed up, choosing shelled out crab panned in butter instead. I felt very much at home with all the crab industry discussion, having caught my own blue crabs on a dock on the Trent River in New Bern as a child. All you needed was a chicken neck, a piece of string, a long handled scoop net and a basket. The basket was really important, because no one wants to share the dock with a loose blue crab with his pincher raised.

Back at TNTY, Tom is cooking waffles for our dinner, and Mr. Park has promised to give us a ride to Mrs. Crockets (the famous) for breakfast in the morning. There is not much cell phone signal strength here... not sure when this will get to the blog.

April 26: To Onancock, Va

It was fun to see fishermen putting out crab pots as we crossed the Bay today. We also saw more ospreys. Just look at the size of the "twigs" they used to build their nests. Pretty amazing that they know just how to do it.

Onancock was settled in 1607 as the 2^nd port in the state of Virginia. We managed to find it at the end of a long, narrow channel on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake. The Onancock Wharf is run by a fellow who graduated from Duke and spent 30 years as a chaplain in the military. Tom chatted with him as we moored TNTY. Taking our bikes out again for a 10 mile ride through the country, we discovered a massive agricultural area. There were acres and acres of rows of stakes scientifically laid out so that every 6 rows there was a wide service row there the tractor or spraying equipment could drive. It was a massive operation and we saw huge green farm equipment in the process of spraying something on the tiny sprigs of plants poked through the dirt next to the stake. We thought perhaps they were tomatoes, or maybe a running plant like green beans. There was an irrigation system several 100 yards long which could be rolled across the acreage. The most amazing thing about it is the intensity and expense of the operation with just the hope of having a crop. What faith it requires to be a farmer, trusting that the sun and moisture will make the seedling grow and produce fruit. God bless them. On our ride we also discovered the First Baptist Church of Onancock that worships together at 11 AM on Sunday. So we will join them tomorrow.

Next to the wharf there was a old mercantile building that was built in 1842. It looked very similar to my Grandmothers country store in Round O, SC. It had heavy dark wood counters along both sides of the store where the proprietor got what you wanted from the shelves behind the counters. The restaurant upstairs was Mallards at the Wharf, where we had dinner along with eight beautiful young couples on their way to Prom. After dinner, Tom and I walked down town and found a local theater production of “Always, Patsy Cline” and decided to check it out. The small theatre had about 100 seats, and every single one of them was filled. There was an air of excitement about it, and it seemed that everyone (except us) in the theatre knew each other. The actors sang many of Patsy’s songs as information about her life intertwined with the music. I did not remember that Patsy died in an airplane crash at age 30. We recognized many of her songs, and the actors and musicians were very talented. It was a fun surprise way to spend the evening.

April 25: To Yorktown

We had great service at the Deep Creek lock this morning, and were the only boat going through heading North. The lock master told us stories of the work they did during Hurricane Floyd with 7 foot waves inside the locks. The lock doors sustained $1.2M of damage, but they were able to hold back water surges from the Dismal Swamp to protect Portsmouth. We soon said goodbye to the still beauty of the countryside.
If I name all the things I have seen today, can you guess where we were next? Huge steel lift bridges, aircraft carriers, battleships, a helicopter, cranes, barges, tug boats, coast guard boats, a strange water going military tank, ocean going freighters loaded with steel girders and tractor trailer containers. Yep, you’re right. We were in Norfolk. We stopped at the Tidewater Marina, a low two story tan and white building, flanked by several docks full of yachts behind a breakfront. It reminded me of a place my family had stayed on a similar trip 40 years ago. We refilled our water tanks and picked up 300 gallons of diesel fuel before heading out into Baltimore Channel, the wide waterway leading to the Chesapeake Bay.
We rounded Fort Story and the abandoned Cape Henry light house at the First Landing State Park, and went over the Hampton Roads tunnel and were surprised to see the Bay amazingly calm. When we checked the depth gauge, it read 70 feet deep, and we could barely see land, but the water was glossy and just gently rolling (NOTHING like the Pamlico Sound!).

This afternoon we docked at the Riverwalk Marina in Yorktown and took in the historical sites. Tom got our bikes out and we took a 14 mile ride around the Revolutionary battle fields of Yorktown. We cycled around the paved walkway that led through the encampment areas each marked with their commanding officer and regiment. We saw where George Washington’s tents were set up and where the spring was that provided their water. Lord Cornwallis had fortified Yorktown for the British as his base for controlling the Chesapeake Bay. In October of 1781, George Washington led a combined force of American and French soldiers to defeat the British at the battle of Yorktown, the deciding victory for the revolutionaries. We also rode through the town on our way home. We saw the Grace Episcopal church that dates back to 1667 and the Nelson home which was built in 1712. General Thomas Nelson was Commander of the Virginia Militia and later signed the Declaration of Independence. It was a beautiful ride, the weather was perfect, we needed the exercise, and it was interesting to get the refresher on our country’s history. I am so glad we came to Yorktown.

We awoke early this morning to discover that the TNTY was engulfed in fog! We had plans to return the rental car and get off by 8AM to catch the lock opening at South Mills at 11:00 AM. The radio said that local school openings were delayed for two hours for fog! So we decided to wait. We finally left at 10 AM for a beautiful ride through the Dismal Swamp Wildlife preserve. We took the Pasquotank River north cruising along with four sailboats also headed for the lock which begins the canal cut through the swamp.

We moored the boat at the NC/VA line to see the only Visitor Center on the Intercoastal Waterway. It has some cool exhibits about the history of the area including prehistoric swamp facts, wildlife in the swamp and an information about the digging of the canal. In 1763, George Washington at age 31 first visited the Dismal Swamp and called it a Glorious Paradise and we agreed. We did see some wild life – a few ducks, 2 snakes zigzagging in the water, a huge blue Heron souring through the tree tops and a Cardinal, but mostly we saw a still water mirror reflecting all shades of spring greens. I sat on the bow of the boat for a white this afternoon and these words came to mind “when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds Thy hands have made... Thy power throughout the universe displayed, then sings my soul”. There was such amazing beauty God has made for us.

Tonight we are tied up right by the bridge at Deep Creek, because the bridge doesn’t open again until 8:30 AM tomorrow morning. This was a lucky find. We had a great supper of enchiladas at the Mexican restaurant by the bridge. We also found an auto parts store across the street where we bought me a replacement cell phone charger (I left mine in New York). Tonight we are exercising with our new workout ball... It is great, and we have to do something to work off the calories of just riding all day.