A beautiful plan gets blown off the charts, but a last-minute detour and a good
car heater combine to produce a workable Plan B.
by Jeremy McGeary
photographs by Starke Jett
As newcomers to Virginia's Northern Neck, my wife, Melissa, and I are acquainting ourselves with the region's multifaceted history. I've already convinced myself that our circa 1950s house was built—under a massive oak, with a nearby spring—on a former Indian trail. During the Civil War, the Union Army used Old Farnham Church, just down the road, as a stable. But although we live surrounded by farmland and forest, we're coast dwellers at heart, so we were naturally compelled to explore the past by approaching it from the Chesapeake Bay.
In our immediate area, and reachable by water, are a handful of small museums, each of which focuses on an aspect of life on the Bay. In Reedville, the Fishermen's Museum traces the town's history through its creation by and dependence on the menhaden fishery. The Deltaville Maritime Museum showcases the preeminence of the peninsula between the Rappahannock and Piankatank rivers as a center for the construction of fishing, trading and, more recently, recreational craft. On Smith Island, a modern cultural center puts a close-up lens on a unique community wherein past and present mingle freely but the future is shrouded in doubt.
All of these windows into the workings of our new surroundings are within a circle that an average cruising boat, whether power or sail, can readily explore in a few days. Since my favorite way of wasting time when I'm suppposed to be doing something productive is to pore over maps and charts, I had long been mulling over a couple of itineraries by which we could do this. The most logical began in Deltaville. Depending on the weather of the starting day, the first leg would be a 20-mile sail to Reedville. The second day we'd make another 20-mile hitch to Smith Island, and the third a rather longer run just over 30 miles back to Deltaville. We could also do the route in reverse order if the weather so decreed. It was a beautiful plan.
Only one detail stood in our way: We don't own a boat, at least not one that could service such a cruise. My entire adult—make that postadolescent—life has been devoted to boats and sailing, but I've never owned a boat bigger than a dinghy. From the vintage gaff-rigged beauties of the Ocean Youth Club in my native England to the charter yachts I crewed and skippered in my twenties to my occasional present-day outings, every single vessel I've sailed has been of the class OPB (other people's boats).
Since leaving behind the world in which I lived and worked on boats 24/7, I've let myself be smothered in the kudzu of shore-bound life. I have yet to figure out how to fit all my other commitments around owning a boat and the attendant responsibility of cherishing it. Melissa and I will own a boat one day, a resolution to which she is the key party. To that end, we are slowly sawing at the vines.
Meanwhile, there are ways for people like Melissa and me to get on the water: We charteredOsprey, a Beneteau 352, from East Coast Yacht Management in Deltaville. Because of the better chance for breeze and crisp, clear air, we chose the period after Labor Day for our cruise. We also hoped to include a family celebration on board: Melissa's parents, who live in Reedville, would be married 54 years in September. In the end, what with deadlines, work commitments and boat availability, it was a week in late October that chose us.
In one particular aspect, our life on the Northern Neck resembles closely the one we'd left in Rhode Island: Any journey of consequence involves a bridge. On our way to Deltaville, we crossed the Robert Opie Norris Jr. Bridge, which carries Route 3 over the Rappahannock River. Above us, the sky was that clear, blue crystal so typical of late fall. Below us, whitecaps flecked the water.
"Looks like a nice, brisk sailing breeze down there," I said. And brisk it turned out to be, not just in velocity but in temperature. Not many boats seemed to be taking advantage of it. In fact, the sole traffic on the Rappahannock was the watermen.
I'd been watching the weather prognosis for days, following the progress of a powerful low across the northern states and the gradual spread of high pressure into the Mississippi Valley, pushing westerly winds ahead of it. With four sailing days in store and a printed Sailflow forecast in hand, everything looked good on paper for accomplishing our three-leg itinerary in sunshine and fair winds of moderate strength, leaving a spare day just in case. Everything, that is, except the forecast strength of the wind, which kept rising, and the temperature, which did the opposite.
By the time we'd completed our pre-charter briefing aboardOspreyand topped off with provisions, the wind had steadied at the top of the forecast range and every rig in the marina was humming. Melissa's parents, Joe and Catherine, have had lifelong associations with the water, but they aren't well versed in the practicalities of a modern cruising sailboat. I had no desire to initiate them in these weather conditions and in unfamiliar waters, although Joe, a take-charge former construction-management executive, was itching for action.
"Do you want to take her out for a shakedown?" he asked.
"Not really," I said. "I'd feel better doing it if I knew the area better." What I didn't say was that while I was confident we'd getOspreyout of her slip, getting her back in such a crosswind might have been quite ugly.
After a last look at the whitecaps on the river and the anemometer on the boat, we punted on our planned destination for day one—Reedville— jumped in the car, and with the heat turned up, drove the two miles to the Deltaville Maritime Museum, which we'd intended to save for last.
