St Mary’s City MD USA

The forecast for Monday 11 June wasn’t great.  We checked with the National Weather Service at 0600 and saw a warning of northern quadrant winds building during the morning to reach 20+knots by about lunchtime, with a front (low cloud and rain) passing over the area in the early afternoon. A fair number of the yachts on the cruise decided to stay put for an additional day.  Those that left mostly went for an early start.  We joined that club and since Nicky was the Rally’s Net Controller we had the anchor up by 0700 [Ed: cue many, many buckets of water to remove the Chesapeake gloop], the mainsail up (2 reefs) shortly after that and were motoring out of Cockrell Creek and into the bottom end of the Great Wicomico River by the time that Nicky had to get on the air at 0800. Radio Net complete, we unrolled the staysail and about half the genoa and failed in the unequal struggle of staying ahead of Hullabaloo as she roared past us hard on the wind.  Those chaps at Oyster know how to build a good sailing machine!  The National Weather Service’s timings were a bit out and we had a good 20-25knots of wind hard on the nose between the Great Wicomico River and Smith Point at the southern entrance to the Potomac.  But we had a fun beat north despite the hammering rain and associated poor visibility.  As we rounded Smith Point light and started to look forward to a screeching reach west up the river, the front passed over us, the sun came out………and the wind dropped off!  It was a pleasant sail just the same but even with all the reefs shaken out it was a little on the light side.

Just in sight of the anchorage at St Mary’s City when we heard Doug’s radio call

St Mary’s City is about 4 miles up the St Mary’s River, a tributary of the Potomac.  We were so enjoying the sailing that we decided to beat up the St Mary’s River as far as seemed reasonable and we’re very glad that we did. We had a lovely sail and then about a mile short of the anchorage in the bend above St Mary’s City we lowered the sails to motor the final stage.  Just outside the anchorage we heard Doug Selden in Ithaca on the radio.  The fanbelt on his engine had shredded so he told Bill and Lydia (Dragon Run) that he was planning to beat up to the anchorage but that he consequently expected to arrive quite late.  By this time the wind was dropping and the outflowing current increasing.  Single-handed, Doug was likely to have a tedious beat and may not even make it all the way if the wind dropped too much, as seemed likely.  We turned around, rather to the surprise of Anne and Jonathon on Sofia who were just behind us and who hadn’t heard the radio call, and headed down river to offer him a tow.

Ithacain tow

We found Ithaca only a short way into the St Mary’s River, about 3nm downstream of the anchorage.  We set up a bridle from each of our primary winches, around our stern quarter cleats, and attached a long towrope to this.  I threw the towline to Doug whilst Nicky manoeuvred BVclose past Ithaca.  Slowly, slowly we took up the strain but when the tow was fully established found that we could quite easily achieve 4knots in the flat waters of the river.  It took us about an hour to get back up to the anchorage, where we slowed to halt with Ithaca still in tow so that Doug could set the anchor and settle back on the tide.  When he was happy that his anchor was secure we cast him ‘adrift’ and sorted ourselves out in the anchorage as well.

Sofia(foreground) at anchor off St Mary’s College

Once we were settled we had a look around the anchorage.  The weather was still rather grey and overcast so, to encourage the sun to come out, we set up the cockpit tent.  The fleet was grouped together in the southern corner of the anchorage with good spacing between the yachts but there was still plenty more space for the remainder of the fleet when they came up from Reedville the next day.  We could see St Mary’s College, well some of the buildings anyway, but there was no sign at all of St Mary’s City, which surprised us. We were wondering about going ashore for a look-see that evening when Julian and Patricia (A Capella of Belfast) came past in their dinghy on their way back from a wander ashore.  A short chat turned into evening drinks on BV[Ed: hardly sundowners with that sort of grey sky] and then a delicious Spanish stew dinner on board A Capella all cooked up in about 20 minutes flat using their pressure cooker – a meal that would have taken us an hour and a half using our pans.  Very generously Patricia gave us her old pressure cooker so, having managed to find a space in which to house it, we are now starting to learn how to use it.

Top:  part of the St Mary’s College complex.  Bottom left:  Memorial garden.  Bottom right: the OCC fleet at anchor

The following day, Tuesday 12 June, dawned bright and sunny (well done the cockpit enclosure for chasing the grey clouds away) and, as had become the norm, we spent the first few hours of the morning trying to work out why the engine was still unhappy about starting. This time I had a really close up look at the starter motor/starter solenoid assembly but nothing seemed to be amiss there.  I also replaced a relay in the starter circuit.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a spare 70A relay to replace the one that I removed from the engine but we swapped it for a smaller one to see if it made a difference.  Sadly, there was little change to the engine start characteristics – time to order a replacement starter motor assembly and a new relay.

