Capt. John Smith's 1608 Chesapeake Voyage

Susan's Journey Log

Landfall 1
Cherrystone creek, 5-10-02
Begin

First I had to find a boat. For a decade I have wanted to sail the Chesapeake for a summer, as I had done with my father growing up. Why else be a schoolteacher with a summer vacation? Ten years ago I had in mind a Sea Sprite 23; it sounded the right size for my spartan budget and for adventure.

July 2000, I was house-sitting for the Hoopers overlooking Core Banks, east of Beaufort, North Carolina. Tom Robinson, their seafood dealer, collected Mark's clams every Wednesday afternoon. At five o'clock I gave Tom a cup of ice tea before he drove his refrigerated truck back to Carrboro. One Wednesday he brought his grandfather's book, self-published in 1938; Melvin Robinson tried to prove that the Lost Colony was Cedar Island in Carteret County, not Roanoke Island, Dare County. Melvin's proof was 20th-century climate data. If the wind had blown from that direction in March, then boats could not have stayed anchored off the inlet. Both islands have similarly situated inlets: Oregon and Drum, and long sounds spreading to the northwest- Chowan River and Neuse River. Even then, sixty-some years ago, Dare County had the tourism, which it would not relinquish, and Downeast Carteret County doesn't want the crowds. Melvin also said 40 percent of the surnames of Lumbee Indians are the same as the Lost Colony settlers. . Though I had spent more than twenty years in coastal Carolina, I'm a Virginian, so I had not grown up with Tarheel fervor for their first settlers; I had Jamestown. And I had no idea that the Lost Colonists had been traced ad infinitum, ad nauseum, but I thought I'd get a boat and follow the trail where they'd fled upriver through tidewater North Carolina, which led me to Jamestown to inventory their research archives.

Heather Huyck, the National Park Service historian at Jamestown, said, "But we need a John Smith book for the 400th Commemoration in 2007," of which she is in charge. After all, I am a Virginian. Do the Lost Colony trip later. Mid-March before the red-bugs and ticks were out, I bushwacked the piney woods on Jamestown Island, asking myself, What trees were here four hundred years ago? Why did the planters choose here, when so many died from bad water, from starvation and fever?

As an amateur naturalist myself, I'm interested how the first colonists encountered this continent, what landscapes, what plant and animal communities. In the mountains of western North Carolina, I walked along trails where Quaker botanist William Bartram first climbed into those hills two hundred years ago, amazed at towering, flowering rhododendron. What a wonderland the colonists must have found four hundred years ago. As Fitzgerald wrote in The Great Gatsby, "the green breast of the new world."

My goal for this project is to re-imagine what they saw, and see the wonders we still have today, though diminished, and share this awareness with others, especially young folk.


Spring 2001 I hoped naively to have a boat appear suddenly for a month in summer, on my holiday from teaching. In July, after visiting my brother and his new wife's new baby, I rode the ferry from Reedville to Smith Island. At 25 knots the chop on the open Bay was almost too much for the 65-foot ferry, and more than my tiny sailboat could handle. How many days would I have to sit in harbor waiting for wind and waves to subside? Gosh, it was hot, too hot. Back at the ferry dock campground, I swam in the pool, before I took a shower. How could I survive summer heat on a boat?
For my John Smith expedition I broadcast my intention: a singlehand, shallowdraft pilothouse sailboat, inboard diesel, for under $10,000. After first search I revised my fantasy I'd be lucky to find a seaworthy craft under $20k. However, in Lancaster County was a 28-foot Eldredge McGinniss pilothouse sloop for only $8k; bare bones. Its owner, a retired menhaden-spotter pilot, had cared meticulously for the 20-year diesel. But the boat drew four feet, and I really want to explore creeks on the Eastern Shore, where 3 feet depth is generous.

In August I moved between teaching jobs from the North Carolina mountains back to the coast, as expedient jumping-off port to provision an expedition. My job, teaching four nights, with an office and classrooms overlooking Bogue Sound, allowed me days to write begging letters to likely donors. My first major stipend was $500 from a North Carolina Regional Artist grant.
For years I had admired Sallie Lee, a lady sailor now in her 80s, and her sailboats. She had removed the mast and sailing rig to convert a little motorsailer to a trawler yacht. I asked if I could buy Veritas when she sold. Perfect boat for me: Permacraft-26 draws 3 feet, Perkins diesel runs 6-8 knots, cabin with v-berth, dinette, galley, head with shower. Sallie said, "I told myself two years ago I'd sell in two years," but by my departure she wouldn't sell. I expected another shallowdraft pilothouse to arrive in Beaufort, for sale. I looked at all the boats for sale in Oriental and Matthews Point. I looked at a Nimble Vagabond and a Nimble Arctic motorsailer, both of whose owners have become great friends of mine. The dockmasters at Cherry Point and Camp LeJeune marine bases told me about boats, for sale cheap, whose owners had shipped out. Trailerable would be a virtue; I mad a lowball offer on a Compac-27, with no standing headroom. I scoured the Yacht World and Boattrader websites for a Permacraft, an Albin. I awaited the new Soundings listings each month.

At New Years I drove to Annapolis with my Richmond godchildren, Addie and Ben Jones, who will crew for me, and their parents, to check out a Nimble Arctic and ramble boatyards. I fell in love with a green Gale Force-27 motorsailer, designed by George Kaiser, built by Shannon. I guessed $160 thou and was surprised the broker said only $80,000; I offered $40,000, teasing, but earnest. Two weeks later the Annapolis broker told me to come back to see a Freedom Cat Ketch, such a deal, but it was in poor shape. I inspected a Pearson-27 with a wingkeel, that drew 3 feet four, with six inches of snow on the deck. I wandered boatyards in Deale, Solomons, and Deltaville. A guy tried to talk me into a steel Bruce Roberts Spray with a half-built interior. Shipwright Harbor in Deale had boats donated to the Annapolis Rotary available for auction. More estate boats are available from Associated Marine Institute in Tampa. Many colleges on the water raise money by selling donated boats, among them Carteret Community College in Morehead City and St. Mary's College in Maryland. I considered a Marshall-22 catboat, 5-foot headroom. The owner of a pilothouse Gulf 29 docked at Nasty Harbor in Beaufort wanted too much. I made an offer on a fiberglass Bahama Sandpiper cat ketch in Maine, designed by Chuck Paine, built by the Morris yard in Southwest Harbor. I reserved a ticket to fly to Boston for 24 hours to check it out, but bailed out when the broker would not replace the busted trailer. I asked a marine surveyor to drive by a Permacraft-26 listed in Pensacola before I bought an air ticket to fly down. "Ma'am, you don't want this boat," he said. I was getting silly when I saw the picture of an Eldredge McGinnis, built in Japan in 1958, wooden, in a boatyard in Maine-- romantic with all my illusions of brass swinging lanterns.

No sailboat was going to be ready by spring vacation, so I test-drove a 22-foot C-Dory pilothouse motorboat in Wilmington, in driving rain, and drove made an acceptable offer. I had thought trawler yachts, like the Cape Dory-28, were too expensive for my budget. I had disregarded the C-Dory because William Least Heat Moon did not like the C-Dory he drove across the country for his book, River Horse, but I don't think he likes boats or boating in general. The C-Dory matched my criteria. The Bahama Sandpiper with an 8-horse outboard would cruise at four knots, hull speed. The C-Dory at 8 to 18 knots could help me escape thunderstorms on the Bay. If I want to see the whole Bay in three months, a motorboat is a good idea. Without a mast I can drive under low bridges. The hull draws 8 inches; the outboard 23 inches; I can explore up creeks, and pole across marsh flats. For less pollution, more quiet and fuel efficiency, I traded the 9-year-old 70 HP 2-stroke for a new Suzuki 4-stroke, fuel-injected 70 HP.

On March 5, the Wilmington owner delivered the C-Dory to a Havelock outboard dealer. A week later the outboard mechanic delivered the boat and new motor to Taylors Creek boat ramp in Beaufort. The outboard dealer was also supposed to tune-up my trailer; "Make it safe," I asked. Neighbors Joe and Emy Christian let me use their boatlift for two weeks. Friends helped attach two fire extinguishers, two fans, two more handrails on deck. Beaufort is a great town for outfitting a boat. There are many marine supply stores: Outer Banks Outfitters, West Marine, Ace Marine, Barbours Marine, Beaufort Discount Marine. I look first and buy all I can find at Gaskills Hardware. Inevitably, I had to try two or three places to buy stainless bolts, nuts, and washers. I learned there are flat head, round heads, oval heads. I drove one day to Warsaw, North Carolina, to pick up two tiny kayaks from Hurricane Aquasport. The biggest ordeal was trips to Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Lowes to buy plastic drawers to fit into lockers to maximize storage space. Between chores making the C-Dory cruise ready, I circumnavigated Radio Island, Carrot Island, and Shackleford Banks. I practiced anchoring. To prepare for bad weather, I rode the steep 5-foot waves off Rough Point. Although I could never afford one before, I got a cell phone for safety, so my godchildren crew and grownup friends can follow and intercept my voyage.

Sunday afternoon, March 24, after taking the Hooper family for a ride, spilling some peppermint tea from a thermos on the bow, I christened the boat, Landfall, for the cottage my father had on the Potomac River when I was zero to five, and his place on Indian Creek, that my brother and I have just sold.

Monday, March 25, a neighbor John Worcester towed Landfall on her trailer from the creek to my driveway for me to make final preparations. I was confounded how to secure two kayaks I want to carry on the roof. No time to mail-order proper car-top Yakima racks. George, the canvas maker in Beaufort, sold me two stainless steel stanchions so the boats could ride on their sides. AB Kayaks on the Beaufort waterfront had big cockpit covers so no water or wind would endanger the kayaks on the roof. A friend removed the defunct horn and obsolete Loran antennae, filled the roof holes with Marine-Tex, and drilled new holes for the kayak stanchions. For this expedition Ben Moore at Outer Banks Outfitters donated a Raymarine handheld VHF and a Garmin GPS with a map that shows my

Thursday, March 28, cleaning my old saltwater tackle box, I stuck a gummy hook into a finger. I called a local doctor's office a mile away, which said I should go to the emergency room seven miles away. No time. I pulled the hook out myself and applied Betadine. Out of time before my afternoon classes, I just tossed aboard duffels instead of stowing food in cabinets. When I told the fishhook story in my last class, a student recommended that I get a tetanus shot. The emergency room, when I called, predicted a two-hour wait. I preferred sleep.

Friday, March 29, at 7 a.m., Jason, a driver for Southern Skimmer, hooked up Landfall to tow to Virginia. In Washington, NC, we did not find any tetanus shot at a doctor and a public health office. In Elizabeth City, asking at a gas station for Urgent Care, some guy said, "Hey lady, your buddy bearing has blown off." On the trailer one of four rims had melted from heat. Luckily the blown bearing had not wrecked another vehicle on the highway; the axel had not broken, crushing my eggshell boat. That axel bearing had no grease; none of the other three had grease either. If the outboard mechanic had neglected to fix my trailer, I was worried what maintenance on my motor he had overlooked or omitted. After 90 minutes' delay finding and installing a new axel rim, and greasing all four, the truck was back on the road. At 3:30, Jason backed Landfall down the ramp at Jamestown Yacht Basin. He then drove the trailer to Rebel Marine on Willoughby Spit in Norfolk. I had to stow gear before I could walk into the cabin. After a brief nap, I walked up to the marina office, where Bill Booker the manager handed me hot chicken and dumplings his wife Diane had made.

To reach the Jamestown Yacht Basin by water, your craft must draw less than 3 feet and be no higher than the 12-foot bridge clearance. Saturday morning, March 30, Jay, one of the marina community, volunteered to show me the shallow channels and narrow inlet out the "Hole in the Wall." Blowing 15-18 knots, the James River had quite a chop. From the river we could see the white tent over an archeological dig on the Island. In "Instructions" to the first settlers, the London Virginia Company had told them to find a place with a good view to avoid attacks from the Spanish; to select a fertile and wholesome, to avoid a low and moist place. Many men died in the first two years from starvation, fever, and Indian attack. On the Thorofare, the eastern channel behind Jamestown Island, there's a sunken ship in the channel, right between markers, that shows on the chart, but not necessarily visible by eyeball navigation. Booker took eight folks on his vintage deadrise workboat, Pal, for an afternoon cruise. Off the point of the Chickahominy River, Booker said he used to hunt in the swamp woods, where million-dollar "castles" sat on waterfront filled lots. Saturday dinner was steak.

