Two if by Sea ~ Video

direct YouTube link: Melonseeds Off Urbanna

Short clips from the trip. I didn’t have the wind cover for the mic, so as not much natural audio this time, but enough to feel right. Doug provided the nice clip of me as we crossed tacks along the bluff below Rosegill.

You can see how lumpy it was when we first left the harbor. Lots of bucking into the wind until the tide turned.

Two if by Sea

Sailing along the bluff below Rosegill Plantation. Frame from a video clip by Doug.

I pull slowly through town to the harbor. It’s almost noon, but the air is cool as I get out and start rigging. Urbanna is like Scottsville on the Rappahannock instead of the James. Nearly the same size and population, with the same small town vibe. Locals all know each other, and know who is “from away”. If you’re from away, you’re a “Come Here”. I am asked several times “Where y’all from?” – in a cheerful friendly way, truly interested to hear your stories. Inevitably this leads into long conversations, teasing out, without being too direct: “Who are your people?”, “What brought you here?”

You don’t get that as much in a big city.

There’s also the brother/sisterhood of boating that creates a quick affinity – “Lovely boat, did you built it?” – which, in the case of these small Melonseeds, leads into shared stories of small boats fondly remembered from growing up on the water.

Doug is delayed in traffic out on the interstate, which is fine because I’m always slow getting ready. I walk to the office to pay the ramp fee. In the small office the harbor master is on the radio with someone he seems to know. I make a hand motion like sliding down an incline, “You’re fine. Go ahead, I’ll come find you.” I nod and leave $20 on the desk.

He wanders out with a receipt and a boat hook as I putter with sails and line, and this exchange turns into a pleasant 20 minute conversation. He’s tall, lanky, and tan, with longish grey wind tossled hair. Wants to know all about the Melonseeds. Tells me about his cruiser up at the end of the dock. Turns out he knows Scottsville well. His niece is opening the Montessori School there, which was big news in our small town. So we cover all the bases noted above, including how this part of the Rappahannock is like coming home for me. He fills me in on some of the local news, of the latest efforts by developers to turn the town into another Virginia Beach. At the moment it’s the historic property across the harbor, Rosegill, that’s in their sites. I know some of the history of the place, both colonial and contemporary. It has changed hands and plans several times just in my lifetime. The new owners are developers with big plans that don’t have much to do with history.

Rosegill main house, via VRBO
Cruising the harbor

Doug arrives, and in a few minutes we’re launched. It’s been a long time since we sailed in the Melonseeds; much longer for Doug since he got the Marsh Cat. And we’ve both had lots of job and house stuff to keep us away too long. So we noodle around the town harbor in Urbanna Creek a bit to be sure everything is shipshape, then head out the channel to the open River.

It’s a beautiful day, with clear skies and the first hint of fall. A cool breeze is coming out of the north at a steady 12-15mph. Perfect. The wind is against the tide, though. At this turn of the Rappahannock, there’s about 10 miles of fetch. No whitecaps, but a little lumpy in the open river. The current will reverse mid-afternoon, so we tack back and cruise along the shore. A long rock jetty protects the mouth of the harbor and today it makes a breakwater perpendicular to the wind. This leaves a half mile of flat water with good wind along shore, so we spend a couple of hours skimming back and forth, near shore and farther out, pass each other sometimes or head off in opposite directions.

Grand old boathouse of Rosegill still stands in the harbor.

This bank east of the harbor is lined by a high sandy bluff that runs for more than a mile, the whole stretch is part of the aforementioned Rosegill Plantation. Originally a grant of over 3000 acres from the King of England, it dates to 1649. A modest spread that was the summer home of the new English owner. That makes it older than Williamsburg, and only a few years later than the first settlement at Jamestown.

Of course, it was older than that. It had been home of the the Nimcock tribe. I understand their name is an Algonquin word that means, “Indians who live in towns”. They had whole villages with homes and common houses surrounded by protective palisades. They, of course, were not consulted when a King across the ocean declared it all now belonged to the latest Come Heres. The whole tribe was moved upriver.

A port was built at Urbanna Creek to ship tobacco back to Europe, duty free, the first profitable crop out of the colonies. Colonial plantations, like all those that came later, created little solar systems of economic activity, like a form of gravity that attracts more people. Before long, an older version of The Company Town emerged on the banks of the harbor. Some buildings still uphill from the harbor date to before the Revolutionary War. Beyond those, in concentric orbits, are homes and churches and other buildings constructed in each new era – before the Civil War, before World Wars I & II and beyond, up to the present day.

Rosegill remained a working plantation for most of that – through Indian Wars, Revolutionary Wars, Civil Wars, World Wars – remaining in the same family for five generations, well over two centuries. The fifth generation son and heir was an ardent Tory, vocally loyal to the King throughout the war for Independence. This did not sit well with his neighbors. He was subsequently banished to western Virginia, and the house was promptly pillaged by his Tory privateer buddies. Seems he didn’t suffer too badly, though – he only had to go as far as another family estate, his father’s 10,000 acre shooting preserve in the mountains of what is now West Virginia. He returned later, joined the new government in Williamsburg, and retained the estate until his death in the 1800s.

