The spring and early summer of this year brought about a flurry of change and busyness which had our hearts and minds on the most important things in life, family, rather than this years planned completion of our Great Loop adventure. We were stressed, but also incredibly blessed, with spending much of April through a June in Columbus with mom and dad Scheiderer navigating serious health issues that dad had and his unfortunate passing on July 1st. There are many lessons to be learned in this life for certain and the most powerful ones are those shown us by our parents. Dad was a teacher of many things to everyone he encountered through his long life. For us he was the perfect model of fatherly wisdom, service, and most importantly love! Rest well dad. Until we meet again we will look toward the heavens for more lessons and messages you’re sending us 😇
Beauty coming from the skies on our drive through the mountains
After initially cancelling our trip, changing plans, and all of the other insanity the summer brought, we decided to launch the boat and spend 2 weeks on the Chesapeake Bay instead of completing our loop this year. We arrived to Deltaville VA on Sunday, 7/19, and got the boat un-winterized and ready to launch. We were exhausted from 6 hrs of working in the heat but headed out to a nearby farm to table joint (The Table) and enjoyed a nice dinner polished off with a shared afagato before heading back to the boat for the night. Erik spent a hour our so Monday morning performing surgery on Renee’s bike that we had drug behind the car through some portion of West Virginia after accidentally not securing it to the bike rack correctly…oops….vice grips and JB Weld to the rescue got it cobbled together to hopefully get us through the trip. Fingers crossed. Launch happened on Monday morning right on schedule!
Happy Destiny gets her bottom wet
With bad weather coming in Tuesday/Wednesday we wanted to get to our first stop pretty quickly so we set off about 11am for Crisfield, MD. The 41 mile trip started off a little bumpy, but mostly smoothed out to a small chop on the water and we arrived around 2:30pm at Somers Cove Marina. After getting tied up and settled in we took a bike ride around town and spent some time by the marinas pool where we met a nice couple who were docked across from us that gave us some local knowledge of the area. Shish kabobs had been marinating all afternoon while we were underway and after a quick grilling on the aft deck we filled our tummies before walking to the pier to catch the sunset before off to bed we went.
Birds o the bay…. Osprey
Welcome to Crisfield MD
Fallen soldier memorial at sunset
Sunset over the harbor at Crisfield
A beautiful evening
Old wooden military boat
Ahhhh….
Riva the crab queen!
The next two days were predicted to be really bad weather, so the plan was to make the best of it and see what we could in Crisfield. Before the hard rains moved in we were able to dodge light rain enough to explore the small, local museum and also ride up the road a couple of miles to Lintons Seafood where we shared an order of hush puppies and picked up a couple of pieces of locally famous ‘Smith Island Cake’ to indulge ourselves with later with our evening cup of coffee. As predicted, the late afternoon and evening brought with it increasing winds and storms. A brief break in the precip and we decided to walk to a nearby church for a 7pm AA meeting in hopes that we could get a ride back if the storms rolled back in. At the meeting, a discussion on the days ‘Daily Reflections’ reading, we as usual met some nice local folks. Lo and behold an older gentleman (probably in his later eighties) with 53 years of sobriety was the first to be of service and to offer us a ride back to the marina. Some may call it coincidence that his name was Harold! You be the judge! 🤗 We choose to believe that there are angels among us!
Interesting facts on the evolution of Chesapeake Bay at the museum
Crisfield was big on making duck decoys
Oysters anyone!
Crisfield is the self proclaimed crab capital
Famous Smith Island Cake We tried a piece of original (Vanilla with chocolate) And a piece of lemon cake with blueberry icing
Safely back aboard Happy Destiny for the evening the storms rolled in with a vengeance! The large, somewhat protected, harbor turned into a washing machine sending waves and chop over the docks and slamming into the aft of the boat as torrential rainfall fell with sustained 30-40 mph winds gusting to 60-70 mph for a couple of hours. We were certain we’d have damage to the flybridge and aft deck canvas enclosures as the rain was driven at us soaking everything above that would normally be dry during any ‘normal’ storm. A steady stream of water poured in through the rear salon door which we sopped up with towels, During a brief slow down in the rain and wind we were able to head up to find no significant damage thankfully; only some rearranging of chairs, an 80+ lb dock box had slid forward and bunched up the aft deck carpet, and multiple snaps and fastening points had come loose from the flybridge enclosure. The strong storms continued through most of the night making for a not particularly restful night of sleep with the diva, Riva, snuggled up trembling between us.