Sunday, March 30, was rainy; lightning and wind predicted. I was grateful for the roof over the floating dock. When I cross-threaded a bolt into the kayak stanchion, I ripped it from its bedding, and Booker drilled the bolt free in his machine shop. Among the motorboat, pickup-truck, NASCAR fans at Jamestown, I have never met more hospitable, generous people. Somebody cooks for twenty people every night. Sunday night for Easter someone roasted a leg of lamb in the barbecue cooker for everyone at the Jamestown Yacht Basin; what I call a five-star resort. In contrast, in advance of my James River week, I had called Kingsmill Marina to ask for a night of free docking. After I said I'm a schoolteacher taking students on a John Smith expedition, the manager said, "And how could that possibly interest us?"

Monday, March 31, I listened to the weather radio at six a.m. I had read charts the night before. By myself the first time, I was wary to leave the dock, read the shallow channel, gun through the Hole in the Wall. I drove five miles west on the James River, where Booker had shown me the channel in front of the ferry dock on Pal. I waved at the bridge tender on the Chickahominy River and drove half way between the banks, reading my depth sounder. Marshes and forests still line the banks of the Chickahominy, one of the wilder rivers I'll see, ospreys patching nests, squawking if I passed too close, guarding eggs or newborns I did not spy. When I reached Colonial Harbor, 18 miles upriver, no one responded to my VHF; Taylor Smith did not answer my cell phone call. With no one watching, I docked okay into 20-some-knot winds. I not adept yet on docking this motorboat. I miss the big rudder on a sailboat when I float up to a dock. Why is it no one is watching when I don't botch my docking? First thing, Molly my dog jumps off the boat to pee on grass, then we walked a mile down and back the dirt road. Off Colonial Harbor is Smith Island, now eroded to a patch of trees, where the natives captured John Smith. Into the fading dusk I watched great blue herons circling their nests; one took flight, prompting others to launch and circle, ring around the rosy.

Tuesday, April 1, leaving the Chickahominy, I hoped to run another 25 miles up the James River to Jordan Point under the Hopewell bridge. But the weather radio said the wind was rising to 20, and with wind against the tide, the chop was already considerable at 15. If I were stranded a day or two by wind up river, I might not reach my trailer in Norfolk. I relinquished any designs of reaching Richmond, or the Appomattox, and returned to Jamestown.

Wednesday, April 2, as the wind blew 20-25, with driving rain, thunder, and lightning, I was cozy reading on the boat-- Ivor Noel Hume's Martins Hundred. On the grounds of Carter's Grove plantation, in the 1970s Hume excavated a village where half the settlers were killed in the March 1622 massacre. The Native Americans wanted to drive the white people from their land. One Indian boy warned Jamestown, so the massacre failed its purpose, and the British stayed. When the late afternoon cleared, still blowing 20-plus, I cycled Diane's bike around Jamestown Island, watching the scarlet sunset upriver just as the earliest settlers had. Wednesday night was Diane Booker's birthday dinner.

On Wednesday night and Thursday morning, April 3, I listened to the weather radio. When I lie awake at night, wondering about the next day's weather, fearing if wind and waves become too rough, I begin to appreciate the trepidation, the terror, of a young woman in the hold of an English ship four months at sea. Instead of risking more fear, I could borrow Booker's truck to visit Martins Hundred at Carter's Grove by land. I could safely leave Landfall at Jamestown for my last month of teaching, but I wanted a quick start from Cape Henry in May. But if I did not leave Jamestown Yacht Basin, I could easily spend the next four months quite happily right here. Gathering my gumption, I left at noon, heading east out the Thorofare, successfully avoiding sunken ship carcasses. With following northerly breeze, the long stretch of the James beyond Kingsmill, Busch Garden rollercoasters, and Carter's Grove was tolerably calm. Passing Fort Eustis, I noticed, when my depth sounder read 8 feet instead of 22, that I had wandered out of the channel into the restricted zone. Ahead, the navigation chart shows the "ghost fleet" anchored to the south of the channel, but the big gray derelict ships crowd the channel right and left, and against their hulls that filled the horizon, I could not sight the navigation marker that points the channel. Finally, right under the ships I found the channel that threads through them. The last hour until the James River Bridge at Newport News was royal chop. Gratefully, I pulled into the concrete bulkheads that protect the Leeward City Marina. I was glad for food on board, barely touched at Jamestown, because I did not feel safe walking around Newport News.

Friday morning, April 4, the weather radio said the wind still gusted at 20 in Norfolk, would fall during the day, but rise again on Saturday. Slack low tide by Sewells Point at 9:30 a.m. was my best chance of calm. In the lee of Newport News dock the seas were calm enough. Over the Hampton Roads tunnel I faced 50 minutes of five feet seas, from five directions, breaking over my port hull, spray obscuring my port windows. I could make 9 knots up and down the waves. The C-dory flat hull pounded every fourth or fifth wave trough. The boat and I could handle the bucking and pounding. But my dog was desperate. Frantic, panting, Molly left her comfy v-berth, sheltered under the dinette table until it collapsed. Luckily, the night before, I had recorded in my log the channel markers, turns, and compass headings for each course. In the chaotic seas of Hampton Roads I could not read the chart or the GPS. Rounding the Navy yard, I left the channel to find lee from the wind among the crab pot buoys. Willoughby Bay was surprising calm. David Briggs welcomed me at the end of Rebel Marine docks. His father, Lane, my old friend, famous for his steel sailing tugboat, was gone overnight to Baltimore. I walked under the highway for lunch at Willoughby Inn and then along the front beach, braving the wind ashore. John Smith was born in Willoughby, England. As the temperature dipped into the low 30s, I was warm enough sleeping in my sleeping bag.

Saturday, April 5, 40 degrees, with cold hands I stitched the worn seams on the canvas bimini that shades my cockpit. David and Michael towed my boat up the ramp to store a month on its trailer. A rental car company picked me up, and I drove the car to Irvington for my brothers' new daughter's christening on Sunday, 6 May. From the altar, Eliza Carr waved like the Queen Mum. I've never seen Jeff happier, his face a full grin when he smiles at Sallie and Liza Carr. Fishing buddy Bill drove me from Norfolk back to Beaufort to teach another month.

Tuesday, May 7, I finished emptying closets and drawers for summer renters and packing my boat gear. I had barely figured 25-mile hops between ports to figure if I could actually get around the Bay in three months. As I was typing another grant proposal, friend Douglas actually cleaned my refrigerator, so that my summer tenants will leave the Beaufort house clean when I return. I could not accomplish this voyage without the help of many generous friends. Earlier, I had thought I'd actually motor my boat to Cape Henry to cross the mouth of the Bay straight north. Instead, I may angle northwest from Thimble Shoal to Plantation Light off Cape Charles Harbor. My map reading said 35 degrees, corroborated by the GPS waypoints, which said 36 degrees heading. By car I stopped at First Landing State Park at Cape Henry, where the English stepped ashore on April 26, 1607, and where Capt. John Smith left on his Chesapeake voyage on June 2, 1608. I reached Rebel Marine by 6, pulled out the kayak and cooler stowed in the cabin, so I had room to sleep. Capt. Lane Briggs took me out to dinner for the best crab cakes in Norfolk.

Wednesday, May 8, I prepared Landfall for voyage, found an optician to bend my glasses back to fit (having walked into the attic stairs in Beaufort), and bought fresh food. Dale, Lane's ship carpenter, screwed down my GPS on the console and fixed the trailer lights. Charles Redmond adjusted his trailer hitch, so he could launch Landfall. I listened carefully to the weather. Instead of my brother Jeff and his bride Sallie coming to shuttle my car and trailer to their yard in Irvington, David Briggs's friend Michael would ride my car to Yankee Point where David had bought a catamaran. Jeff could fetch it there, saving him four hours. Every logistic I need for this expedition seems to happen just moments before I need it.

Thursday, May 9, at 6:30 a.m., the weather radio said there would be afternoon showers; the television news reported severe lightning and wind right then in Portsmouth and Hampton, heading to Norfolk in 20 minutes. The western sky was pitch black. If I missed the opportunity of Charles's trailer, I might sit in Norfolk a week until the weather cleared to cross the mouth of the Bay. Graciously, Charles towed Landfall across the Bay on the Bridge-Tunnel. That's the benefit of a trailerable C-Dory, which weighs 2000 pounds, just 8 feet wide. We crossed the Bay in heavy rain and lightning, with limited visibility; no weather for me to be offshore in my tiny boat. We launched at the ramp in Cape Charles, and I filled the gas tanks. Bowdy Lusk hopped on my boat to guide me into Cherrystone Creek. As I zoom where Bowdy points, a waterman pulls up along Landfall to wave me away from shallow water, really to keep my boat off his clam beds. But I say, "I've got Bowdy aboard." Thursday afternoon, I help Bowdy spread nets to keep cownose rays, that he calls "bullfish," from eating his clams. Bowdy and his three sons raise 70 million clams on 30 acres of submerged bottom they inherited in Cherrystone Creek. Bowdy is also a commodities broker; his brother Pat is the pharmacist in Cheriton. Their father was my father's best friend in the Coast Guard during World War II. Bowdy and Penny now live in his grandmother's house; Pat and Ellen live in a new house, next to their mother Peach's house, where Pat's daughter Meredith lives. Partial goal of my expedition is to find another community where to settle, that I like better than Beaufort. I'd like to live on the lane facing the sunset over Cherrystone Creek next to the Lusk family.

Friday, May 10, with Bowdy's son Bon advised another way to carry my kayaks. Bo owns South East Expeditions and runs kayak tours. I remove the stanchions on Landfall's roof and fill the holes with Marine Tex. To show me "seaside," Bowdy and Penny trailer their flat-bottom boat to the east side of the shore For 27 years Bowdy has had a rough "shack" on stilts that overlooks vast marsh. For an hour Bowdy casts for fish into the ocean off Myrtle Island, while Penny and I find floats for son Ben's crab pots. Back in the creek Penny and I cast and catch flounder. That night we danced to Mr. B and the Boys rock band at Pelican's, a pavilion right on the Bay beach by the bridge. The Eastern Shore natives entertained me better than the Indians ever hosted John Smith.

Saturday, May 11, Meredith, newspaper reporter, interviews me for the Shore paper. I repair a crack in one of my kayaks with Marine Tex. I tie down the kayaks on the roof, stacked, lying flat, for less windage than on their sides. I screw down the steel plate on the bow. Neighbor Jean tells me the families on the Eastern Shore are all related. "Pick up one crab in a basket, and they're all connected." Harry Holcomb tell me local history of Arlington and the log canoe he has restored at Kerr House in Onancock. Bowdy and Penny take me to a party at the Tankards nursery, where all the planters on the lower Shore gather, as they have for hundreds of years. I wish I could spend a month or two exploring Oppehannock, Nassawaddox, Pungoteague creeks. Deep-draft sailing ships used to come up these creeks. Pat told me the creeks filled with sedimentation after the forests were chopped down for farms. A neighbor drilled 20 feet of eroded soil until he found hard bottom. Bowdy says a big storm will pass overnight. As I sleep lightly, apprehensive, the storm never breaks, so I figure it's still looming. In Smith's journal of the Eastern Shore, he reported difficulty finding fresh water to drink. Crossing Tangier Sound, a big storm blew out his sail and almost capsized the boat. The crew repaired the sail with their shirts. The next storm on Tangier Sound blew them across to the western shore, and the crew demanded that they sail back to Jamestown. Smith gave a speech, saying he shared the same discomforts and dangers. I fear the storms on Tangier Sound.

Sunday, May 12, at 6 I crack one eye and see clouds out the window. Grateful I do not have to leave, I roll over to sleep more. At seven I walk Molly down the Cherrystone lane by the three Lusk houses. When I turn back, Bowdy has pulled Landfall from the deep-water stake to his dock. "Time to leave," he says, "John Smith never told his crew, we can't go, there's a cloud. Got to go now, you have a two-hour window." Scoffing at my fears of wind, he says, "In three weeks, you'll laugh at 35 knots." In his skiff Bowdy leads out the Cherrystone channel, threading crabpots and shoals. For an hour at 18 knots, riding flood tide with following breeze, I stay a mile offshore the Shore, in 8 to 12 feet of water. Off Oppehannock Creek, which I'd love to explore, I cut my speed and notice the wind and waves are rising. I check my gas: I've used five gallons, starboard tank. I listen to the weather radio, which predicts winds rising to 20 by late morning. I choose to run another hour direct to Onancock. Up the creek three miles opposite the town wharf, I tie to the bulkhead of Mount Prospect, where Claudia and Bill Bagwell live in his ancestor's yellow house, by the green fuel tanks of Bagwell Oil. Claudia knows friends of mine from school in Richmond.

