Trips of Discovery

Make the best of your journey, make some memories.

Category: Virgina

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Are there alligators in the Dismal Swamp?

Estimated reading 12 – SBFL 14* – PLANNING TO VISIT– Before we get to alligators, it is hard not to recall our Slow Boat to Florida journey up to now.  We avoided challenging seas and traveled only in fair weather for our trips of discovery. We are determined to be on the water only in fair weather.  Once we rushed and made a couple of wrong choices. That is a reality in boating, of course.  But, honestly, thankfully that did not happen working on this series. It was another trip and since then our daughter has refused to join us whenever we have trips longer than 30 minutes out on the open waters. For this...

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There is a battleship at the end of this road

Estimated reading time 15 minutes – SBFL 13*  – PLANNING TO VISIT – 2 Virginia towns not to miss on the way down to Florida on the ICW – Norfolk and Portsmouth. – Imagine this. You have some time on hand and are heading down south to Florida with your boat on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). Let’s say you left from somewhere in New York. It’s going to be a fantastic trip, of course, that is, in part thanks to the ICW, that will help you to avoid popple. However, if you are too focused on getting to Florida or just so cheap that you squeeze a quarter so tight the eagle screams, I...

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Ah, Virginia … Inspired by history and adventure

Estimated reading time – 10 minutes – SBFL 12*  – PLANNING TO VISIT – It was a balmy spring Thursday on April 26 on the Virginia shores. After 4½ months at sea, some 104 people from Britain, horses, and supplies landed on Cape Henry to establish the first permanent English-speaking colony in the New World, North America. The year was 1607. As a Smithsonian Magazine article puts it, “One ebullient adventurer later wrote that he was “almost ravished” by the sight of the freshwater streams and ‘faire meddowes and goodly tall trees’ they encountered when they first landed at Cape Henry. After skirmishing with a band of Natives and planting a cross, the men of...

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5 things to know about Tangier Island, Virginia

Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes – SBFL* 5 – PLANNED & VISITED – It was a sunny day in late summer. The Chesapeake Bay waters are as green as in the Caribbean and as tame as in a pond, almost. On a midsize tour boat mostly filled with tourists, we are on our way to Tangier Island, Virginia, in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay.   Right after departure from Crisfield, Maryland, the captain’s deep voice comes over the loudspeakers, announcing a few things that he has perhaps repeated a few thousand times before.  “Looking to our left,” he says, “you will notice a couple of white buildings. This is Glenwood Evans & Son Fish Company....