So, somewhat later than we had really wanted, we made our way ashore and walked up through the grounds of St Mary’s College to St Mary’s City.  By now we understood why we had been able to see so little of the city the previous day – the city is, for the most part, an archaeological site and living history museum. Founded in 1634, it is the fourth oldest permanent English colony in North America and was the capital of Maryland until 1695 when Annapolis took on the mantle.  It is considered the birthplace of religious freedom in America as it was the earliest North American settlement established with the specific mandate of being a haven for both Catholics and Protestants.  After relinquishing the role of state capital, St Mary’s City fell into decline but its remains were largely undisturbed by subsequent developments.  Archaeological excavations began in the 1930s and have continued to the present day.  Itis now an internationally recognised archaeologicalresearch areaand training centre for archaeologists, with over 200 digs having taken place in the city over the last 30 years.

Left:  Trinity Church, built in the 1830s on the site of and using bricks from the original State House.  Right: The State House, a reconstruction of the original 1676 Maryland Statehouse (Maryland's first capitol and the home of the Maryland colonial assembly), which stands close to the site of the original

We spent a very pleasant afternoon wandering around the living history museum, enjoying the many reconstructed buildings and ‘ghost’ buildings (timber-framed outlines of the buildings that had been on the site).

The Maryland Dove, a replica of The Dove, the trading pinnace that accompanied The Ark, bringing pioneering settlers and equipment from England to America in 1633/4

The museum also boasts a working replica of the The Dove, a trading pinnace brought over with the first settlers of St Mary’s City.  Unlike The Ark which was the ship that brought the majority of the settlers, The Dove remained in the New World, to act as a vessel for trade and exploration.  So successful were the settlers in St Mary’s City that they sent The Dove north to Boston to trade some of their crops after the end of their first summer.  The trading was successful but The Dove was lost on the return voyage.

Replica Native American longhouse, of the type that the first settlers of St Mary’s City lived in until they could construct more European-style housing

The site chosen by the incoming settlers was already a Native American village, occupied by members of the Yaocomico branch of the Piscataway Indian Nation.  Learning from the mistakes of earlier settlers, Leonard Calvert, who led the settlers, had brought with the group a former Virginia colonist who was fluent in the language of the Native American tribesmen.  Thus they were able to negotiate to buy land and longhouses from the tribe, which meant that they were able to immediately start farming the land rather than have to fight the local population for the right to remain or build shelters/houses to protect themselves from the weather.  As a result, the settlers were very successful in colonising the area and indeed were in a position to begin trading their own crops at the end of the first summer season – an almost unheard of feat when compared to other settlers.

Left:  Mackall Barn, the oldest standing building in St Mary’s City. Tree-ring dating of its timbers put it as having been built in 1785.  Over the years it has been used as a granary and a tobacco barn.  Today it is a museum exhibit.  Right: reconstruction of ‘Smith’s Ordinary’ one of several hostelries that existed in St Mary’s City in the late 17^thcentury

The St Mary’s City site is spread out over a surprisingly large area and we were unable to cover the whole site if we were to do justice to those parts which we did see.  Disappointingly, we later learned that there is an excellent archaeological museum near the main college buildings with some fantastic displays of artefacts found over the years of working on the site.  One for our next visit but we were lucky enough to have a guided tour of the area where the archaeological students had started digging for the summer – it looked as if it would be hot, dirty work but hopefully they will make some good finds to make it all worthwhile.

The Rally reunited at the pot-luck cocktail party in the St Mary’s College Memorial Garden (photo by Tony Gibb)

The day ended with an excellent pot-luck cocktail party in the St Mary’s College Memorial Garden, overlooking the anchorage, now much busier after a much calmer sailing day in which the remaining yachts had come up from Reedville.

Visiting tall ship Kalmar Nyckel

A better photo by Tony Gibb taken in daylight

As dusk fell, we were told of the arrival of a visiting tall ship,Kalmar Nyckel, so, along with Cate and Mike (Kealoha V) we dinghied around the corner to see her before it became too dark.

And a late evening exploration can only end in one way – with stories, tall tales and a wee dram or two on board. Many thanks to Cate and Mike for a great round-off to a lovely day.

St Mary’s City, MD, USA

Reedville VA USA (Part 2)

After our day at Tangier Island we were looking forward to the start of the Rally drinks on the dock.  However, as we returned to BV to shower and change, dark clouds rolled in ominously and we could hear thunder in the distance.  We should have taken our waterproofs but we were seduced by a weather radar picture that showed the thunderstorms clearing soon.  How wrong the technology was!  How daft we were!!