We made it through the stormy night and awoke to a glorious sunrise. It was a special day for us as were celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary. God is good as we continue along this road of happy destiny! After spending some time straightening up the boat from the chaos of the night we lounged around and enjoyed a breakfast of omelettes aboard and we each did some work as it had started raining again; Renee did calculus lesson plans and Erik worked on some staff reviews. The rain stopped mid afternoon so we ventured out on the bikes to enjoy an early anniversary dinner at ‘Home Kitchen’ a new Indian fusion place which was delicious. Erik had called earlier in the day and spoke to the owner, Vinay, to plan s surprise for Renee. He sent him our wedding song (God Blessed the Broken Road) and a song he had made for our anniversary to be played after we arrived and were eating. Brazilian cheese popovers for appetizer were fresh and delish followed by Chicken Tika Masala and Mississippi Chicken both of which were also yummy 😋. On the way back to the boat we stopped in at the local ice cream shop to get a quart to enjoy later in the evening. The evening was spent relaxing aboard and planning for our next stops before heading off for what would be a much more restful night of sleep on the now tranquil Somers Cove harbor.
Sunrise on our 20th anniversary Happy Destiny is the boat on the right of this pic
Crabs!
Riva is a boat dog!
We awoke Thursday to light winds and cooler temps which were welcomed. Departing Crisfield at about 9am we headed out into Tangier Sound for a leisurely 14 mile cruise out to Tangier Island. Our excitement for the morning came shortly after departing. About 4 miles out into the bay we were boarded by a the Coast Guard for a vessel inspection. Nice guys, one from Grove City (small world) and we passed the inspection with flying colors. Soon after we were back on our way to Tangier Island. It is a 350 acre island with some very interesting history. It was home to a British base during the War of 1812. Over the past 150+ years it has mainly been a sleepy fishing village. It is now considered to be a disappearing island as the rising sea levels take over and it continually shrinks. It loses 8 acres (15 ft of shoreline) annually and is expected to be totally submerged by 2053.
More birds of the bay Seagull preparing for flight
Well hello Mr Coastie! Guy on right is from Grove City Notice the boat behind us, two other guards hung back after these two boarded
The boat pulls up to ours while we are still underway at idle speed and they board while moving
Renee as we were coming into Tangier Island
Historic Tangier Island from the water
Some history
More history
Riva made it to the beach at Tangier
We threw the lines from the old dilapidated docks at Tangier at 2pm and headed out the cut through toward the bay when Renee hollered that one of the long dock ropes had fallen off the side of the boat and was now entangled in the prop 😬. A quick shutdown of the starboard engine and a dicey one engine entry into a nearby private dock soon had Erik goggled up and swimming beneath the boat in his skivvies to free up the rope. With what we thought to be the issue addressed we headed out of the channel and intro the bay only to find that the starboard side was not acting right at all; VERY sluggish. We dropped anchor and Erik again got into the water to swim under and discover there was an additional piece of rope that was still wound tightly around the shaft and cutlass bearing….ugh. He spent the next 1.5 hrs diving under the boat with knives, razor knives, screw drivers, pliers etc trying to free the now melted nylon rope that had hardened around the shaft. He gave up exhausted after getting 95% of it off with the exception of the hardest part that was now on the shaft between the prop and cutlass bearing. After getting back underway heading toward our destination, Onancock VA, we fired up the starboard engine to see how it would do and it performed just fine. We are thinking that last bit of now hardened plastic will likely just remain there for the remainder of this trip until we can get at it better when the boat is taken out. The remainder of the 18 mile trip from Tangier Island to Onancock Wharf was uneventful. The town and wharf sit back off the bay a couple of miles down a nice tranquil river. By the time we got docked and settled in it was about 6pm and we were both tired. We walked up into the small but very beautiful town for a short bit before coming back to the boat to grill burgers for dinner. We sat aboard for the remainder of the nice, comfortable evening relaxing and watching a beautiful sunset before heading off to bed.
