Tangier Island

Leaving Portsmouth, we traveled up the west coast of the Chesapeake to Deltaville. We spent the night there and having good weather we decided to cross to Tangier Island on the east coast of the Bay. The island is only 3 miles long and 1 mile wide and is pretty isolated--major shopping is done at towns on the mainland. The only industry on the island is crabbing and oyster harvesting although according to one of the locals, oystering has now been outlawed in the Bay. The waterway into the marina is lined with crab houses where the waterman keep their boats and separate the crabs to get them ready to ship to market. They are "waterman" rather than "fisherman" because they make their living on the water. A closer view of the town from the water....tour boats come here from both the east and west sides of the Bay twice daily. That's when the shops and restaurants open...when the tour boats come. After 5 or so, there is only 1 shop open...an ice cream store. There were a few gift shops and about 5 restaurants.

A closer look at the crab house and kind of boat used. The boats are about 40 feet long.

Here is a waterman sorting his crabs...these are Maryland blue crabs and they are now shedding their shells...it's soft shell crab season.
Leaving Parks marina, these signs advertize the restaurants...

Main street....note that they use golf carts here. Very few cars here---I think we saw three including the police car. Life is pretty laid back here...thought this was kind of a neat sign.

View of the street to the north end of the island...streets are just wide enough for one car.
Porch of the History Museum had these interesting checkerboad tables and pieces. Oyster shells are painted...
The yards here are fenced in and many, many had their dead buried in the yard..

This sign explains why.....
According to this sign, this island was discovered in 1608. Historical records are not verified about when it was actually settled, but the Crockett family is one of the originals. Interestingly, most of the current residents (now about 600, once was 1100) are decendents of the two original families....very common names here are Crockett, Pruitt, Parks, Dize. They have their own dialect which is described as Elizabethan cockney or maybe Cornish. It was more prevalent when they were talking with each other. Speaking with strangers, they tended to speak more slowly. We had the opportunity to listen to 3 local women while we were in the museum.

The History Museum was interesting. In one incident, the island had the opportunity to be the setting for a love story film starring Paul Newman. The council voted it down because the story had cursing, sex and drinking in it. I think it was "Time in a Bottle". No amount of persuasion could change their minds even though there was a nice financial incentive. The locals also feared that this would bring too many people who would have bad influence on their young girls.

This island is dry...no liquor sold anywhere. Here is their fire department. Many of the newer homes are modular or double wide which must be an interesting site being transported first across the bay and then down these streets !
Finally, despite this Verizon sign on the house (the one on the right in back)who we assumed to be a dealer, we had no cell phone or internet coverage. It's my understanding the locals use satellite TV,etc.

Scenes from Portsmouth/Norfolk

Arriving in Norfolk, just out of the Dismal Swamp, here is what we encountered....Boats, boats, and more boats...BIG boats. So much traffic after just seeing 3 other boats in two days....Wow !
This is a picture of the Tidewater marina where we left the boat while we went back to the cabin for a couple weeks...It was in Portsmouth, right next to the Naval Hospital.

Here is a picture of the water taxi which you could take across the Elizabeth river between Norfolk and Portsmouth for $1.00.
This is a picture of the lightship Portsmouth which is part of the waterfront in Portsmouth. It was stationed in several ports before it was retired from service in the late 1900's.
Portsmouth was a nice town to walk around...a lot of different styles of architecture from Renaissance to Victorian to French Provincial. Bricked streets. There was a 1940's theater which has been renovated and it showed the latest films...unfortunately, the new movie of Indiana Jones was sold out so we had to pass. The old courthouse is now an art museum which had a display of kites and hot wax art. There were several museums too and I wished we could've spent more time here. We finished our walk around town at the Bier Garten Restaurant with German beer, reubens and beer battered french fries. There were no less than 350 kinds of German Beer !---Dennis, you would've loved it !

This was an interesting photo of two naval ships...

And still another ship......
A view of some of the homes along the waterfront in the Norfolk harbor.
As we went by the navy base docks there were many, many ships, one sub but also a lot of security....

And there were many containers ships too...this one from Panama.
Leaving the harbor, we started up Chespeake Bay with the plan to get to Deltaville on the west coast before the high winds forecast start. From there, we plan to go to the east side of the Chesapeake which is said to be still somewhat untouched as far as tourism goes..

Dismal Swamp Visitor Center to Norfolk/Portsmouth

Leaving in the morning so that we could arrive for the 11:30 locking we passed by this bridge. A farmer who has property on both sides of the canal has permission to pull this bridge across to transport his cattle to the other side. Luckily, he wasn't doing this as we went by........We also found later that he was the mayor of Chesapeake. (no political influence I'm sure ! ) This is a view from the stern of the boat of the one turn in the Canal !
We are now in Virginia !
A blue heron on the waterway............
Another view of the Dismal Canal. It was a very pretty place and we could hear the birds....
This is was the Superintendent's house (Corps of Engineers).