I am sorry not to explore Occahannock, as Smith and crew did, searching for fresh water. I was glad to ride the flood tide and following wind into Onancock by 11. Bill Bagwell, reading his Sunday paper on his lawn, waves me to his dock, earlier than he expected me. Bill and Claudia Bagwell live at Mount Prospect, the big yellow house on the hill facing Onancock Creek opposite the Town Wharf, his family's home for generations. Both Bill and Claudia grew up in Onancock, the kind of small town where I like to live, still less spoiled by development than Beaufort. In the afternoon I walk uptown, scout the post office and bakery, for Monday destinations. At five I shower, then dine with Claudia, Bill, and their son Thomas, an eighth grader at Broadwater Academy. I savor lively dinner-table conversation with two folks my age who had been to Virginia colleges. Both Bill and Claudia grew up in Onancock and returned home, as so many do on the Eastern Shore. From boarding school at St. Catherine's and college at Mary Baldwin, Claudia knows friends of mine from Richmond. She has been reporter for the Virginia Pilot and editor of the local newspaper. Claudia now searches title for her brother, an attorney, and Bill runs the family fuel business. Once three hundred and some acres of farm, Mount Prospect's lawn is now ten acres with glorious boxwood gardens and an ancient grove of walnuts. "In World War I the army wanted to cut these trees for gun stocks, but my grandmother refused," Bill says. In their living room is a ship's model, Virginia Dare, as tall as Thomas Bagwell, built by his great-great-great-uncle Isaiah. On the town square is a statue to another Bagwell, a Civil War hero.

Monday, May 13, as the wind is blowing wild out in Tangier Sound, I shelter happy in Onancock Creek. Uptown I can walk to the post office and a bakery. For the next day or two, I'll wait until the wind drops to cross Tangier Sound. I could definitely live in Onancock.  I type my trip journal all morning and on Bill's computer email a report to Landfall's website at Calvert Marine Museum. Uptown I munch a cinnamon cruller at the bakery, mail a letter, and get the form from Division of Motor Vehicles, claiming rebate on the 17 cents a gallons on gas for which boats are exempt. Cruisers really appreciate a town where we can walk from docking or anchoring to services. I'm trying to read books to mail home, as Bowdy says my 70 HP outboard motor is underpowered for the weight I carry. He said the dealer who sold it to me was irresponsible. A reporter and photographer for the local paper visit the boat.

May 14, 2002 - With the pressure this low before the impending storm, I wake with a cramp in my crick hip, from lifting my mother when I nursed her. Only remedy besides a good massage therapist is to roll the deep muscle on a golf ball. I leave a note on Claudia's door and, without questioning, she brings me a golf ball before she goes to work. On the boat I read Ivor Noel Hume's Virginia Adventure for two hours. Harry Holcomb from Warehouse Creek drops by to show me the 5-log canoe and the Arlington exhibit at Kerr Place. Arlington, home of the Custis family on Lower Plantation Creek south of Cape Charles Harbor, was the grandest of early houses built in Virginia. When the family moved to the Potomac, the house deteriorated and was dismantled. Now a foundation of concerned Lower Shore cares for the ruins. At one in Onancock, cashing a donation check from the dean of my college, I eat a gracious quiche and salad, leisurely since I am grounded. As much as I like this small town, I can't leave Onancock because of the wind. The weather radio predicts a violent front will cross the Bay this afternoon or evening. Anne Bagwell, Bill's mother, says she'll leave her door open and a light on. If I get scared, I should come up to her house, just above where my boat is docked. Anticipating high winds, I tie more lines and another bumper to the side of my boat. Without adequate coverage, despite the saleslady's promises when she should me the most expensive package, "Total Freedom," my Alltel cell phone won't ring, so I miss Claudia's warning at 8:45 that the storm will start in fifteen minutes. At nine p.m., the wind, lightning, and driving rain start. The scariest part is the sound of the wind. At 50 miles an hour, it moans, minor and mourning, and sounds as if the next crescendo will gust 120. I look up at the comforting light in Anne's house above my wharf, but want to stay on the boat to tend the lines as the wind blows the tide as high as the top of the wharf pilings. In this sheltered cove the rippling chop out my cabin windows looks awfully fierce, as Landfall sits so low in the water. I sleep again for two and a half hours. At midnight, the wind returns, just high wind, no rain, unremitting for three hours. I fall asleep again after three a.m. I hear later that tornadoes struck near Solomons on the Patuxent and blew down some houses near Cambridge farther up on the Eastern Shore.

Big wind, gusting above 50 mph as the front passed last night. Wind and rain for half an hour at 9 pm, then high winds and no rain from 12:15 for 3 hours sustained. I stayed awake mostly to check dock lines as the tide rose very high. I could be in no more protected place than Onancock harbor. Now I am waiting for the winds to subside in the Bay, and the waves to drop in Tangier Sound. Boat and I can handle rough weather better than my dog Molly; she will not get back on board if we have another crossing as rough as Hampton Roads. I do not want an "impressed" crew, the way drudgers used to round up drunks in the Baltimore bars for winter oyster season. This morning I have toured Kerr Place in Onancock and the restoration of the skipjack "Annie C." Also I took a slide of the "Virginia Dare" with Thomas Bagwell standing by for scale, a model ship built by his great-great-great uncle. I may skip Tangier and go directly to Crisfield or Pocomoke City, so that Quakers may carry me to a lecture in Lewes, DE, on the Chicone Indian archeological site at Seaford, DE. Also The 16 May is my 53rd birthday. I cannot stay at the CBF center at Smith I. so that stop is deleted.

On Wednesday, 15 May, I caught the 15-20 southerly breeze with a following flood tide to run two hours from Onancock to Tangier from 4:30 to 6:30 pm. Stayed at the Port Isobel CBF Education center.

Hoping to pull out as soon as the wind drops, I walk uptown for two newspapers. Meredith Lusk's feature interview is very fine writing. Ann Nock, a local historian who lives on the hill above the wharf by the massive sycamore tree, drops by a copy of her book on Onancock. I read an hour, then walk uptown to mail home two books, ten pounds off the boat. At the Town Wharf I sit on the Liar's Bench with several old men. Capt. Fred Pruitt, captain of the tourist boat to Tangier, says I won't leave the dock today. Isaac the dockmaster says, "Leave at five, and don't look back." I listen to the weather radio at ten past every hour, which will give me the buoy wind reports on the hour ten minutes earlier. The radio keeps saying the wind will drop, "later."

On John Smith's voyage, crossing Tangier Sound was his roughest weather. From the journal of Walter Russell, Anas Todkill, and Thomas Mumford: "In crossing over from the maine to the other Isles we discovered, the winde and water so much increased, with thunder, lightning, and raine, that our mast and sayle blew overboard and sunc mighty waves overracked us in that small barge, that with great labour we kept her from sinking by freeing out the water."

At four p.m. the flag on the Onancock dock does not stand at stout. At 4:10 I call Capt. Charles Parks's home in Tangier, and his wife runs out to check her wind gauge. "Ten knots," she says. "I'm coming, " I say. I pull away from the wharf at 4:20, leave marker #7 at Onancock Creek at 4:55, heading 320 degrees, and dock at Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Port Isobel Center east of Tangier at 6:20 p.m. I much prefer to leave port early in the morning, in case anything amiss might delay me, but Bowdy said I must grab two-hour periods when the wind drops. When I land, the school kids have just rolled in the mud. Getting wet and muddy is one of the main attractions of environmental education.  That night I eat dinner with twenty-five seventh graders and their teachers from Fredericksburg Academy. They are excited to hear about my trip around the Chesapeake. No dogs are allowed at Port Isobel, as some children may be allergic, so I walk Molly on her leash on the periphery.

Thursday, 16 May, Port Isobel
CBF Education Center at Tangier Island

I jump on the CBF workboat, Lani Moore, with the school kids to pull up the pots they set the night before. The captain is Charles Park, native waterman from Tangier, well of wisdom and patience. I take photographs of crazy kids dumping pots and measuring crabs. "Throw back any under five inches," Tiffany Greenberg. "Soon the new regulation to save the crab population will be five and a quarter inches."

Showing us the bright color on her worry-bead bracelet, Tiffany warns us to wear sunscreen. A boy, possibly Iranian, named Babek, "Call me Shish," says his skin is so dark he need not worry. "Fair skin and freckles, that's my Irish background," I say. "But you have a rich cultural heritage," he tells me. What an poised, generous reply for a young man. The tide is too low for kids to canoe on the marsh creeks, so they drag a dredge just offshore the beach.

In the evening before a departure, I go over the charts of my route the next day. In my log I record buoys and course changes. With my compass I mark off distance and estimate time. The C-Dory can travel as fast as 20 knots, in slick calm, but against any chop it slows down. In even two-foot waves, it slows to 13 or even 9 knots. I try to ride incoming tide with a following wind and to avoid wind against the tide, which sets up a chop. The higher the wind, the higher the waves. If wind is predicted, I sleep less. I anguish over my decision whether to leave or stay in port. Traveling alone, I am wary.

In the morning, before I start my outboard, I go through my daily checklist: stow stuff in the cabin and cockpit, check plug in transom, check the lines tying down the kayaks, turn on battery to "all," turn on depth sounder, turn on GPS, turn on VHF radio and listen to weather one more time, tilt outboard down, check the oil, turn on gas tank to either port or starboard, record departure time in log, turn ignition key on and off two times, then start, verify outboard is spouting water. Review the chart one more time. Get all lines but one clear, pull in bumpers, cast off last line; say a prayer.
Underway, I do not listen to the music radio. I appreciate the silence. Until the middle of March, the VHF has been silent, except for Coast Guard channel checks. In April no other pleasure craft have been on the water; I am grateful for watermen. Every hour I turn the VHF to weather. I watch the water and sky, observant of birds-- the gulls, the ospreys, near shore the herons and egrets, by marshes the blackbirds.

At ten I pull away from the Port Isobel dock and motor slowly down the channel that is the main street of Tangier. Sixty crabs shacks at low tide sit high and dry on the mud flats behind their docks on the channel. Watermen and their wives wave at me, as I take their pictures. I want to walk ashore, see the church, the water tower, have a crab cake at the restaurant, but the radio says the wind is rising. At 10:50 I pass the Port Isobel dock again. From Tangier due east I can see the CBF building on Fox Island, and a little east and north, I can see the water tower at Crisfield, heading 39 degrees. The wind is 15, rising to 20. With the following 2-3 foot sea, I must steer down every wave. At noon I enter the Crisfield harbor, gas up and dock by 12:20. One of four bars that attaches the sun-awning post has broken; the other three are also shot. At Somers Cove Marina I take a shower and walk to town for crabcake and strawberry shortcake, my traditional birthday cake. I case the four marine hardware stores on Main Street in Crisfield with no luck. Finally, the upholsterer, David Pruitt, finds four of the right stainless fittings in a box in his van. I replace the four pins that hold up the framework for the awning. I tighten the hose clamp under the sink faucet intake.

At four Harry Hill, Quaker from Princess Anne, picks up me and Molly to drive us to Bethany Beach to meet Cherie Clark for dinner. I eat another crab cake and strawberry shortcake. At the library we attend Virginia Busby's lecture on her 9-year archeological research on the Nanticoke Indians, those who welcomed John Smith in 1608. In a farm field she found pottery shards from 1000 A.D. She never found the shell beads that Smith said the Nanticoke were so famous for trading. From the 1600s she found several glass beads that Europeans would have introduced. This summer Virginia will defend her dissertation for her Ph.D. at University of Virginia. When I happen to check messages on my cell phone, despite no message symbol, I am dismayed that I have ten messages since Monday: Claudia's warning of the storm, my brother, a friend coming next weekend, and numerous birthday calls. I am mad that I pay Alltel $80 a month for the best service, for emergency while I am solo and for crew contact, and there is no service.

Windiest spring ever. As much as I loved Onancock, I was ready to roll. Listened to the weather radio every hour. Sat on the "Liars' Bench" at the Town Wharf. Capt Fred Pruitt who runs the tourist boat to Tangier said I'd never get off the dock that day; Isaac the dockmaster said to leave at five and never look back. At four the flag fluttered less. At 4:15 I called Capt. Charles Parks' wife in Tangier and she said her wind meter said "8 knots." I said, "I'm coming." Out of Onancock Creek at 5, I was tied up at Tangier by 6:15. More accustomed to sailboats and kayaks, Molly my dog does not like the slightest chop when the motorboat pounds. I was plenty apprehensive. In Tangier Sound, Capt. Smith's crew was in a big storm, blew out their sail. The weather will blow and rain over the weekend. I'll try to head up the Pocomoke River.