The drinks party started well but the umbrella-holding, waterproof wearing majority were definitely right and the rain, very quickly becoming torrential rain, forced a migration to the restaurant veranda in short order.  And so we moved on to dinner much earlier than would otherwise have been the case, probably much to the relief of the restaurant staff as we all talked and talked pretty much until the restaurant closed.  Somehow we also managed to fit in a meal of soft shell crabs; well, what else could we eat this close to Tangier Island?

The morning of Sunday 10 June dawned bright and sunny and, having ‘solved’ the engine starting problem a couple of days before we thought we’d double-check that all was OK.  It wasn’t.  Once more the engine reluctantly juddered very slowly into action.  So, I spent the majority of the beautiful morning peering at other connections on the engine block and remaking them.  After a couple of hours’ work, we tried another engine start.  Success! For now.

Walter and Mary’s dock

With nothing more we could profitably do until the engine had sat without running for several hours, we decided to head ashore.  In general it seems that getting ashore around the edge of the Chesapeake can be a bit of an issue as much of the shoreline is private and, whilst there are plenty of docks, these are primarily private too. Apparently there are county ramps (slipways) that anyone can use but they are relatively few and far between.  However, Reedville is home to Walter Keith and Mary Frazier, Port Officers for the Seven Seas Cruising Association (SSCA) and friends of Neil and Ley Langford (Crystal Blues), OCC members who were on the Rally.  Crystal Blues was moored alongside their dock and they were quite happy for the other Rally members to use their dock as a mooring spot for our dinghies.  [Ed: and they very generously took all the yachts’ rubbish and recycling to the dump as well, public rubbish disposal facilities not being available in most US towns].

We spent a fascinating afternoon in the fishing museum opposite Walter and Mary’s home.  It began with a film about the menhaden fishing industry, describing the use of spotter planes in finding the shoals of small, oily fish; the method of catching the shoals (large mother ships with 2 small purse-seine fast boats); the use for the fish oil and protein (pet food, animal feed, a basis for cosmetics, and much, much more); and discussion on the number of fish caught (several million per mother ship per day) and the sustainability of the industry.  We have to admit to being somewhat sceptical about the sustainability section of the film but we also have to acknowledge that the film was probably made in the late 1970s (judging by the hair-cuts, suits and cars) and the numbers of fish still being caught and the methods being used to catch them have not changed in the intervening 35 or so years.  It is, of course, possible that the fish stocks are on the brink of a cataclysmic decline but there is no indication of that.

Having viewed all the fishing displays, we were shown around a tiny fisherman’s cottage dating from about 100 years ago. In its lifetime it had been extended from a one-up, one-down cottage with a separate kitchen to a 2-up, 2-down with a larger kitchen (still outside the back of the house but with a covered area between it and the main house).  No-one mentioned toilets and bathrooms and toilets; I guess there was a shed in the yard or down the road and a tin-bath by the fire.

Left:  model railway display.  Right top: wooden boat building shed.  Right bottom:  Maryland ‘skipjack’ oyster dredger, one of several old but operational fishing vessels still sailed by the fishing museum

Bizarrely, the fishing museum is also home to a hugely extensive model railway set-up.  This was originally built to attract additional visitors to Reedville at Christmas and, until quite recently, was only a temporary exhibit at the fishing museum during the festive period.  However, over the years the railway had grown so large that when the museum built a large wooden boat building shed, they designed the facility to house the model railway as well.  The model is based on a 19^thcentury plan to run a railway down the Northern Neck. In reality, the railway was never built but the modellers have lovingly constructed their track to run through all those towns that would have been on the line.  Due to the exigencies of space, there is little geographical accuracy, but all the towns represented are identifiable by their prominent buildings, landmarks and bridges (many of which operate).  Next door, the wooden boat building shed was not in operation on the day that we visited but it is in here that the old vessels that are owned by the museum, and still sailed by the museum volunteers, are maintained.  Some of those clam and oyster fishing boats were available for us to view outside alongside the museum’s dock.  Oyster fishing is still big business in the Chesapeake Bay or, rather, is a regenerating business in the Bay.  Different states have different rules and in Maryland dredging for oysters may only take place under sail whereas in Virginia motor vessels may be used. So, Maryland oyster dredgers (known as skipjacks) have a large plate attached to the stern with a V cut-out in it. The skipjack is pushed to the oyster bed by a power-driven vessel: the bow of the motor boat fits into the V of the stern-plate.  Once at the oyster bed, the motor boat disconnects from the skipjack, which is then operated under sail to harvest the oysters.  The return to harbour is achieved under ‘push-power’ as well but the letter of the law has been obeyed in harvesting the oysters!

Views of Reedville

We could have spent much longer at the museum but time was marching on and we had an appointment to keep that evening….