Isn't unreal just how straight this is ?
Here are remnants of the old pilings which lined the canal. A lot of them had begun to sprout branches so it was hard to see them with the overhanging trees. We could also see a few of the old cement mile markers here and there.
And it was sometimes hard to take pictures with the mirrored images.
We finally made it to the last bridge and even the vehicles were mirrored in the water. After the lockmaster opened the bridge for us, we went into the lock with one other boat. The lockmaster was reputed to be an expert conch player so he played a tune for us.
After going through this canal and seeing a total of 3 boats on the entire 40 miles (22 on the canal and 18 on the Pasquotank River) it was a real shock to get into the waterway to Norfolk and Portsmouth. Here were all kinds of boats from cruisers, to Navy ships, ocean liners and big yachts...!

We'll leave the boat here for 2-3 weeks while we return to the quiet cabin in NW Wisconsin. There we'll get revived again to continue this journey so we can absorb more history and scenery.

Elizabeth City to Dismal Swamp Visitor Center

Leaving Elizabeth City, we were on the winding Pasquotank River for about 18 miles before we got to the Dismal Swamp Canal. But this was very pretty and the winding curves added to the diversion. It was certainly more comfortable riding than on the Albermarle Sound the day before. Here we came to the division in the river leading to the Dismal Swamp canal. On the right side of the picture is the bridge near the lock.
The canal stretches for 22 miles and is absolutely straight except for one turn. This canal is the oldest continually operating canal in the United States. It was first surveyed in 1728. George Washington visited it in 1763 and then suggested that the swamp be drained and make a canal between the Chesapeake Bay and the Albemarle Sound. So a company was formed to drain the swamp, harvest the trees and turn the land into farmland.
He actually surveyed and directed the digging of the first 5 northern miles using slave labor who worked in the swamps in the water, often up to their shoulders.
Realizing then that this was such an enormous task, they decided instead to focus on lumbering and use the cypress trees for shipbuilding and the cedar for shingles. The lumber industry continued until the 1950's when all the timber had been harvested. The land was donated to the Nature Conservancy and eventually to the Department of the Interior for the creation of the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. Thus, all the trees in the present swamp (which is much smaller than the original 40,000 acres) are less than 50 years old.

Here is the southern lock called Southern Mills. Boats are raised 8 feet. The lockmaster tends both the lock and the bridge north of the lock. When we went through, he then went to the bridge and raised the bridge for us to pass. Locks and bridges are opened four times a day. This sign in the lock gives the mileage both north and south.
Here you can see the farmland now on the west side of the canal. We couldn't find out what this yellow crop was.
We then stopped for the night at the Visitor Center where we can tie up. There is a new education center on the west side of the canal (opened only 2 months) with a boardwalk into the swamp.

Here is the pontoon bridge which is usually open, but the operator opens it for anyone who goes across to the Education Center. The Visitor Center on the east side of the canal was closed for the day.
Here is the bridge completely closed so we could go across and return....actually we were the only ones there who walked across when we were there.
Here is a picture of the bridge in the open position and the Education Center in the rear.
There was one other boat tied up at the wall--a couple from New Jersey who we had met in Vero Beach. They joined us for a social time and gave us good tips for New York City. It was a nice quiet night.

New River to Elizabeth City

This is picture of an old landing craft that was in Mile Hammock Bay where we anchored near Camp Lejune. Along the waterway there were some other military pieces of equipment. The Marines sometimes use the area for maneuvers.
We headed for Beaufort, but because we arrived there early and the weather looked good for traveling, we instead decided to go to Oriental. This is known as the sailing capital because of the large number of sailboats there compared to the number of residents. Crossing the Neuse River (which is more like a big lake than a river) was forecast for good weather that day and the next. So, we opted for that and only stayed in Oriental one night. This is also a very small town and we really are not as enthused at looking at more old houses at this point.
From Oriental, because the weather was good, we decided to leave the next day and head down the Neuse River, into Pamlico Sound and then across the Pamlico River which were all pretty big bodies of water. We got into the Alligator River where we anchored for the night. Six other boats joined us; it was quiet and pretty calm.
From there we decided to stay at the Alligator River Marina which is at the south end of the Albemarle Sound until we had good weather to cross. Again, we had a good weather forecast, so we left the next day. The crossing is 18 miles of open water. The first half was pretty good, but we rocked and rolled for the last part of the trip.
Then we arrived in Elizabeth City home of the Rose Buddies. This was a group of retired men who would meet visiting boats at the dock and present the women with roses or a newspaper. Unfortunately, the man who started this tradition, Fred Fearing, died last fall and the state of this hospitality program is uncertain at this point. There is a very large domed building near Elizabeth City which was used during the war to house derigibles. It is now being used as a manufacturing plant for blimps. This one was parked near it--apparantly it is for golfing.After taking a walking tour of the town and their museum, we decided to leave in the morning to go through the Dismal Swamp.