Today, May 16, is my 53rd birthday. If I can cross Tangier Sound again today, Quakers will pick me up in Crisfield for dinner and a lecture on the Chicone Indian archeological site in Seaford, DE.

I rode through the Tangier main channel at low tide. Crossed Tangier Sound to Crisfield with following sea and wind building to 20-25. Harry Hall and Cherie Clark took me to dinner for my 53rd birthday (strawberry shortcake), and Bethany Beach Library lecture by Virginia Busby on Nanticoke Indian archeology.

Friday, 17 May. High wind and storm prediction kept me ashore, but I replaced anchor chain shackles and sun-awning hardware.

I have wanted to cruise up the Pocomoke River, which is the deepest river for its width in the world. This two-day trip, 24 miles each way, is half exposed to wind on Pocomoke Sound. However, wind and rain keep me ashore at Crisfield. I'm content on the dock today. I throw off the dock lines to a couple on a sailboat impatient to cross the Bay. In half an hour, they're back, the trembling wife grateful to be docked again. I check my email in the office at the town museum. I find skinny bungee cord and sew it to mosquito netting to secure around my forward hatch. I eat an ice cream cone on the dock with Anne and Jim, two cruising sailors from Tybee Island and join two other sailors, Linda and Pete from Connecticut, for dinner at Side Street; they have sold everything on shore and live aboard their Pearson-38. We are all grounded by the wind. The heavy rain predicted for Friday night is just sprinkling.

Saturday, 18 May. The heavy rain starts mid-morning. If this windy weather persists all summer, I'll spend more time at anchor than underway. Better weather is predicted for the next week. I replace the big shackle on my anchor chain with a smaller one so that it fits through the hole in the bow. Now I can use my bow cleat for docking lines, instead of wrapping the anchor chain. I sew Molly's harness a little tighter. David Pruitt, the upholsterer, drives me in the driving rain to a grocery for fresh bananas. He brings a mess of soft shell crabs aboard and instructs me how to roll them in House of Autry bread crumbs, then to sauté them in a light layer of olive oil. David drives me to Pocomoke City to walk the boardwalk through the swamp forest. In bloom are magnolia, wild roses, iris. I bite the tip and suck the sweet drop from honeysuckle.

Sunday, 19 May. Left Crisfield at 9 am through the northern creek cut, passed Little Deal Island, into the Nanticoke River, up 15 miles to Vienna.  Tied to the town wharf in the front yard of the mayor, Russell and Sandy Brinsfield.

Yahoo. Low wind is predicted for the next five days. I wave farewell to Pete and Linda Gillen on Good Decision and to Anne and Jim on their chartered Sabre, all heading west across the Bay to Solomons. I'm off the Crisfield dock by 8:30, after I file a cruise plan with Mary, the manager at Somers Cove. I motor north from Little Annemessex River through Daughtery Creek Canal out the mouth of Big Annemessex River, into big water at the head of Tangier Sound, across the mouth of Manokin River. To my west South Marsh and Bloodsworth islands, north of Smith Island and Kedges Straits, are restricted military areas. Waves in the big water are passable, two feet, so I pass the channel into Deal Island harbor at 10:20. The mouth of Wicomico and Nanticoke rivers is quite rough. John Smith chose the follow the Nanticoke, so I do. In 1982 Hedden, in his book Naturalist on the Nanticoke, found a modern sign between Newfoundland and Long points on the northwest shore that marked where John Smith landed. Smith called the Nanticoke Indians gentle, good merchants. The wide Nanticoke stays rough several miles. I motor slow and lazy fifteen miles 8 knots against outgoing tide. I want to explore tidal creeks that wind into marshes, but keep heading to my destination. I tie up to the Vienna wharf at 2:10, next to the boat ramp, with no sign of anyone in this sleepy small town. Just upriver on the northwest bank are oil tanks of an electric generating plant and the high span of Route 50, halfway between Salisbury and Cambridge. I'm grateful to travel at boat speed, out of commuting traffic. I call Mary, the manager at Somers Cove, that I've arrived safely. Next to the wharf is a grass lawn for Molly to roll on. She jumps off the boat first thing, to pee, to feel land under her feet. Town is not big. We walk by a bank and a ballfield; a woman is pruning the flower gardens in front of the bank. Tom Horton has told me to meet the mayor, but didn't say where. Millie's Café, famous for crab cakes, is closed on Sundays. The Nanticoke Inn has closed down. Mr. Gene, who owns the Exxon station, drives me, Molly, and my 5-gallon gas can half a mile back to my boat. Holding the gas can without dripping, while I fill the fuel tank, is about as much as my back can handle. At the boat ramp three teenagers, two brothers and a girlfriend, manage to tip the boat from the trailer onto the asphalt instead of the water. As little as I know about boat trailers, I help tilt the boat back level. The older brother backs the truck 15 more feet, and we launch the boat in the water. When they return, they drive me and I fill the spare gas can again, so I can leave Vienna with full tanks. A gentleman walking his shaved sheepdog stopped by to chat, tells me the mayor lives in the yellow just across from the wharf. I leave a note on the porch, and when they return, Russell and Sandy Brinsfield invite me up to the house. Like so many people on the Shore, they are both natives. Sandy works for her family auto-parts store in Cambridge, and Russ directs the Wye Education and Research Center. Driving 50 miles to work is nothing on the Shore. Both Sandy and Russ also work his family farm. Sandy tells me she runs the tractor to plow but not to plant.

Vienna has the old Customs House in Maryland, 1706; in the 1700s Vienna rivaled Baltimore as the state's largest port. Now Vienna, under Mayor Brinsfield's wise management, participates in the Governor's "Smart-growth program," balancing economic development and small-town flavor. To save riparian forests, the Nature Conservancy and Conservation Fund are protecting "rural legacy focus areas." Monday, 20 May. Russ leaves for work early, but I join Sandy for breakfast. As I walk Molly for half an hour as I do before a half-day cruise, we meet Samuel Q. Johnson, who runs the Maryland Natural Resources water-quality lab on the Vienna waterfront, centrally located to take river samples. "Q" tells me that the Nature Conservancy, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and Conservation Fund have cooperated with Maryland, so the state has just bought 58,000 acres of forest on Marshyhope Creek. A detour upstream will add a dozen miles to my run today, but Russ, Mr. Gene, and Q have all insisted I see Marshyhope. "More special than the Nanticoke," Sandy has told me. I want to wait for outgoing tide at 11 anyway. I leave Vienna at 10:30, head upstream with still incoming tide. For the first time, I feel as if this expedition is actually feasible. For the first morning, I'm not apprehensive leaving dock that storms will punish me. Five miles upstream I turn left into Marshyhope half way between the banks, in 12 feet of water. On the left bank is an old farmhouse, which Mr. Gene sold to the Conservancy. On the right are freshwater marsh plants and swamp forest. Q told me Maryland's conservation plan will allow timber harvest on half of the new preserve, keeping the local sawmill workers content. I'd really like to drop anchor, fish, and watch birds for a few days, self sufficient in my well-stocked cruiser. Landfall's galley is provisioned for two weeks, I can cook with alcohol; my water tanks are full; I can run my computer on the 12-volt battery. I have three months to circle the Bay, and this is likely the finest place I'll see, but I must keep moving. I have only two or three more days of light wind before weekend storms. Another summer I'll come back to anchor in Occohannock and Marshyhope for a month each. At 11:25 I head downstream. Two tugs pushing laden barges pass just above the Vienna Bridge. Floating by the Vienna wharf at 11:50, I call Jody at Bishops Head that I'll arrive near 2. My cell phone, which cannot ring to receive calls, can still call out.

Even at 15 knots northwest wind, the long wind fetch across Fishing Bay sets up a nasty chop. From five miles out I can see the big brown house at Bishops Head sticking up above the flat marsh. Capt. Jesse, the CBF Captain, told me I to aim straight for the house, round the point, stick close to sore inside the shoal, and enter the rip-rap boat basin. From the dock Jesse waves me into the channel, and just after I tie up the wind gusts about 30 knots for five minutes, but I am secure. CBF's Karen Noonan Education Center is dedicated to Pat Noonan's daughter who died in the Lockabie, Scotland, plane crash, just before she was 21 years old. She was training to be a teacher, and this environmental outreach program for schoolkids is a fine legacy. Whenever I land, I log arrival time. I turn off fuel tank, GPS, depth sounder, and VHF radio, battery. I walk Molly ashore five minutes, munch a rice cake, grab a banana, then hop aboard the CBF workboat, Karen N, to join a school group-- twenty-five eighth-grade girls from Holy Child School in Potomac, Maryland. They bait eighteen crab pots with menhaden and drop the pots off the tip of Lower Hooper Island. Ashore on the southern tip of the island we prowl the eroding beach, "proguing," which means scouting for any useful flotsam the tide may have washed up. I find a shed crab shell that reminds me: as I leave a tight, secure house, as I have left my Brevard house and then Beaufort house for this voyage, I grow larger, as a crab does when it sheds its old shell. When I pick up an angel-wing shell, I recall many generous people who help me on this voyage, grateful for my angels in a prayer circle who hold me in the Light, as Quakers say.

As Karen N returns to Bishops Head, four people wave from the dock. One tall and one short, I recognize, Brian and Shannon Oesch, are my former students at Brevard College. Oh goody, I hope they will cruise with me for a few days. But they have just come for the evening, to deliver a fresh cantaloupe. Shannon has just finished exams in her first years studying Environmental Design at NC State. At Brevard, Shannon was an Environmental Studies major, and Brian a Wilderness Leadership major. Three years ago in May, we three kayaked 400 miles from the North Carolina mountains to the South Carolina coast. A year ago for my birthday, we sailed on Lake Jocassee for the day, the little Cape Dory-14 bobbing from a white beach on blue water that looked Caribbean. With them on the Bishops Head dock are Brian's parents, Carol and Walter. They all tour my boat, and we drive north to Cambridge for dinner. Driving back through the wildlife refuge, we see a red fox and a lumbering raccoon, big as a labrador dog. Such generosity; the Oesch family has driven three hours from Rockville, up and back to Cambridge two hours, then three hours home. They'll get back home to Rockville by 1:30 a.m., and Walter must go to work at 7.

Monday, 20 May. I will cruise up Marshyhope Creek where the State of Maryland has recently bought 58,000 acres of forest to preserve. Tonight and probably Tuesday night I'll stay at Karen Noonan CBF Ed Center at Bishops Head.

Monday, 20 May. I hated leaving Marshyhope Creek off the Nanticoke: the kind of place where I wish to anchor for a week and soak up the rhythm of wildness. Back on the main Nanticoke channel, following wind and tide send me scurrying downstream. With the current high pressure, and almost a week promised of light winds, this trip begins to appear feasible. Before when the wind was predicted 20 to 25 each day, deciding to leave port was harrowing. There have been three tornados just north in the last few weeks. Crossing to Bishops Head, I could see the houses on the point at CBF's Karen Noonan Center from five miles east. Karen, Pat Noonan's daughter, died in the Lockabie, Scotland, plane crash. What a terrific legacy is the program where schoolkids can live a few days right by the Blackwater Wildlife Refuge. Right after I docked at 2 pm, I jumped on the "Karen N," with Capt. Jesse Marsh and CBF educators Jody and Bryn, and 20 eighth-grade girls from Holy Child School in Potomac, MD.  We set crab pots and walked the southern tip of Lower Hooper Island; "proguing" means searching the beach for anything the tide has washed up. I picked up a shell shed by a crab and thought: each time I leave a secure house as I have done for this voyage, I grow a little larger, just as the crab does when it sheds its shell. Also, I picked up an angel wing shell, which reminded me: this trip is possible only because of the generosity of everyone I meet who helps me. I am so grateful. Surprise: when "Karen N" docks, waiting for me are Shannon and Brian Oesch, and his parents Walter and Carol, who take me to dinner in Cambridge. Shannon and Brian were both my students at Brevard College, and we three kayaked 400 miles together in May three years ago.

Tuesday, 21 May. Today is a calm day for me at Bishops Head, reading and writing. When the girls check their crab pots, they catch only 10 crabs in 18 pots. To make a living, watermen who used to put out 200 pots are now setting 1000 pots. At midday, I walk with Molly 3 miles, round trip, to put some letters in the mailbox. The road skirts the wildlife refuge, where I see great blue herons, American egrets, blackbirds.