The Chisman Creek Band was playing in the pavilion at the museum and following evening cocktails on the veranda at Walter and Mary’s home, we were all encouraged to attend the music evening and even take to the dance floor.  It can safely be said that a great evening was had by all – the only problem being that it ended so early.  If we spend long enough in the country I’m sure that we will get used to the American timings for evening events but it still seems odd to us that a band will start an evening set at 1800 and finish it at (or before) 2100.  We’d taken a picnic to the concert but had such fun listening to the music, chatting and dancing that we entirely forgot to eat, so we retired on board and ate our delayed meal before plotting an early departure north to St Mary’s City the next day.

Reedville, VA, USA

Tangier Island MD USA

Bill and Lydia and Doug Selden had all recommended that we take the opportunity to visit Tangier Island, an isolated fishing community in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay so on Saturday 9 June we boarded The Chesapeake Breezewith Anne and Jonathon (Sofia) and Andrew and Julia (Hullabaloo) – a tourist day out by ferry – it felt rather odd!  Though the cruise blurb had said that the ferry departs from Reedville, and indeed it does, it doesn’t depart from a conveniently close location to the quay and the creek where all the OCC yachts were anchored. Happily, Walter Keith & Mary Frazier, the Port Officers for Reedville for the Seven Seas Cruising Association (SSCA) had been introduced to the OCC through Australian members Neil and Ley Langford (Crystal Blues).  They had kindly offered us all the use of their dock for getting ashore and, even more generously, offered to drive us to the ferry dock and, later, to the nearest store where we could buy all those bits and pieces that we had forgotten in our provisioning runs before the rally started.

The trip down river showed us the creeks from a different perspective and included a close-up view of an osprey’s nest, built on top of one of the navigation beacons.  Unfortunately, getting a photo of said nest was nigh on impossible as the entire passenger contingent of the ferry moved to a position to see it, blocking our view somewhat.

It took about an hour and a half to get to Tangier Island, which is incredibly low-lying [Ed: the highest point of land is just over 4ft above sea-level!] and marshy as the pictures above suggest.  Since 1850, the island's landmass has been reduced by about two-thirds.  Over the next 50 years, even if the sea-level only rises in the mid-range of that predicted by the International Panel on Climate Change,much of the remainder of the island is expected to be lost and the town will likely need to be abandoned.  However, in some circles this is being portrayed as ‘erosion’ so a vast sum of money has been spent building large stone seawall along the western shore of the island, with similar work soon to be started on the eastern side.  Sadly the part of the island now submerged includes the old fort that was used in the war of 1812 by the British to train slaves they had freed to fight in the British Colonial Marines.  It was also the staging post for the attack on Washington DC in which the President’s House was burned requiring it to be painted, and hence it is now called the White House.

Views of the main settlement on the island.  Note the garden fences, an oddity in Virginia and commented on by our tour guide.  The reason why people have fences around their land is, apparently, to properly define where one person’s garden/land ends and another’s begins.  Really? We’d never have guessed!

It was very odd to land on an island in company with 150 other people; we more normally arrive just the 2 of us, though sometimes in company with another dinghy or yacht.  Following the herd off the ferry, we looked around and wondered where to head next and how to see most of what the island had to offer in the short (2½hr) stop that we had available.  Almost immediately Anne found us with the news that she had bagged a golf-cart tour for the 6 of us, so we set off around the main part of the island in the care of Margaret, one of the several female tour guides, rattling through her ‘this is Tangier Island’ spiel with an odd non-inflective intonation.  We stopped a little short of the Volunteer Fire Service’s station whilst the emergency vehicle manned-up and headed out at some speed (for the island, about 10mph).  Only a couple of minutes into the tour we already had lots of questions about life on the island, some of which Margaret said she would answer as the tour progressed, some of which she answered then and there.  With the emergency vehicle clear and the and the tour recommencing, Margaret’s strange ‘this is the spiel’ intonation returned….

Tangier Island views.  Not many hills and it’s all about 4ft above sea level. Despite the marshy outlook, the island is ‘dry’ – no alcohol may be served in any of the restaurants.  Note the Christian cross on one side of the water tower.  The other side sports a Blue Crab (soft-shelled crab) for which the island is renown

Margaret pointed out the route down to the 1½ mile long beach that runs from the southern end of the west coast, along to the southern coast of the island.  Nicky and I returned there after the tour and ate our picnic lunch at the top of the beach, backed by dunes (and more marsh) marvelling at the bleakness of the place, with the grey waters of the Chesapeake lapping on the yellow sands but with nothing in sight out across the waters bar the occasional ship or yacht.