The property has exchanged hands many times since then. There’s an extensive collection of old photos here:

Source: Rosegill http://www.rosegill.com/Overview/Overview.html#anchor427568

After an hour or two cruising along the brow of the bluff, the tidal current reverses and the sea settles down. We round the jetty and head northwest, reaching upriver.

A mile ahead I steer for a white sand beach in the lee of the bar at the mouth of Robinson Creek. A good place to get out and stretch. I coast to a stop among myrtle and mallow and Doug soon follows. But what looked like just sand turns out to be largely a narrow bar of old oyster shells, with a quiet tidal pond on the other side. The shells are bleached white, with all the sharp edges worn off. Likely this bar was an old midden of some kind.

This section of the Rappahannock was once lined with oyster shucking houses, on both sides of the river for miles. Another commodity that brought boom times after tobacco, Chesapeake Oysters were famous all up and down the East Coast. Those shucking and canning operations produced mountains of shell, enough to pave roads and, when there was nowhere else to put them, build land where there was none. This whole spit could have started as the place where shells were dumped back into the river. Or, before that, Native Americans also made oyster shell middens of their own. I’m speculating, but these creeks were ideal for oysters, and the deep water protected harbors ideal for shipping.

Thinking about oysters makes us hungry, and the sun is getting low. We push off for an easy broad reach all the way back. There’s just enough wind to wind into the harbor. People in sailboats, pontoon boats, and cruisers pass slowly, smile and wave. People on the beach at Bailey Point smile and wave. Very pleasant business, and a gentle glide up to the ramp in town.

As I pull slowly through town on narrow streets through neighborhoods, people I spoke with earlier in the day, out washing up their boats in the yard or tending a garden, recognize me and a wave, one shouts “Come back soon!”

We land again on Robinson Creek further up this time, pulling the boats behind us, to a working seafood wharf that’s also a rustic restaurant on stilts out over the water. Same place where Vera and John brought us on our quest for Soft Crabs back in May.

I have not eaten since breakfast. With a couple of cold beers, we each polish off a dozen local oysters, a half pound of spiced shrimp, and a Soft Crab sandwich with a side of slaw. Easily.

A fine end to a really fine day, one much needed. I think we will be back soon.

Normally Not Seen

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photos by Doug Lawson

One of the nice things about sailing with others is you get to see yourself in their photos. Doug snapped a couple as we passed each other. Thanks Doug!

Melonseed Sailing on the Rappahannock

Aeon pulled on the bar as Doug glides in.

Had a spectacular day of sailing on Saturday. My first day out since May. Perfect weather with good wind and the first hint that Fall is on the way. Five hours of really fine sailing, followed by local seafood in a waterside restaurant. In the photo above, we pulled up on what looked like an old oyster midden, a bar of shells with a quiet tidal pool behind it.

Still basking in the residual glow, but more photos to come while I piece together video clips.

Sailing on the Piankatank ~ Video

A dozen or so handmade wooden sailboats gather every spring at an old steamboat landing on the Piankatank River, a tidal river on the Chesapeake Bay. Sailors in the Old Bay Club of the Traditional Small Craft Association meet up with builders from the Deltaville Maritime Museum to camp and sail and admire beautiful craftsmanship.

Seen here are Caledonia Yawls, a Sooty Tern, Chesapeake Sharpie Crabbing Skiff, Melonseed, Matinicus Peapod, and a Herreshoff Coquina. As well as a few notable power boats of crabbers and fishermen.

Short Sail ~ Season Re-Opener

The forecast changed abruptly on Sunday morning, and did a 180. A broad storm front was now approaching from the Midwest. So heading for the Bay was definitely out.

But there was still time to get to a local reservoir. Probably all for the best: It’s been so long since I’ve sailed these boats, so much chaos and mayhem in the intervening years, I need to step out slowly.

How long? Looks like four and a half years. Based on photos and posts here on this blog, the last time I sailed one of my own boats was MASCF in October of 2018. That’s incredible.

Got gear collected and did a dry run in the yard. Lights on the trailer work, tires not flat – check. Blocks corroded, but serviceable – check. Lines and spars intact – check.

We left home in sunshine and arrived thirty minutes later at Beaver Creek under grey skies, darkening to the west over the mountains.

How do you do this again?

Backing a trailer, turns out, is a little like riding a bike. It’s a part of your brain you don’t use for anything else; so once you find where that is and open the lid, it’s still there, right where you left it. Confusing and wobbly at first, but it comes back. Same with the sailing part. In a few minutes, everything feels familiar again. Fortunately, boats don’t hold a grudge. All this time ignored, and Aeon was just happy to be out on the water again. Light puffy wind, nothing too ambitious. Tacking and jibing, reading wind signs on the water and in the trees on shore.

After an hour the Blue Ridge to the west disappeared. We turned back. Got to the ramp and mostly loaded before the sky opened up and dumped rain on us.

Looking at these photos, we realize how much older and grayer we are now. It’s been a tough five years, for all of us.

More of this soon.

Sailing Weather Soon

photo by Tony Thatcher

Warm and sunny today, with a mild breeze. Has me thinking about sailing again. The photo above was taken by Tony Thatcher from his Melonseed as we sailed in the sound behind Assateague Island.

More of this please, soon.

Also, I miss that hat.