After breakfast I tell the Holy Child girls about my John Smith voyage, and they are most interested that he and Pocahontas were not sweethearts. In 1607 he was 27 and she was 10 or 11. When they met, Smith did describe Pocahontas as "nonpareil," unparalleled for her wisdom and beauty, even at that age. At Bishops Head I am grateful for a quiet morning, typing the previous week's journal, tied to the dock. I scurry to write a grant proposal for Town Creek Foundation, but cannot print it. The CBF computer cannot read my 3.5 disk in its a:drive, and my computer cannot configure a 700-series HP printer; 600 and 800, but not 700. Midday, I walk three miles, round trip, to drop two letters in the mailbox. No hardship: the road curves through marshes of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, where egrets and herons wade the tidal creek to fish. Hawks soar overhead. I am content in a cruiser's daily rhythm and routine: up at sunlight, sleep soon after dark. The schoolgirls will not finish cooking their dinner until 8:30, so I boil some pasta on my boat, so I can go to sleep by nine for an early start the next morning. Jesse tells me the next day will be clear, and the Bay route outside Hoopers Island will be faster than the inside route up Honga River. I'll ride the tide north.

Wednesday, 22 May. With light wind, I take off north outside Hooper Island, amazed the open Bay is calm enough. The western shore, just six miles away, is clearly visible, I as pass the mouth of the Patuxent and Calvert Cliffs. I was skirting the 8-foot depth contour. When two watermen's boats speed by, I follow them, figuring they know the water depths. Local knowledge, they zoom by pound nets and a zillion crab pots, my depth sounder reading "3 feet." Molly my dog prefers sail and paddle boats to a pounding motor boat. When my starboard gas tank read 1/4, I stop to switch to the port tank and lose the watermen. I cruise more leisurely into the Little Choptank river. As I float an hour at the mouth of Madison Bay, watermen's white deadrise skiffs circle me, pulling their crabpots. I float for an hour, set a fishing pole, which catches no fish, use my cell phone to check messages and reserve docks for the next week. The Alltel cell has not ring as I move up the Shore, but I can check messages and call out. I stay overnight at the Madison Bay Marina next to workboats. I'm cold at night, high 30s, in my "summer" sleeping bag and a fleece blanket. I prefer cold to heat, and some wind to bugs.

I leave Bishops Head at 7:15 a.m. to catch the tide north. Out Hooper Straits I am grateful for 10-knot winds. Winds blew Smith's sailing barge west through Hooper Straits all the way across the Bay to Calvert Cliffs, where the crew refused to go any further. Smith made a pleading speech, saying he shared all their hardship, thirst and hunger, and surely all their trials were behind them. They sailed north as far as the Severn or South rivers, then turned south. Crab pots and pound nets fill the shallow water 1.5 miles west of Hooper Island, and I thread them, riding the 8-foot-depth offshore. I can easily see the western shore, passing the mouth of the Patuxent River and Solomons, home of my friends, the Calvert Marine Museum. Two watermen, finished for the day, zoom past. I figure they are the ultimate "local knowledge" how to cut across the shoals, so I push my throttle to the max and follow their wake, 18 knots, my depth sounder reading 12, 8, and 3.0 flashing. Molly my dog doesn't like the noise, vibration, and pounding when we go fast. But I hold onto the watermen's wake for 40 minutes, saving twice the time, if I had to follow surer, deeper channels offshore. When I stop to switch my fuel tanks from port to starboard, they disappear in the distance. More leisurely, I round the northern tip of Taylors Island into Little Choptank River. Dozens of watermen's skiffs circle, pulling their crabpot buoys. At the mouth of Madison Bay, my cell phone reception shows three of four bars for the first time in weeks. Floating by a marker, I call my contacts at Horn Point, Easton, and Oxford to confirm docking for the next week. At noon I tied to the dock at Madison Bay Marina and eat a crab cake at the Big Bamboo restaurant there. That afternoon I wash my windows and put on Rainex to reduce the spray, as my hand-operated windshield wipers are minimum technology.

Thursday, 23 May. Coming in the Choptank River, I am seeing more pleasure boats, sports fishermen and sailboats. For my week on the James in April, the only two boats I saw were a tender in the "Ghost Fleet" and a ship in Hampton Roads. I am staying two nights at Horn Point Lab. In Tom Fisher's office, I meet his grad students-- Adrian who is studying streamside forest buffer and their ability to improve agricultural nutrient runoff, and Jason who studies how a marsh reduces the nutrient loading discarded from a sewage treatment plant.

A woman from the RV campground brings me a fresh doughnut from town, which Cambridge 12 miles away. I leave Madison Bay at 8:10 a.m. in case the weather comes in and wind blows up. I round the neck into Choptank River and arrive at Horn Point Lab at 11:35 a.m. Anne Gustafson, Tom Fisher's research assistant, greets me at the Boat Basin. Two months I emailed all the marine science labs, museums, and education centers of the Bay. Mike Roman, director of University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Science, forwarded my query to all his faculty, and Tom Fisher responded. Full professor at Horn Point, 25 years ago Tom was a grad student in Beaufort a few years before I arrived there. Indeed, he had rented a house owned by the same landlady. We would have been neighbors.
I check my email at Tom Fisher's office. I explore the mowed walkways through the meadows and forest at Horn Point, which was once a DuPont estate. By the creek I encounter a group of chattering boys, "have you seen a turtle?" "You have to be quiet to find one," I suggest. On the beach by the Boat Basin, the girls are pulling seine nets along shore to catch small fish. That evening I join forty students from Bennett Middle School in Salisbury for dinner at Horn Point's Education Center, which more than 5,500 children visit each year. When I tell them about my LANDFALL voyage, they want to know if I've seen marine mammals-- whales and dolphins. "Not in the Bay," I say. "I have seen dolphins in Beaufort and humpback off Cape Lookout, in Alaska's Prince William Sound, and off Massachusetts. I've seen Orcas in Alaska and grays in California. "How about sharks?" "Not yet," I say.

Sat and Sun, 25 and 26 May, I plan to stay at Easton Point Marina and go to the Third Haven Quaker Meeting in Easton, oldest religious building in America.

Mon to Wed, 27-29 May, I'll stay at Crockett Bros Boatyard in Oxford.

Friday, 24 May. At Horn Point Tom Fisher comes to check out my boat. After a decade of flying back and forth to study the Amazon River in Brazil, Tom's current research focuses on land-water interactions on the Bay. Through GIS, remote sensing, he studies changes in land use and measures nutrient loading. For his dissertation, using historic maps, satellite and aerial photos, grad student Jorge followed 350 years of land use changes along the Choptank River. By 1800 most of the arable land was clear. Between 1800 and 1900 there were few changes in forestry and agriculture. Since 1900 the forests still standing are stable on wet soils, as they are not useable for agriculture. This century, however, has seen the great increase in agriculture chemicals, particularly after World War II. Between 1950 and 1985 there was an exponential increase in fertilizer use. Shallow aquifers are not saturated with nitrate, so drinking wells must be drilled deeper than 150 feet. In the afternoon Bill Dennison comes by the boat. Bill has just returned from ten years in Australia, where he worked with the Marine Botany group at University of Queensland. At Horn Point as Vice President for Science Applications, Bill is trying "to solve the Bay's problems; not 'save the bay;' it's too late, but restore the Bay." By linking universities and government agencies, Bill is implementing the Integration and Application Network (IAN) of scientists to solve the Bay's environmental problems, not just study them. Another professor, Jeff, launches his new skiff and outboard. Bill and I ride as Jeff runs his new outboard, half an hour at 1000 rpm, half an hour at 2000 rpm. When he was a grad student studying seagrasses twenty years, Bill must have stayed in my house in Beaufort, when I was married to a seagrass scientist. That evening, Kristen Frese, the p.r. lady at Horn Point, opens the ladies' locker room, so I can shower.

Saturday, 25 May. I cross the Choptank and enter the Tred Avon River. By 10 a.m. I tie up at Easton Point Marina, where Leonora Bernheisel, my sheep-farmer friend from northwest Maryland is standing on the dock. Contrary to my understanding on the telephone, John the marina manager says he is charging me for dockage, the first marina of twelve where I have stayed, and two dozen that I have called. I pay $11 for "half a day." Landfall passes the courtesy Coast Guard Auxiliary inspection of safety gear-- required: personal flotation devices, flares, horn, fire extinguishers, registration numbers displayed, anchor and nav lights, marine sanitation device; recommended: marine radio, bilge pump and backup, anchors, first aid kits. Lee drives me to town for fresh groceries, two miles up the hill from the dock. At the farmers' market I buy fresh bread and asparagus. We eat great salads and blueberry cake at the coffee shop. At Boaters World I buy a replacement windshield wiper. At a pet shop, a lady clips Molly's toenails. When we cannot get a reservation to eat at Mason's restaurant in Easton, Leonora and I drive to St. Michaels. The streets are packed for Memorial Weekend. We dine among the tourists at The Crab Claw. At 7:30 Lee and I motor a mile and a half to anchor inside the hook in Dixon Creek. We watch the sun set at 8:15 and the full moon rise. Why tie to a dock where old men are drinking beer, and oil slick foul the water? A yearling deer strolls on the beach, and on the sandbank a red fox dips into the hole of its den. With Lee aboard and mild wind, I see that this voyage can be a pleasure instead of an ordeal.

Sunday, 26 May. At anchor Lee and I read the Washington Post she has brought. A great blue heron sits on a branch on the nearby shore. Lee sautés onions, steams asparagus, and cooks an omelet. We tie Landfall to the Easton town wharf for free; Tom Fisher drives shuttle half an hour to stash Lee's car in Oxford, then drives us to the Third Haven Quaker Meeting in Oxford. Built in 1682, this is the oldest frame religious building and the longest continuous congregation in the country. George Fox, founder of the Religious Society of Friends, visited this vicinity in 1673. Inside the long dark-wood room, timber posts and beams were hand-hewn with a broadax. Benches face from the sides and line up down the middle. At the center are pull-down screens when the congregation wanted to divide the space, probably for men's and women's gatherings. Tom says the Meeting has recently completed extensive renovations. At ten minutes to ten, folks enter in silence and sit in family groups. Spoken ministry today touches on unconditional love from a woman who nursed crack babies and a man who nursed his mother six weeks until her death from cancer, as I nursed my mother eight years ago. From the side bench I see profiles of a mother and her son and daughter with clear resemblance, blond mops, round nose; and another father and son and daughter, same chin and wide cheeks. Generations continue at Third Haven Meeting House. After Meeting, the clerk signs my traveling minutes, that I will share with Quaker Meetings that I visit around the Bay. Outside after meeting the children climb into the branches of a blossoming magnolia. On three acres the majestic trees tower over ancient gravestones. Molly has rested in the shade, tied to a fence post. The names of the river and meeting are variants of the same root word: Third Haven and Tred Avon.

Sandra and James Herbert drive Lee, Molly, and me back to the Easton wharf. James is director of the research program at National Endowment for the Humanities that sponsored my summer institute on Environmental Imagination at Vassar College in 1997. Sandra is an historian, interested in Smith's legacy on the Bay. Heading down the Tred Avon River, when we pass Peachblossom Creek, we turn left at marker 12 and tie up the the second dock. Lorraine and Pinney Claggett has invited us for tea. When I land, Lorraine welcomes me and in the same breath asks if I want to do laundry. I pause, then say yes. I am glad to wash the purple fleece blanket from the v-berth that smells a little doggy. Both Pinney and Lorraine's families have lived on the Tred Avon for generations. Pinney says, "Quakers have moved away in dribs and drops, and I'm the last droplet here." They live on the shore next to the old house at the end of Bailey's Neck which Lorraine's family used to own. Two of their daughters live adjacent, and another daughter has returned from Oregon to Annapolis to direct the U.S. Forest Service's efforts to help private and state forests keep the Chesapeake Bay clean.

Leonora wants to anchor on La Trappe Creek. When she was married thirty years ago, she sailed on her husband's parents 1903 49-foot Herreschoff sailboat that drew 6 feet nine inches. She remembers the beach and the big white house by the anchorage. As we motor up the Choptank, I see a forest of spars, sailboat masts, inside Martin Point. Powerboats with loud music have anchored just off the beach strand. We head to the quietest spot. We pull one kayak off the roof, and I paddle Molly to shore for a potty break. Lee takes a turn paddling to see the white house she remembered. When I help pull Lee back aboard, I do not pay attention to the paddle. An hour later, I realize my good, $600 kevlar paddle is missing, that twists so it does not stress my carpel-tunnel wrists. With the longer $100 paddle, I head to shore directly behind the boat and circle the cove and the two points of the creek where the wind or tide may have pushed it to shore. At the end of the creek are grazing sheep. I hope Lee gets to see them. I cannot blame her; it is my fault not to be attentive. I should not carry something of value on this trip, and I value friendship more than possession. I pass offshore from a nesting swan; swans can be ornery, and a swan's wing can break a person's leg. I stop at a few boats in the anchorage and alert them to keep an eye for a lost paddle, pretty sure at this point that it has sunk. The motorboats at the beach are still causing a ruckus. By the shoreline, when I have completed 355 degree of a 360-degree circle, I see the rippling just beneath the surface. It is my paddle. Back on the boat, I reassure Lee that losing the paddle was my fault, and she is happy I have found it. We sleep sound at anchor, and predicted rain never comes. I would just as soon that the storms come and pass when we are safe at anchor or dock, instead of surprising me underway.