Picket fences were the norm until, in the mid 20^thcentury, the vicar put up a ‘modern’ chain link fence around the vicarage.  Most of the other islanders followed suit over time but more recently the ugly tide of wire fencing has been gradually pushed back by more attractive wooden railings again

The golf-buggy tour continued in a big circle around the main town.  Margaret pointed out various large lapboard houses, most of which are hotels or guesthouses.  She also mentioned the school and a full-time policeman (yes, really!).  The island has a standing population of about 700 people and, even so, has a school catering for all grades from pre-school through to 12^thgrade with, apparently, 13 teachers employed there. Quite amazing!  We had fully expected to hear that the older children had to attend schools on the mainland.  Nicky’s curiosity was piqued by the ramps outside many of the island’s homes. All became clear eventually – they are parking spaces for the home owner’s golf buggy, keeping it clear of the groundwater which rises up through so many of the gardens.

Tangier Island crabbing shacks – sea water is piped up from the bay and through the shallow tanks inside the shacks to keep the crabs in a suitable environment

The economy of Tangier Island is based on the soft-shell crab and, more recently, oyster-farming industries with tourism providing the other primary income-earner.  Indeed, Tangier Island is frequently referred to as the ‘soft-shell crab capital of the world’.  As we understand it, the fishermen catch Blue Crabs using pots set around the Chesapeake Bay in the usual way.  The crabs are brought to the island and kept in tanks (see picture above) where they are closely monitored.  When they are close to moulting their shells, they are moved to other enclosures where they are inspected every 3 hours and, as soon as they have shed their shells, they are packaged on ice and sent off to restaurants around the world where they are deep fried and served whole as a delicacy.

All in all we found Tangier Island a slightly odd place.  The community there is relatively inaccessible but is not remote from the outside world: there is cable TV, internet access etc etc.  The local accent is also unusual because it is the closest to the Elizabethan English used when the land was originally settled that is still spoken.  Perhaps understandably, the islanders are clinging on to their way of life whilst campaigning to draw attention to their plight in the face of rising sea-levels‘erosion’.  But across the town the only political posters in sight were all pro-Trump, both for the last Presidential election and the one in 2020.  Perhaps that’s just because in 2017 he called the town’s mayor to assure him that the town will survive – but then as an environmental protection and climate change nay-sayer the King Canute of the White House probably believes that is true, for the time being.  And, it’s likely the rest of his politics/rhetoric ring very true for the majority of the human residents of Tangier Island.  What the huge avian population, nesting on the wetlands, would have to say is, perhaps, another thing entirely.

Left:  Dragon Runon the wharf at Reedville (note the Reedville water tower with the image of the menhaden fish). Right (top and bottom):  images of Reedville

We returned to Reedville (with a bag of crab cakes) really after too short a time on the island to get to grips with it properly but, in other ways, more than enough time spent there.  One of the other couples on the rally later told us ‘the best way to see the island is by taking your own boat there’ and we agreed that that is so often the case.  Arriving as part of a hoard of visitors on a ferry often fails to bring out the best in a place.  But with a 2m draft BV is right on the very limit of being able to get onto some of the outer quays at Tangier Island.  Perhaps, however, when we return to the Chesapeake Bay in the autumn we might attempt a visit on BV and see how the island grabs us when it’s not ‘on show’ for the ferry passengers.  For the meantime, we had the first of several social gatherings to look forward to, the first one was drinks on the wharf alongside Dragon Run.

Tangier Island, MD, USA

Reedville VA USA (Part 1)

On the morning of Friday 8 June there was a mass exodus from the area around Bill and Lydia’s dock.  Sofiagot away early, with Hullabalooan hour or so behind them but a little ahead of us.  We slipped our lines at about 1000, after we’d had a bit of trouble starting the engine and Dragon Runfollowed us out.  A Capella of Belfastremained behind to complete their jobs list, planning on joining us all the next day.  The engine start problem was a bit odd.  Prior to this, apart from the problem with air in the fuel system that we had in Greece in 2016, the engine has always started enthusiastically first time.  On this occasion, however, the starter motor struggled to turn over and, when the engine did fire, it ran lumpily for a few seconds before all the cylinders fired up properly.  It sounded rather as if there were insufficient charge reaching the starter motor but there was plenty of charge in all the batteries and it made no difference which battery bank we selected or if we tied both banks together.  It was very strange and a little worrying.  But once it was going the engine clearly ran fine so we departed the dock and resolved to give ourselves extra time to get it going when we approached our destination.

