Trips of Discovery - For me, boating is never just about the destination, it's always at least as much about the journey.

To have a power or sailboat

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes – Now, we’re on really sensitive territory! For me, sail boating wasn’t part of my dream, ever. I love and adore sailboats, I love looking at them and visiting them, but they are not for me. To have my kind of fun, I would need a 45’ – 50’ sailboat, but then dealing with it would no longer be fun for me. As far as I am concerned, it is too much work to pilot a sailboat.  I deeply respect those who are doing it. Although they have fuel engines, they are primarily designed for wind, need I say more?  Sailboat Race on the Chesapeake. The Wednesday Night Races on...

A lost colonial town

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes – Recently, a Scottish Weekend program took us to a fascinating spot on the banks of the South River in the Chesapeake Bay. (North 38 degrees 56’ and West 76 degrees 32’) We didn’t realize until much later that we could have gone by boat and docked there, rather than driving. We discovered a lost colonial town that we could do a day trip to with our boat. Back in its day, the town had up to 300 dwellings, a tavern, and a ferry boat that crossed the Chesapeake Bay’s South River.  Apparently, ferries were a critical link in the colonial transportation system. By the 1730s, nearly every road in...

Transition

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes – All my life, I romanticized island living and wanted to live on a relatively small island, even if it would only be on weekends.  However, when I thought of a small island, I never thought of a Robinson Crusoe type of isolated living. My island has to be established, well endowed, and small enough that it’s home to a few hundred to a few thousand very friendly people. It definitely has to have an abundance of freshwater (that is a must for me) and a mostly sunny, lush green habitat, starting from its beaches and perhaps climbing up to small hills. No mosquitoes and weird bugs, please. Oh, of course,...