Monday, 27 May. At dawn, just as the Indians did, Lee, Molly, and I swim in the clear water, uncharacteristic of the Bay, without jellyfish. In reporting the Indians' religion, Smith said they all swam at dawn to celebrate the moon and the sun. One of the first things I added on the boat was a swimming ladder, for Molly's and my safety when swimming, and for boarding the kayaks. Molly takes a long walk on the beach. Fresh strawberries for breakfast make me feel wealthy. Midday, we motor up La Trappe Creek and return to the Tred Avon River to spend a night in Oxford. We tie to the dock at Crockett Bros Boatyard in Town Creek. Oxford's old homes have front porches, lovely gardens, well designed, full of blooming flowers, along shade-lined streets. We eat crab cakes at Pier Street Restaurant and walk the streets until dark.

Tuesday, 28 May. Leonora leaves at six a.m. to return to her sheep farm. At the dock for a day, I type my journal. I rig a bungee to hold my plastic food drawers in place in the galley locker under the sink and stovetop. I replace a windshield wiper blade. Molly and I walk to admire gardens and replenish green veggies at the market.

From Oxford, in the next ten days, I'll pass through Knapp's Narrows in Tilghman Island, visit the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michael's on the Miles River, to the Wye Research and Education center, then pass through Kent Narrows to the Chester River and Chestertown.

Wednesday, 29 May. At 6 a.m. Molly and I walk around Oxford for an hour admiring gardens. She chases sticks from an end-of-street waterfront park, just like Beaufort used to have before greedy land grabbers appropriated traditional public access for private. I wash a load of laundry. Although the radio has been predicting a storm in two days for the last ten days, the good weather persists, and I am grateful. Mark Toole, a musician friend from Morehead City, has come to Maryland to work on his own sailboat, which has been "on the hard" too long, so he wants to cruise a few days. In Beaufort's Community Open Band, Mark plays bazouki and lives in the shack at the "Clam Farm," the local name for Pelletier Creek Marina. Just as my laundry is finished drying at 8:30, Mark arrives, having driven to St. Leonard seven hours on Tuesday and three hours this morning. I think we'll be off in two hours after a leisurely walk to the Oxford Market for some provisions, so Mark can see the gardens. The Crockett Bros store says a truck will deliver a windshield wiper I ordered by 10:30. We swim in the pool, shower; I buy ice. Impatient to leave the marina to get back on the water, as I'm preparing for departure, I notice the little silver fuse cover on the Garmin GPS 12-volt cord has fallen off. Since the windshield wiper has not arrived, Mark drives me the 10 miles to Easton. Radio Shack does not have the fuse cover. The new Boaters' World manager, confused and confusing, sends me back with a cord that does not work. . Town frustrates me; more than three errands makes me twitchy. Mark and I order too much take-out Chinese food, a third of which we eat on a bench outside the Third Haven Quaker Meeting. The peaceful, timeless grounds "ground" me, green lawn, white grave-markers, white magnolia blossoms, 20-foot rhododendron in full fuchsia flower, towering oaks, boxwood hedges. I am "off" schedule. Back at Crockett Bros at two, the windshield wiper attachment does not fit my boat. Okay, enough of shore. At 2:20 p.m. we blast; immediately, on the water, I feel fine and slow down. We poke into Broad Creek and drive to the head of Harris Creek. At 5:10 pm we anchor by the only patch of undeveloped shore on Dun Cove, so I can paddle Molly ashore for her potty break, late evening and early morning. She has not figured out the use of the green astro-turf mat on the transom deck. Five sailboats pull in after us and anchor out in the middle. Landfall only draws two feet with motor down, eight inches motor up.

Thursday, 30 May. After Molly swims from shore for half an hour, Mark and I leave Dun Cove at 8:26 a.m. and pass under the bridge in Knapps Narrows at ten. Since Knapps Narrows Marina was generous to offer free docking, I figured I'd tie on the outside dock and run into the office to thank them. People I'd met on the phone-- Amy, Basil, and J.C.-- are even nicer in person; some places just make me feel welcome. Mark and I walk Molly on Tilghman Island to see the working skipjack fleet in Dogwood Harbor and eat ice cream at the general store. Back on the boat, Mark locates the gas smell I'd noticed for two weeks as a leaking pinhole in the fuel filter in the starboard battery locker. In March I had asked the dealer who installed my new four-stroke outboard to upgrade all mechanical, electronic parts and fittings, so the engine would be foolproof all summer. When I discovered that he had neglected to grease the wheel-bearings on the trailer, and had installed a left-rear trailer light on the right side, I wondered what else he had failed to do: now I am adding to the list. In my streak of luck, that things happen when I need them, the Tilghman auto-parts garage across the bridge has just the filter we need. After replacing the filter, Mark says that sometime I should replace my ancient fuel lines with safer material. "Now," I say. The marina has nine feet of the right gauge hose and seven hose clamps, and Mark fits them. Landfall is now a safer boat, and I am lucky to have skilled friends. Out of Knapps Narrows, we head north on the inside route and swing from Eastern Bay into Miles River. We follow the shoreline of Rick Neck, where Matthew Tilghman lived, father of the American Revolution in Maryland. We sneak over the shoal at the mouth of Tilghman Creek into a wider bay with two swans. No other place could be prettier tonight than this wild marsh shore. Mark and I launch the two kayaks tied to Landfall's roof. The shallow stretches of Tilghman Creek are the proper scale to explore by kayak, as the sun is getting low in the sky. One shore has a few houses, and on the opposite shore are farm fields. I am grateful when old families and the next-generation heirs who inherit can manage to keep their land intact.

Friday, 31 May. On the last day of my month, my cell phone still have 60 minutes, so I call all my families to check on godchildren who will visit this summer-- Walt and Owen Javins in Montana, and Addie Jones in Richmond. I sing Happy Birthday to Teri Lynn's answering machine. Tilghman Creek is too pretty to leave, so Mark and I are lazy talking in the cockpit. Molly and I swim, careful to avoid the jellyfish that are growing bigger. The radio has said the wind will blow up this afternoon, so we leave at 9:50 a.m. for the hour run to St. Michael's. Big, old skipjacks under reefed sail motor in the Miles River with tourists-- the Rebecca Ruark. We tie to the sailing dinghy dock at Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum at 11:30 a.m. Otto Loggers, head of Education, welcomes us. I check the museum archives for natural-history journals. Ben Armiger, who runs the sailing program, gives us a ride to the Bellevue ferry, so we can retrieve Mark's Blazer in Oxford. Ben is farming 100 acres of family land on the Chester River. Four errands in Easton is my limit: West Marine, Radio Shack, Boaters' World, and Acme grocery. An anvil cloud sends us back to check the lines in St. Michaels, but the thunderstorm passes. I would just as soon have a storm when I am safe at dock, rather than underway on the water.

Saturday, 1 June. After he replaces the bilge floater-switch, Mark takes off. I walk St. Michael's to buy fresh bread and lettuce at the Farmer's Market and to eat strawberries at a church fair. At a Talbot Street shop I buy an expensive straw hat. Because of hoards of weekend tourists, St Michaels seems to have lost its own sense of community.

Sunday, 2 June. At 7:30, on our way to the sandy shoreline for Molly to chase sticks, a monster bad dog, 100-pound male with lots of hair, attacks Molly and bites her neck. I beat him with a puny stick and yell. The saleswoman from the hat shop apologizes that he pulled loose. Why do people own big dogs if they can't control them? Molly is scared and I am scared; she is fragile and my beloved puppy. For years I have steeled myself against ever losing her. This summer I want her company to share this voyage; I need her to act as guard dog when I'm alone at strange docks. All winter I have prayed her hips would last all summer, jumping from boat to docks at low tide. Year and a half ago a vet diagnosed hip dysplasia, bone spurs, arthritis: "The x-rays say this dog can't walk." At Thanksgiving this year, the Beaufort vet said her only option is "pain management; don't let her walk or run" On consultation the orthopedic surgeon at NC State Vet School said to keep Molly off drugs as long as possible; let her run and walk as much as she wants, preferably on flat sand; let her swim as much as possible. For half an hour Molly still runs joyous as a puppy, then sleeps a few hours. If the heat gets too bad in July, I'll rent a car and drive Molly to Susan Buck's air-conditioned house in Greensboro. After the dog attack, I feel Molly's body for wounds, for soreness, and she seems all right. We leave St. Michaels about 9:30 a.m. The wind is whipping up on the Miles River, but the Wye East River is calm, except for Sunday boaters. One guy in a 50-foot powerboat is pulling up his anchor to starboard, then zooms across the channel behind another boat and in front of me. "Hey lady," he yells, "I have right of way." I'm not going to dispute a boat 20 times my tonnage. Landfall without the outboard is an eggshell, just under 2000 pounds. I take note that I should stay off the water on weekends, especially as I reach crowded waters of the the Sassafras and the western shore. At 11:30 I anchor in Granary Creek, take down my kayak, paddle to the park at the head of the creek where a couple is fishing, and walk down the road a few miles. On Wye Island the State of Maryland manages 2450 of 2800 acres. The road west of Granary Creek is unshaded, hot, and hard surface for half a mile. Then the dirt road continues in the shade of old trees. Beyond, new crops of corn and soybeans are growing taller in vast fields. Fine rows of trees border the fields. According to Uncle Bim, in the early 1600s, a Jeffers ancestor, one who left Jamestown, lived on or by Wye Island at "Wye Hundred," though my brother has found no specific records. Still, I feel as if I belong here, and I'm grateful the state park welcomes me to walk. In the afternoon as the wind gusts above 30, on Landfall I read a mystery book and nap half an hour. At six two guys who pass in rubber dinghies invite me to dinner on their rafted sailboats. Each summer for a week these three couples cruise together. After grilled shish-kabob they invite me to join their sunset/ marguerita sail, but Molly is acting tired. This is my first night anchoring alone, and I feel fine. On the boat I fall asleep at dark and walk at daylight.

Monday, 3 June. Soon after I wake the gravel trucks pass on the road at the head of Granary Creek. I paddle ashore and take a photograph of the tanker truck sign, "Cover It with Asphalt." In my expedition slide show, I can show the Blackwater Swamp and then "Cover it with Asphalt," show the Wye Island farm fields, then "Cover It With Asphalt." A county truck gives Molly and me a ride two miles to the Big Woods "nature trail." Here are big white oaks and hickory, mayapple and trillium without spring blooms yet. I walk to the water and back to the road, then double back to photograph the biggest oak. All told, Molly and I walk four and a half or five miles. She is tired. On the boat I examine her neck, notice dried hair and find a hole from the bad dog bit her, clip hair from the bite, apply betadine and antibiotic cream. Under the bite is hard and sore. I pull up the anchor, set deep in the mud by yesterday's 30-knot winds; yes, I wish I had a windlass to pull up anchors. We leave Granary Creek at 11:15. At the mouth of Pickering Creek, I talk to Diane Peddicord, a woman waterman, who runs a trotline for crabs in the summer. I stop at Schnaitman's dock at Wye Landing on the Wye East River. Chuck Schnaitman says his family has worked this landing for four generations, 150 years. He says the guy across the creek owns 14 miles of shoreline, and the house just south owns 8 miles of shoreline. "That's the reason why we still have crabs, the best in the Bay, because we have so much shoreline protected from development." Even so, Chuck says the crab landings have dropped 75 percent two years ago and was only slightly better last year. Weekends, people rent his wooden skiffs and catch crabs in small wire traps. This last weekend, people were catching 3 dozen. Four dozen makes a bushel, and Chuck pays $100 a bushel, which he can sell for $110. He doesn't make much as middleman. When Dianne Peddicord comes in, she tells me she hasn't started catching many crabs yet this summer. The cruising guide says clearance under the Wye Narrows bridge is ten feet, but I figure my antenna is a foot above my two stacked kayaks is just under ten feet, and an hour after high tide, we have two or three feet clearance under the bridge. The landmark on the right before DeCoursey Creek is the Chef Boy-R-Dee $14 million dollar mansion. Can't miss it: the two chimneys look like Versailles. Some young couple, rich from cell phones, now own it. Watching the depth sounder, I inch into DeCoursey Creek and tie to the dock of the Wye Research and Education Center, where Russ Brinsfield, mayor of Vienna on the Nanticoke River, is director. He's off at meetings, but his staff graciously welcome me. First, I take a shower and pick off several ticks. Dr. Ken Shaver explains the nitrogen cycle. Surface runoff is bad, but worse is the slow accumulation of nitrate in groundwater that seeps into Bay waters. In the summer commercial crops take up inorganic nitrate. In the winter farmers can grow cover crops to take up nitrate that would seep into the groundwater. . Ken searches for nutrient-reduction methods that will not cost farmers: a win-win solution like no-till. The office clears out at five. Molly sleeps; I eat and read. Before I sleep I see the first fireflies of the season.