Once clear of the Rappahannock River there was a gentle southerly breeze – about 9 knots – and with the fleet arrayed ahead of us we decided to hoist the MPS, poled out on the spinnaker pole, to add a touch of colour and some much needed speed to our passage.  We ‘raced’ Dragon Run(the closest OCC yacht to us) and kept an eye on the others on AIS, as well as closely watching the antics of Reedville’s menhaden fishing fleet.  Shortly after we had eaten lunch one of the large fishing vessel raced up to quite close off our port bow.  She stopped abruptly and launched 2 boats which sped towards us, moving apart but clearly dragging a large purse-seine net between them.  Running directly downwind we were hardly at our most manoeuvrable to avoid ‘vessels engaged in fishing’ as per the ColRegs, but then they had hardly given us ‘room and opportunity’ to do so.  We couldn’t easily bear away and go behind the fishing ship because we would have needed to have gybed (slow with the MPS up) and we couldn’t head up sufficiently to manoeuvre clear of the RIBs because of the MPS. The fastest option we had was to pull the sock down over the MPS but even that takes longer than the time that was available.  It looked rather as if we would end up in the middle of the purse-seine net but no sooner had Reg called the mother-ship on the VHF radio to ask their intentions, than the boats came together clear of us and started to close up their net for the mother-ship to vacuum up the catch.

Entrance to Reedville. Top left: Menhaden fishing boat.  Bottom left: The Morris-Fisher Stack, the last remaining part of the original menhaden fish factory.  Right: close up of the Morris-Fisher Stack

Bermuda Triangle impression averted, we continued north towards Reedville and arrived off the entrance to the river at about 1530, having successfully caught up with some of the fleet. There were a lot of yachts coming in from other directions too and, knowing that Lydia was planning on a gathering of about 25 OCC yachts over this weekend, we wondered if they were all on the cruise in company.  Having persuaded the engine into starting and lowered the sails, we joined the line of boats motoring up the river, past the new fish factory and the location of the old one…..

Reedvill from the south.  Quay and Crazy Crab restaurant to the left of the picture. 
The Reedville water tower just right of centre

Anchored astern of Hullabaloo

…. and up to the southernmost point of Reedville town with the quay and the Crazy Crab restaurant. Here, as briefed, we took the right-hand fork and anchored in a pool about 4m deep, a little behind Hullabaloo.  The creek quickly filled with yachts and we felt a little guilty about having anchored almost in the middle of the deepest part but with several crab pots close to us in slightly shallower water (as shallow as we would have wished to anchor) we felt we had few options.

Looking further up the creek – Kealoha V(ketch, furthest right), Sofia(cutter rigged, just astern of Kealoha V),
An Gobadàn(green, centre of picture)

We shut the engine down at 1615, very conscious that we were all invited to a pot-luck drinks gathering at the Fishing Museum beginning at 1730, before which we really wanted to have a look to see if there were any dodgy connections on the engine that might explain its poor starting.  I cleaned up the obvious connection – the negative grounding onto the engine block. Almost invariably in situations where the starter motor is not getting enough ‘oomph’ this is the weak connection and it had been in the firing line of the salt water leak on our passage from Culebra to Deltaville, so it seemed an obvious place to begin.  Connection cleaned up, we tried an engine start and it leapt into life immediately – great relief!  Hurried showers, collect some food and beers and we were only 45mins or so late for the party – a great catch up with old friends and a chance to make many new ones.

Reedville, VA, USA

Corrotoman River VA USA

Back on board BV after our stay with Phil and Lesley in Great Falls, we had plenty of jobs to be getting on with before the Chesapeake Bay cruise in company began in Reedville at the end of the week.  So, after a major food shop to refill the fridge and returning the hire car we set to…

….First on the list was to replace the shaped rubber pipes on the engine, one of which had started to leak on the passage from Culebra to the Chesapeake Bay.  I had ordered the replacement parts whilst we were in the Caribbean and they had been delivered to Phil and Lesley’s home. Removing the old parts (one held together with lots of red rescue tape) and replacing them with the new ones was, happily, a quick and simple job.  Hopefully, these ones will keep going for many years ….. but we now have spares on board just in case!

The biggest task was replacing the vast majority of the zips on the sprayhood, bimini and cockpit tent enclosure. Over the 6 years since the canvaswork was built, the sun’s UV rays had degraded the material of the original zips so that many of them ripped under the tension of attaching the panels.  We had already replaced the zips on some of the panels that we use routinely, now, with the recent prolonged heavy rain there was an incentive to replace the other zips so that we could easily set up the cockpit tent and ensure that it is reasonably waterproof.  And so began a frustrating day of sewing [Ed: and swearing!] but the job was done and I even managed to adjust some of the zips so that the panels aren’t quite so taut and so are easier to attach.

Fish and crabs illuminated by Bill and Lydia’s underwater dock light

There were several OCC yachts on the docks and at anchor around Bill and Lydia’s, all waiting for the cruise in company to begin at the end of the week.  On the evening of Thursday 7 June, Bill and Lydia hosted a barbecue to welcome the visitors and to thank their friends for the use of their docks.  It was such a lovely evening, with so many interesting people to talk to that I entirely failed to take any photos because I was having such a good time!  On our way back to BV, we enjoyed a display of circling fish and swimming crabs, all illuminated by Bill and Lydia’s dock light.