As luck would have it, the museum had just begun its winter season, during which it's open only on weekends. But, between the outdoor exhibits and the boat shop, where members keep their own hours working on sundry projects, we still found plenty to see. An open shed next to the main building houses several examples of locally built craft, in various stages of aging, and the shiny newExplorer, the Deltaville museum's rendition of the vessel—a shallop—in which Captain John Smith voyaged the length of the Chesapeake Bay in 1608. At the dock lies the handsome nine-log fishing boatF.D. Crockett, in the delicate condition of being reinforced to the point it can be hauled out for complete restoration. I could have spent the rest of the afternoon there. Joe, very much the project man himself, was intrigued watching a pair of boatbuilders as they laid off compound bevels on a frame they were cutting for theF.D. Crockett. It was already late, and cold, so the womenfolk chivied us back to the relative warmth ofOspreyfor one of Catherine's inimitable cocktails and her chili.
Lying in the V-berth that night, I tried to convince myself that the wind was creating progressively less noise in our rigging and that of the boats around us. By first light, the wind had indeed dropped, prompting us to plan on as early a departure as we could manage for an attempt on Reedville. Perhaps, if the wind remained manageable, we could go straight to Smith Island instead. That would leave us two days, allowing us to stop in Reedville on the return trip.
Joe and Catherine are retired, and while that doesn't mean they are idle—far from it—they do have their routines. One of them is breakfast, and while watching them adapt to the novelty ofOsprey's compact galley was entertaining, I could feel myself getting ever more "skipperish" as the clock ticked relentlessly on. Melissa kept me in check with looks.
It was long after half past early when we eventually made it out of Broad Creek and into the Rappahannock. The whitecaps were back in droves. We rounded Windmill Point where, instead of the partial lee I had hoped for, we met waves barreling directly down the Bay to join in a boisterous melee with those following us out of the Rappahannock. The wind's eye apparently was set in the Great Wicomico River, as if specifically to protect Reedville from sail-powered incursions.
Reefed down to two scraps of sail, Osprey struggled to make ground to windward. She seemed bent on a course for the Eastern Shore as she shouldered great lumps of Chesapeake water onto her beamy decks and down Catherine's neck. At this rate, my estimated two hours to the Great Wicomico was looking more like four.
While I saw no sign of surrender in Joe or Catherine, Melissa, who'd recruited them to join us on this endeavor, now had the queasy look of a junior officer leading troops into a losing battle. Her glances in my direction began to smack of mutiny.
Just then, a particularly penetrating gust blew my typed itinerary, listing courses and distances, out of its nook on the binnacle. I took this as an admonishment, a reminder that boats and timetables aren't a good mix. We tacked and retreated to Deltaville, but this time not back to Broad Creek. Instead, I guided Osprey around Stingray Point and into the quieter, albeit still windy, Piankatank River and Jackson Creek, where we had planned to come on day three because it is an easy walk from there to the Deltaville museum. Okay, we had already visited the museum by car the day before, but this spot, at least, was on our itinerary. I was frankly happy, too, for an excuse to about-face and pry my white knuckles off the wheel.
We tied up to the fuel dock at Deltaville Marina to develop a recovery strategy. While I'd been concerned with getting the boat into a secure haven, Melissa was thinking of her parents. Thus far, they'd shown great spirit, but this wasn't proving to be the quiet little introduction to Chesapeake cruising we'd hoped to give them.Ospreyhad no heat, nor was there any warmth in the weather forecast. Melissa, promising that we'd make it up to them, bundled Joe and Catherine ashore, whence Judith Southerland, a veritable angel who's taken earthly employment as Deltaville Marina's dockmaster, ferried them in the boatyard vehicle across the peninsula to their car. They would be in Reedville before us.
This left the two of us pondering the possibilities both immediate and eventual. Our trip to Smith Island, where we had optimistically—as it turned out—made a reservation at Smith Island Marina, had by now disappeared beyond our event horizon, but Reedville still registered within the realm of possibility. First we had to decide what to do with the rest of the day. We could go out and anchor, but we'd forgone the dinghy option and didn't feel like stranding ourselves. Judith said we could stay put until a boat came for fuel. So we did, and skulked away the sharp, sunny, chilly afternoon among snowbirds doing likewise. A couple of sailboats came into the creek, their crews bundled in foulies and fleece, but they anchored out.
Melissa called Smith Island Marina to let them know we weren't coming. "Maybe that's just as well," said Pauli Eames, who owns and operates it with her husband, Steve. The day before, a boat had come in "sideways, out of control, and hit three docks." Nobody was hurt, she said, but the image was sobering, and a reminder that Smith Island is utterly exposed in northwesterly winds.
Overnight, the wind again died, until by morning it was calm, the occasional puff sweeping down the creek to ruffle its placid surface. We awoke to the sound of engines starting and anchor chains rattling as the snowbirds, at last free of the wind's shackles, or so they thought, joined once more the southward migration.
AboardOspreyit was decision time. The forecast again called for northwesterly winds, but not as strong as the preceding day's. (Oh, where had we heard that before?) For the next day, our last, the wind was supposed to go south, with a chance of rain. So, while getting to Reedville was certainly an option, getting back wasn't looking too hopeful. Reluctantly, we crossed Reedville off our list as well.