Tuesday, 4 June. An eagle roosts in the dead tree on the shoreline of the Boy-R-Dee palace. A red-winged blackbird proclaims his territory from a Pragmites grass. When Molly and I walk the dirt road to the Ag Center barn, a groundhog growls from its ditch, so we turn back. On our walk Molly does not wag her tail. Molly does not want to chase sticks in the water. She will not eat her breakfast. Tied to the Wye Center dock, this morning I intend to type my journal, but Molly is shivering in the v-berth. In the Land Conservancy office, Amy Owsley, community planner who studied at Yale Forestry, offers to drive Molly to the Queenstown vet, Dr. Ed Hammer. His partner pierces and drains the swollen abscess under the dog bite and gives Molly a penicillin shot. I will give her antibiotic pills for a week. As Molly is sleeping in the shade, Rob Etgen, director of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy for its twelve years, says they have protected more than 30,000 acres on 144 properties. Rob sends me to talk to Elmer Whitby, neighbor of Wye Center. Elmer tells me stories of growing up on a Wye Island farm and working 60 years as a waterman. Fog is what scared him when he was on the water.

Wednesday, 5 June. Before I wake fully, I can hear the wind moaning and keening. When I sit up in my berth, I can poke my head out the forward hatch: tree tops are bending in 25-knot winds. The radio says 15 to 20 today southwest. Paying heed to wind and tide, with wind behind me, I want to ride north on Eastern Bay, Prospect Bay, and into Kent Narrows on incoming tide. I leave DeCoursey Creek at 8:45 a.m. The weather radio predicts severe thunderstorms this afternoon or evening, tomorrow, and Friday morning. If I don't leave now, I may have to stay for two more days. My GPS tells me tide levels at any location. I ride south out the Wye River on the last of the outgoing tide and beginning of slack low. The southwest wind hits me as I round Drum Point on Wye Island, but the tide is already coming in. The longer the "fetch" of open water in the direction of wind, the higher the waves build up. Still, the waves are one to 1.5 feet, and Molly is comfortable. Rounding Bennett Point we are protected from the west by Rich Neck for a few miles. To the west sailboats are headed out Eastern Bay from St. Michaels back to Annapolis. Three sailboats are ahead of me, heading north to Kent Narrows. The wind is cranking, 20-25 knots, and the waves rougher, but manageable, for two miles in the open water between Rich Neck and Parson Island. With a following sea, Landfall wallows, the outboard stutters and shivers if I go over 10 knots. We pass under the high and low bridges at Kent Narrows and fill the fuel. For two nights we are guests of Bob Ivins, manager at Mears Point Marina at Kent Narrows, and his wife Val who runs the ship store. Val and Bob lived on their sailboat at the Beaufort docks last winter. Big contrast, six hundred boats dock here at Mears Point. People commute from their boats here to work in Annapolis and Baltimore. Overhead is the continuous din of traffic on Highway 50/301 bridge hauling traffic across the Bay Bridge to the Eastern Shore and the ocean beaches. At the marina a crane is driving more dock pilings. There's a lawn mower and weedeater. New restaurants and office buildings being expanded have power saws, backhoes. Even though there are finally Alltel towers for coverage, first time in a month, the background noise is so high, I cannot hear my cell phone ring in my pocket. While washing three loads of laundry, I swim laps in the pool. Rock and roll music is piped into the shower room. Contrast 18th-century Wye Island and this 21st-century Kent Narrows marina. Really, I'm grateful for amenities like washing machines and swimming pool, but I prefer to fall sleep to whippoorwills and bullfrogs. With a hose on the dock, I take this opportunity to scrub and oil my cockpit floorboards. I clean dog hair and tree leaves from the bilge impeller, so it will run happily.
Friend of the Land Conservancy, Ed Nielsen from Centreville comes by to tell me how the Chester River Association is working to protect the river. At 9 the big storm hits, driving rain for an hour, thunder booms and lightning claps in a full around the boat. Nestled at the Mears marina dock, dry and snug, I fall asleep before the rain abates.

Thursday, 6 June. When I step into the cockpit, the boat tips back enough so the bilge blows out the previous night's rain. On shore I try to figure a way to use the modem-hookup in the laundromat to use my computer for Internet and email access. On the phone I contact Quakers for my weekend visit in Chestertown. My brother Jeff and I make arrangements for a military escort to tour family homeplace at the Aberdeen Proving Ground without getting bombed. Naively, as I was planning my itinerary, I had thought I could cruise along the shoreline of our ancestors' farm. Apparently, there may be unexploded bombs underwater and buried chemical weapons on shore. After September 11, both weapons testing and security surveillance have increased. I am glad my brother will come on the boat for a few days. I am pushing my scheduled itinerary up four or five days, so I'll have more time for the Potomac and Rappahannock in July. From my credit-card receipt I call the shop owned by the woman whose dog attacked Molly to ask her to pay the $102 vet bill. She agreed, but said, "I resent your use of the word 'attack.' If my dog had attacked your dog, your dog would be dead." Okay, use the word "bite." After antibiotics for two days, the sore in Molly's neck from the dog bite is better and her jovial spirits returning. The radio predicts big storms this afternoon and evening. Val and Bob feed me great comfort food: baked chicken, mashed potatoes, and Caesar salad, take-out from Chesapeake Chicken. Val is very sad; the big wind finally toppled the 470-year-old Wye Oak. Val grew up at Wye Mills with the tree, and their new house is very near the tree. I missed my last chance to see the Wye Oak taking Molly to the vet.

Friday, 7 June. Despite the radio predictions of the previous two days, the wind does not drop by morning, or mid-morning, or mid-day, or mid-afternoon. The tremendous American flag over Mears Point shows 25 knots with 30-some gusts. With Molly still feeling puny from her dog bite, she will not like a bouncing boat. Walking across the low bridge over Kent Narrows, I see white caps in the mouth of the Chester River. There's a fine walking and bicycling lane on the low bridge. The highway traffic on Route 50/301 effectively bisects Kent Island. However, on the new 6-mile Cross Island Trail, local folk can bicycle or walk within their community without competing with commuter traffic. Following an old railroad right of way, the trail passes wetlands, forests, restaurants, schools, and the library. On the dock I eat some crab soup at a restaurant and eat raspberry ice cream. The weekend folk are beginning to arrive. I am impatient to move to a more natural anchorage. Tony who works on the dock tells me to relax. I read a Carl Hiassen mystery book. Finally, by 4 p.m. the wind drops to 15 or 18. However, the mouth of the Chester River will still be choppy. I will leave before the bikini contests at the dock bar on Sunday, men and women in thongs and bare buns.

Saturday, 8 June. In calm 5-knot winds I leave Kent Narrows by 7, before the mist clears. John Smith and his crew surprised the Indians by singing a hymn and saying prayers every morning. At the beginning, when I was more anxious about weather, I said prayers for safety every morning. Now my prayer is gratitude that I have this privilege to be on the water and prayers of wonder at the beauty of water and birds and farmland. Off the Chester I pass several creeks where sailboats are still at anchor. I explore the Corsica River. On the right is a big brick house which belongs to the Russian Embassy. Farther up the Chester River lovely farm fields climb from the shoreline in broad expanses, and big houses survey the view from fifty feet above the water. The Chestertown waterfront has fine, big brick houses. At ten I tie to the wharf by the town park and walk uptown to the Farmers' Market at Fountain Square. Potted flowering plants entice me, but where would a plant fit on this boat? I buy fresh lettuce and asparagus, kohlrabi and squash. From the Lapp Family Bakery I buy bread; I sit in the shade under a tree to eat an apple dumpling. Chestertown has antique shops and restaurants. To pass impatient afternoons when the wind won't drop, I buy four new novels from the Compleat Bookseller. At a sidewalk table I eat chicken salad from the coffee shop, Play It Again Sam. From four to five, just to see marshes and forests, I motor under the bridge and six miles up the river. At five I tie up to the floating dock at the Washington College Boat House, another host which offers gracious hospitality to a travelling teacher. I take and hour nap, so I can stay awake past nine, at a concert by Al Petteway and Amy White at the Prince Theatre. The audience are all older affluent couples. The younger crowd will listen to bluegrass at Andy's bar that doesn't start until ten, but I can't stay awake past midnight.

Sunday, 9 June. At the college docks, Will Phipps, John Wagner's assistant, advises me to wire my bilge switch directly, so I do not need to leave on my battery. He tells me to hook up my solar panel every time I stop. I walk uptown to attend the Chester River Friends Meeting. After worship I share their lunch, and Lila Line comes back to my boat. I met Lila about twenty years ago, when she had published her book about women who work on the water. My summer renter in Beaufort reads me my mail, and I write six checks to pay bills.

Monday, 10 June. The radio predicts three days of "100-degree heat index." Children, old people, and pets should stay in the shade or air conditioning, and drink plenty of water. Bright and early, Jay Grigsby arrives from Williamsburg. Jay brings a box of food I had packed for me to re-stock my food supplies. In my galley locker I fit boxes of soymilk, tofu, butternut squash soup I had ordered from my Beaufort food coop. Jay drives me to a grocery to re-stock fresh eggs, orange juice, cheese, and bananas. Checking the outboard oil every day, I have watched the gauge drop by half in a month. Adding half a quart of oil brings the gauge back to full. Finally, by three we head down the Chester River. At 5:15 we tie to Barbara and Steve Starkey's dock on the Corsica River, a mile past marker 6. They both work hard for the Chester River Association, filling clam beds, growing seagrass in their garage to transplant. Last week they took legislators on kayak tours of natural and degraded creeks to show the need for better sewage treatment. Barbara serves us shrimp scampi for dinner before she takes off the see their grandchildren. I was a little chilly swimming in the pool, before Steve suggested we warm up in the hot tub. Cruising is not always a hardship.

Tuesday, 11 June. In the morning Steve takes Jay and me for a tour of Centerville and for breakfast at the "local" hangout. Down river on the Chester, Jay and I stop at the Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge, tying to a dock on Durdin Creek. We walk a half mile on a paved road then a mile on a forest trail. On the trail is a snapping turtle, and I warn Molly to keep her toes clear. In the shallow water off the beach are doubling Limulus, mating horseshoe crabs. I pick off two tiny ticks, the kind that carry Lyme disease, before they have a chance to attach. From the roadside I pick a branch of bay myrtle to make the v-berth smell sweeter and to discourage any ticks. In 5-knot southerly winds, the open Bay is calmer than I have seen it. As we drift north, Jay holds his fishing rod; while I am reading, my fishing rod is stored in the rod holder. Jay tells me twice to pull in the fish pulling on my line: I catch two croaker, about three pounds each. Jay and I catch a dozen white perch, also called stiffback or greenback perch. In Swan Creek we stop for gas and hose off at the dock. When we were cruising on a sailboat, my father loved to anchor in Swan Creek. I remember he said a restaurant in Gratitude had the best pecan pie he knew. I asked the dockguy what restaurant might have been in Gratitude forty years ago. He said, probably Fisherman's Inn, but it has been closed for ten years. By six we anchor in Swan Creek. Now at Rock Hall and Gratitude are a dozen new marinas, packed full with boats. People come down from cities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey on the weekend. I don't know where I'll hide for the weekend.