We’ve not seen swimming crabs before and we could have stayed and watched them for ages.  But it was a lovely, quiet evening and the mosquitoes were out in force so we contented ourselves with some photos and then hid in safety away from the bugs on BV behind our mossie net screens.

Corrotoman River, VA, USA

Visiting Friends in Great Falls (Part 2)

Our second weekend staying with Phil and Lesley was dominated by rain and sport. Neither Phil nor Lesley could remember ever having so much rain during their 10 years of living in Great Falls and all the rain brought concerns about some of the many sporting fixtures planned for the weekend.  Both Georgia and Jack had play-off games scheduled and the weekend was planned in true military fashion to ensure that they could get to all the events that they were either playing in or coaching, which, inevitably, were spread across the county.

Jack’s main event was a lacrosse game, a sport neither Nicky nor I had either played or watched before. Happily, he needed to be at the venue an hour before his game started so we got to watch the match before his and learn some of the rules before cheering Jack’s team on.  We were very fortunate with the weather and whilst it rained on the drive to the High School, it stayed dry throughout our time there.  The facilities at the school were incredible!  We saw about 10 good-quality hard surface tennis courts, as well as the astroturf football field (marked for a variety of sports), surrounded by a tartan running track and overlooked by a good-sized bank of seating and an enormous scoreboard.  It reminded us of the athletics track at Footes Lane in Guernsey and yet this was located at ‘just’ a High School.  Phil assured us that these were quite normal facilities for High Schools in this area. Signs around the car park gave directions to the swimming pool, gymnasium, health suite…….  There were plenty of parents and families watching the matches, several of whom were happy to help explain the rules to the strange Brits who had no idea about the rules of lacrosse.  The kids were enthusiastic and pretty skilful and all seemed to be having a great time.  Unfortunately, Jack’s team lost, but only by a small margin.  Had the extra points been awarded for the enthusiasm of their supporters, Nicky’s vocal encouragement would surely have tipped the balance!

Georgia spent Saturday coaching a volleyball team in their play-offs and then, on the Sunday, it was her turn to compete.  The rain had set in again so we were delighted that volleyball is an indoor sport – less delighted when we found out that the gym roof had several leaks!  We stayed for 2 of Georgia’s 3 games but Phil, Reg and I had to head back home before her final match as Jack was scheduled to play in a tag football match that evening and still had homework to complete before that.  Definitely proof that the weekend had to be planned with military precision to ensure that nothing fell between the cracks.

BV safe in the dock at Bill and Lydia’s home

Staying with Phil and Lesley in their guest apartment was lovely but it did feel a little strange to be in a proper bed and to have so much living space after being on BV for so long.  It also seemed odd to be away from her for an extended period.  However, any concerns that we might have had about her during all the unseasonable weather were soon dispelled with lovely sunset photos of BV safe on the dock sent to us by Lydia.

And so, our sojourn with Phil and Lesley, Georgia and Jack came to an end and we packed up our kit and new purchases for the journey back to BV.  It had been a lovely break from the sea and a fantastic opportunity to see something of Washington DC and ‘real life’ in a part of the USA that we would not otherwise have had the opportunity to experience. With luck, we’ll have the chance to visit again in the autumn (Fall!) when we plan to be back in the Chesapeake area, waiting to move south once more.  That’s assuming that they’ll have us back; we’d certainly like to see them all again in much less than the 10 years its taken us to get out here this time!

Great Falls, VA, USA

Washington DC

The Capitol – it felt a bit like we were on a stage set and, in some ways we were.  As we walked along the National Mall we saw a number of film cameras and crew buses and people with placards warning that filming was taking place

We had both previously visited Washington DC with work and had seen most of the ‘must do’ sights so Phil and Lesley recommended that we take a couple of days to visit some of the Smithsonian museums around the National Mall.  So, on Thursday 31 May and Friday 1 June we took the Metro’s silver line from its outermost station, Wiehle-Reston, into Smithsonian, right on the National Mall. We came up the escalator and straight into that icon filmset view.

Clockwise from left: The Washington Monument; the Smithsonian Castle; the Natural History Museum; the National Archives

We spent some time just wandering along the National Mall enjoying the sights, even if they weren’t set off by the traditional blue May skies; it was rather grey and overcast!