Our time onOspreywas running out, and, determined to get in some sailing in better than survival conditions, I proposed a closer destination. A short distance up the Rappahannock, as the fish crow flies, is Irvington. It wasn't part of our plan, but itdoesboast a museum—a brand new shiny one, in fact, barely a year old—and, it turned out, a real surprise.
Ospreywas no crow that day. Still deeply reefed, she pursued a jagged course, beating into an obstinately stiff wind that blew directly down the Rappahannock. I had long wondered what sailing this river would be like. From my normal vantage point, driving over the Robert Norris Bridge, it appeared that under most circumstances it could offer ideal conditions of sheltered water, where even strong winds don't have enough fetch to build up an unpleasant chop. And so it turned out. We could have used a few more degrees of warmth, and fewer knots of wind (to get more efficient shapes out of the sails), but otherwise the Rappahannock lived up to my expectations. We needed a bit of sailing to get us back in practice, but we stuck to it and tacked our way from Stingray Point, under the Norris Bridge, and into the sheltered embrace of Carter Creek.
"Welcome to the Tides Inn, sir," said the dockmaster, handing us each a key card. "Your room number is 755." And with that room number came all the privileges of a hotel guest. To me, a dyed-in-the-canvas blow-boater, the whole arrangement smacked of decadence and indulgence—a view apparently shared by snowbirds, who were conspicuously absent. Melissa accepted it as a perfectly logical way for cruising sailors to see the Bay, and a just reward for braving challenging conditions. Before we could avail ourselves of the hotel lounge, though, and thaw out before its huge log fire, we had to pay a call in town.
Although the Chesapeake's weblike tributaries reach deep into its heart, the Northern Neck guards its waters like a secret. We'd driven through Irvington a score of times and never caught a glimpse of the creek that once made the town a vital stage on the Chesapeake trail. Only when we approached from the water, and walked the short half mile to the Steamboat Era Museum, did we see how close is the connection, both figuratively and physically, between Irvington and the Chesapeake Bay. Prominent on the grounds sits the deckhouse of thePotomac, a vessel that called regularly in Irvington. According to museum staff, it's "the largest single remaining relic of the Chesapeake Bay steamboat era." A decision is sought soon on how best to stabilize it and prevent it from becoming the largest collection of relics. Inside, we were fortunate to catch the 2006 special exhibition on the impact the Civil War had on the lives of the populace on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay and its contribution, through the Potomac Squadron, to the accelerated development of steamboat technology. We walked out of the museum into Irvington's nebulous town center with a wholly new perspective on the role the Northern Neck played in the region's evolution. On the way back toOsprey, I wondered if our big oak at home sheltered Confederate musket balls within its vast root system.
On our last morning, we peered over our coffees at a glassy Carter Creek reflecting a thickening sky. As forecast, a new wind began to fill from the southeast. After a lazy breakfast, we set out to returnOspreyto her home at Stingray Point Marina. Because the fitful wind was on our nose again, and our clock was running out, we motored. Piloting downstream took little effort compared with that of monitoring our zigzag course on the way up. We flicked on the autopilot and reflected on our little cruise.
Given the lateness of the season and the shortness of our cruising window, our original plan had been rather ambitious, though entirely feasible in more benign weather. A more hardened crew on a more weatherly boat could well have taken it in their stride, but still might have wanted a Plan B. We did explore territory that was new to us, and our hastily concocted backup brought us pleasant surprises. Most important, we learned a little more about ourselves and our surroundings.
As for the two destinations we were unable to reach—Reedville and Smith Island—the first was already familiar to us. Joe and Catherine had first brought Melissa and me to the Reedville Fishmen's Museum years before we moved to the Northern Neck. The museum has become a beacon, not just to locals proud of their heritage, but also to a small army of affluent elders who have moved there in their retirement from the bustle of distant cities and suburbia. It has joined the churches and garden clubs in widening their social circle, and it flourishes with the energy, time and resources they bring to it. I can't wait for my retirement so I can spend my days sailing on the museum's skipjack and building boats in the boat shop and trains in the model shop.
We can easily visit Reedville or Deltaville any time we care to simply by getting in the car, but Smith Island is inaccessible save by boat, and from the Northern Neck only in summer and fall on the schedule of Captain Gordon Evans, who runs a tour boat from Sunnybank, on the Little Wicomico River. Not getting to Smith Island inOspreywas a big disappointment. But, I confess, because Smith Island looked scary on the chart, while planning this cruise I took the ferry from Reedville to make a reconnaissance run. That convinced me of two things. First, it was a smart thing to do, and the other was that neither Smith Island nor its people can be fully appreciated in the two hours the ferries leave passengers ashore. Seeing the community through the lens of the Visitor Center only heightens the desire to get a sense of the place and its people outside of its "opening hours," an experience the tour boats don't readily accommodate. So, the story doesn't end here. We will sail there before we, too, become museum pieces.
[03.07 issue]
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