Wednesday, 12 June. The weather radio is predicting "chance of shower, chance of thunderstorms" for the next three days. We leave Swan Creek by 7:50. Heading out the channel we pound into big roller set up by the southwest wind for fifteen minutes. The ride is smoother as soon as we turn north. With cloudy skies but moderate wind we pass Worton Creek and Still Pond. Five miles west are Poole's Island and the Gunpowder peninsula. From the west come booming sounds that could be thunder, considering the clouds and the forecast, but instead are the booms from shelling at Aberdeen Proving Ground that sounds just like thunder. I give Jay the helm and watch out the port window, trying to figure out the booms. Since Jay never sees markers "58" and "59," he zooms a mile or two past the opening of the Sassafras River. I am not paying attention, and Jay can't read the chart or GPS without his glasses. He's great at picking out markers a mile in the distance. I take the helm and turn back south. High clay banks are eroding to the river. On the south shore of the Sassafras a few miles upriver, I notice a beach, and the chart shows three feet of water up to the shore. We drop an anchor thirty feet offshore and walk a rope to a tree on the beach. Just behind the beach is a pond full of water lilies and two swans. Perfect place for Molly to dig in the sand, for me to swim, for us to eat lunch. The cruising guide advises boaters to avoid the Sassafras on weekends, when wakes from big motorboats can be more dangerous than a thunderstorm. Even mid-week, boats in the channel do not slow down when they pass the moored boats behind Ordinary Point. Jay tries to fish at the dropoff by the channel, but the wind is rising. At three we enter Turner Creek, tie to the dock at a county park, and walk around a no-till demonstration cornfield. We anchor around the corner by lily pads. Molly leans over her swimming ladder, drinking the creek's fresh water. "What goes in must come out," I warn her. In half an hour, Molly walks from the cabin, jumps on the transom, and off the swimming ladder before I really notice. She starts to swim for the far shore, the one she could see from the stern. I yell for her to turn around, but she keeps swimming. I pull the knots loose and throw in my kayak and catch up to her, pull her in and paddle her to the closer shore. When her feet hit the sand, standing in the water, she starts to pee. In an hour she jumps off the boat again and heads to the farther shore, but I catch up to her right away and paddle her to the beach. I hope she won't jump off when the boat is underway, or at night when I am asleep.

Thursday, 13 June. The day dawns foggy, misty, very humid. The radio says "chance of drizzle" today; rain and thunderstorms tomorrow. Jay wants to move to buy more ice for his cooler full of Diet Dr Pepper, his source of caffeine. At the dock, when I paddle Molly ashore, I talk to Tom, the mate on Brandy Love. Baiting mesh hoops with clams, they catch catfish, live, and sell them to ponds where people pay to fish. Jay and I leave Turner Creek at 8:40. In the channel we pass Brandy Love, steaming at 25 knots heading south. In the Elk River, which connects to the C & D canal, eight Navy ships flying colorful flags steam south. Jay says they are probably reserve officers on their two-week annual duty. On the Bohemia River we stop at Long Point Marina for fuel and ice at 10:30. We walk an hour up the road to a general store for ice cream and barbecue. We eat our lunch on a bench overlooking the river. At 12:30 we cross under the bridge and cruise northern branch of the Bohemia to the left, with alternating forests and pastures for horse farms. On the tallest dead tree overhanging the water are two bald eagles. When we approach, one flies off. In three miles when the depth gets too shallow, we cut the motor and drift back downstream, pushed by wind and tide. When we pass, both eagles are gone. A flash of light seems to come from my camera on the console; in three seconds a boom sounds up river. We start the motor and head to the mouth of Manor Creek. Before we anchor the rain sets in for what seems like a long time. I rig the Moss Hepta-Wing over the canvas sun awning to keep the cockpit dryer. Jay and Molly nap in the v-berth while I brew tea and type. The rain continues until dark.

Friday, 14 June. At anchor in the Bohemia River, Friday dawns very damp, intermittent drizzle and downpour. I let out the anchor line to its extreme length and pole the boat to the beach for Molly to jump ashore.  She comes back wet and shakes. All the towels are soaked. In the cabin the fiberglass ceiling drips condensation. I want to paddle Manor Creek, which Charlie the Long Point dockmaster recommended for birdwatching. Every time I get resolve to lower the kayak, the rain intensifies. I'd be content to read all day, a summer day like one at the river cottage when as a child I cut out magazine pictures and pasted them to the attic walls, pieced jigsaw puzzles or played gin rummy with my father. However, Jay is not a reader; he is chilly, having brought only cotton shorts and t-shirts. He drapes his Mexican cotton blanket around his shoulders. Cotton if wet does not keep a person warm. I'm warm enough in thin fleece pants and pullover. This light rain, so good to trickle into the drought-stressed fields, could continue several days. The radio says, "slight chance of severe thunderstorm." If I were alone, I'd stay-- read, and paddle, but Jay is not content and makes me uncomfortable. We have run out of anything to talk about. Without exercising and no proper clothes, Jay will only get colder. Down river I can see a channel marker half a mile away. If the visibility in the Elk River is worse, I'll anchor in Veazey Bay. But the drizzle and mist distance hold steady in the Elk, around Turkey Point, and skirting the western edge of the Susquehanna Flats. At the confluence of currents from the Elk and Susquehanna rivers, Turkey Point is infamous for being rough. Today, blessedly, it is calm. When we round Turkey Point, I am moved by the beauty of headland bluffs, half obscured by mist, imagining John Smith sailing two days and two nights up the bay direct from Jamestown, when he returned there mid-July after his stingray bite. In his journal he said he saw two rivers, and then four rivers. I guess that would be Sassafras, Elk, Northeast, and Susquehanna. East of the Susquehanna is the short Northeast River. Seagrass used to cover the Susquehanna Flats, only a few feet of water at high tide and exposed at low tide. Massive rafts of ducks and geese used to winter here; Havre de Grace was a duck-hunting town. At one-thirty we dock at Tidewater Marina and walk uptown for lunch in a warm restaurant. At the town library computers I check email. An editor at Milkweed Press writes me that she might accept my essay for a book, if I shorten it by half. Browsing a tourist brochure, I see "Currier House Bed and Breakfast." I call the number and my distant relative, Jane, answers the phone. Sixteen years earlier I visited her mother, Grace, who was my "great-aunt and double cousin." Grace Carroll Jeffers, the geneologist for the Jeffers family, married a red-headed Irishman, Oliver Currier. After eight years with Alzheimers, Grace died two years ago, and her darling husband Ollie a few years before that. After I shower at the marina, Jane gives me a tour of the house she has restored into a lovely inn. One of the guest bedrooms is the "Jeffers Room," with photographs of our ancestors. William Nickolsen Jeffers was the second commander of the Monitor. I did not realize he taught at the Naval Academy, wrote a textbook The Armament of our Ships at War, and brought John Surratt who conspired for Lincoln's assassination back from Egypt. In her bed and breakfast, Jane also has Currier, Cameron, and Carroll rooms for her other branches. Jane shows me chairs from San Domingo, the Carroll family's hunting club on the Gunpowder Peninsula, which the Jeffers managed. When the federal government took land in 1917 for weapons testing, her grandfather John Carroll died of a heart attack after he watched bombs destroy his house at San Domingo. Jane's uncle Jim Currier was a famous duck-decoy carver. The Currier House sits on South Market Street, just above the Concord Point lighthouse and maritime museum. We eat crabs at Prices, a plain place down Water Street, filled with locals instead of tourists, with the best seafood in town. When I get back to the boat, Jay is sloshed, drinking vodka. It's time for him to leave. I am ready for time alone.

Saturday, 15 June. Just like last Saturday in Chestertown, I walk uptown to the Havre de Grace Farmers Market. The best fresh produce is from my fourth cousin Paula Harmon's farm. She has pure ripe organic strawberries. Little local berries have ten times the flavor of California cardboard ones from grocery stores. From Paula, elegant in bib overalls, a former bank manager who now farms fifty acres, I also buy snow peas, squash, and zucchini. From the next stand I buy black raspberries, from another local wildflower honey, organic Colby cheese, and fresh bread. All the vendors on the blocked-off city block ask what kind of dog Molly is. "Boykin Spaniel," I say, "a South Carolina duck-retrieving water spaniel, part Chesapeake Bay Retriever, the smallest working dog." She basks in the admiration, plenty vain. Around the block, the library book sale has no great buys. Now I wish I had brought a copy of Michener's Chesapeake, which I read whenever it came out, 20-some years ago. Back at Tidewater Marina, I move the boat around the corner to the City Yacht Basin, which has a slip for me the next two nights.

In the lawn opposite the Currier House, Chuck Foley welcomes me to the Havre de Grace Maritime Museum Festival. Molly and I mosey past craft vendors to the wooden boats. Under the music tent, chantey singers blend harmonies, tenor, baritone, and deep resonating bass. I buy raffle tickets for a tiny wooden skiff from Levin Heath, who grew up at Roaring Point on the Nanticoke River. I'm guessing he's in his late 70s. In a bright yellow Lions Club t-shirt, Levin says, "Before there were bridges, I had to get to Wilmington, Delaware, to take a train to Baltimore. Every day in the summer, my father would drive vegetables from our farm to the Baltimore market; he drove there five hours, five hours back, slept until he left again. As soon as I could, I moved away. After high school, I joined the Army, then moved here to Havre de Grace. Two years ago, we sold the family farm at Nanticoke. The people that bought it built a new house down on lowground, marshland where we were never allowed to build. That was the prettiest shoreline on the whole Bay." From the pier by the white lighthouse, Ed Gera maneuvers his scale-model schooner, Glad Tidings, with remote-control that turns the rudder and sails. "Thirty- seven feet to thirty-seven inches," Ed tells me. At three I stop to see Jane at the Currier House again. We walk three dogs, her two and mine, two doors down to visit Janie Jackseit. When I explain my expedition following Smith, Janie tells me way back that all the Native American tribes, from north and south, gathered at Havre de Grace for peaceful powwows. "I live on sacred territory," Janie exclaimed and clapped her hands three times. Janie speaks with conviction, "The Susquehanna is such a beautiful river. Roads should follow rivers so people can pull off at overlooks to see the water view. I wrote the state highway departments in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and they never acknowledged my letters." Janie continues with local history, "Because Quakers as pacifists did not want to fight the British in 1812, they built boats that could skid away fast across the flats. The British were so mad, they burned down their boatsheds. The Quakers re-built sheds, re-designed faster boats and outsmarted the British navy." Janie clapped three times again. "Quakers used these boats to transport runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad." Janie's husband Bert was a Baptist minister. "We weren't rich, but he was good company. Remember that, especially when you retire and spend more time together, get someone you want to talk to." When Janie and Bert moved here to Havre de Grace thirty years ago, she was dismayed to find the lighthouse door hanging on its hinges and a spotlight as the dim navigation light. While Bert drove their car back from St. Michaels, Janie held onto the fifth-order Fresnel lens borrowed from the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. Atop the 36-foot tower built of Port Deposit granite, the lens is 36 inches high and 14 inches diameter. Janie boasts that Concord Point lighthouse in her front yard is the oldest lighthouse in continuous use in the United States. As activist Janie encouraged the community to preserve the lighthouse and keep commercial development away from the town's southern waterfront park promenade.

Jane insists that I stay overnight as a guest in the Currier House bed and breakfast. I like sleeping on the boat, even when it bounces in marina traffic, and I am awakened at 5 a.m. by watermen. I am grateful for any hot shower at a marina. However, I adapt easily to the luxury of a real bed with fresh sheets and a private bathroom with bathtub. This weekend is about halfway on my summer trip, so a break on shore will give me new energy for the next six weeks. Molly sleeps soundly all day on a soft cushion tucked under a kitchen counter, and at night she sleeps in Jane's king-size bed. Because of guests' allergies, no pets are allowed in my guest room. Jane's husband Paul is off on business, so Jane is running the bed and breakfast by herself, with her daughter Sarah's help.

When Jane moved to Greenwich Village at age seventeen, she studied guitar with the Rev. Gary Davis. She recorded albums as Jane Chatfield, the last name of her first husband. In the early 1960s she performed at the Newport Jazz Festival, introduced by Pete Seeger who introduced Bob Dylan then too. In 1961, at age twenty-one, Jane rode a bus to Birmingham and marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. She was not arrested with other folk musicians, because she was knocked unconscious by a fire hose. At 63, Jane with reddish hair looks much as she did on her album cover which is posted above the piano in the Currier House bed and breakfast.

Sunday, 16 June. What I can do to help is walk Jane's two dogs and weed gardens. Fingering soil and pulling out weeds is a treat. Breakfast at Currier House is fresh strawberries from Paula's farm on baked french toast layered with nuts, apples, and cinnamon. No such thing ever as too much cinnamon or too much garlic. Jane's daughter Sarah walks with me on the waterfront boardwalk. Though Sarah looks about 16, she is now 35 and sometimes has difficulty speaking. Brain injured after she had meningitis at two, she has "expressive aphasia." Over her initial shyness, Sarah is friendly and eager for a boat ride. We board Landfall and run up the Susquehanna under three bridges, not as far as the rocks where Smith might have cruised. The Maritime M