The Washington Monument and the African American History and Culture Museum

Phil had recommended that we try to visit the newly opened African American History and Culture Museum but entry is by timed tickets only and we were unable to get tickets for a time that worked for us so instead we spent the Thursday at the National Museum of American History. THE display to see at this museum is the original Stars and Stripes, the banner that flew over Fort McHenry in Baltimore and which inspired the writing of the American National Anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner. Unfortunately, but understandably, it is forbidden to take photos in the display.  The flag itself is now preserved in a dimly lit, climate-controlled environment in the hope that in this way it will survive another 250+years. It’s a huge flag even if, over the years, sections of it have been cut off to give to souvenir hunters.  It spent a long period hung in a sunlit room so it is rather faded and extremely brittle but it is still impressive.  We went round the exhibit twice as some of the really interesting information about the flag is displayed after the flag itself.  Having read more about how it is constructed, damage it has sustained over the years, etc, Nicky wanted a second look at the artefact itself.

Julia Child’s kitchen

I wasn’t terribly disciplined about taking photos in the museum and so only have pictures of a couple of displays but we saw several other exhibits which helped to provide us a better understanding the American way of life and psyche (for want of a better way of putting it).  One of the more thought-provoking was a temporary exhibit about the internment of Japanese people living in America, including American citizens of Japanese origin, during WWII.  The exhibit on food shown above was also very interesting.  My pictures focus on the kitchen of Julia Child (1912-2004) the famous American TV cook and teacher.  She developed a passion for cooking when she accompanied her husband to Paris on a posting with the US Information Agency.  During their time in the city, she attended the famous Le Cordon Bleu cookery school and was the first woman to receive (belatedly) a graduation certificate from it.  Over 40 years, through books and her TV series, she encouraged Americans to expand their ideas on cookery and in 2001 she donated the kitchen from her home in Cambridge Massachusetts to the Smithsonian. The rest of the display gave a real insight into the development of parts of the American food (eg barbecues from holidays on the Pacific islands) and wine industries and, in concert with the display on transportation (see below), very much helped to put areas of modern American life, that we all ‘know’ and ‘understand’ from films, into context.

Top: San Remo Railway company display. Bottom left:  Depiction of the first successful North American transcontinental car journey. It took 63 days, 12 hours and 30 minutes (23 May – 26 July 1903).  Bottom right: The John Bulllocomotive 1831

Our overriding impression from the transportation display was one a huge country with, until recently (advent of cheap transport, TV, radio, the internet), great isolation away from the main cities.  The John Bullexhibit, highlighted the size of the nation almost by accident.  The blurb informed us that ‘the John Bullwas one of the earliest steam locomotives in the US and was imported from England in 1831 for use on the first rail link between New York and Philadelphia.  The engine tended to derail on the uneven American tracks but a set of guide wheels attached to the front solved the problem……..The John Bulland its cars reduced passengers’ journey time between the nation’s two largest cities from 2 days by road to 5 hours by rail’.  Five hoursin a train between 2 cities which are, in the overall picture of the US, really rather close together!  It’s a huge country and the development of railways across the country was invaluable in bringing the 2 coasts closer together, but also further isolated all those places that the railway didn’t touch.  The display about the San Remo Rail Company highlighted just how important the railways were for towns and cities to develop and for the local population to get their food produce to the new and expanding markets.

Route 66 - do we have time to hire a Harley Davidson for
an Easy Rider style adventure?

And then the exhibit moved on to discuss roads and cars, which introduced trailers (and trailer parks) and motels (an upmarket version of the early roadside cabins).  There was a significant undertone of impoverished, isolated communities, often not even communities, just households, scratching a living in the vast wastelands of the continent.  The American Dream?  Altogether it was a hugely interesting and thought-provoking day and it would be fascinating to revisit the museum and see more.

Back outside the museum, the weather had improved so I took more pictures of tourist Washington DC…….

… and we weren’t alone.  With the brighter weather all sorts of people had appeared to enjoy the vista.  From those, like us, who were obviously tourists….

… to people that just wanted to run around and enjoy the wide expanse of green parkland on the mall.  We, however, were running out of time and we’d not even left ourselves enough for the long walk down to visit the war memorials by the Washington Monument.

Instead, we headed back to Great Falls on the clean, smart and surprisingly quiet (ie not busy) Metro.

It doesn’t only rain in DC; we got some sunshine too!

On the Friday we took Phil’s recommendation and visited the National Archives.  Again, we walked across the National Mall, this time in much better weather, so I took the opportunity to take more photos.  These were the only ones from the day as photography is entirely forbidden in the National Archives.  But it was another fascinating visit.  We saw the Constitution and its Amendments, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence and learned a surprising amount about the treatment of various Native American tribes, the development of the Bill of Rights over the years and the history of immigration to America.

The pool in the National Sculpture Gardens with the National Archives beyond

All museumed out, we had a lazy lunch in the National Sculpture Garden watching school groups relax around the pool – feet cooling off in the water.  It had been a fascinating couple of days and the many Smithsonian musuems will bear many more visits but the next couple of days would all be about living the American High School dream – play-off season!

Washington DC, USA