THANKSGIVING 2006

For the first time, ever, all our children and grandchildren enjoyed a holiday vacation together. Chris and Dea brought Gusty and Gracia, and Jen and Todd came with Isaiah, to meet the entire California family. A great time for all of us with these precious people. Here's the result.


A bit of whiskey drinking...always a treat.

. ....Too sweet for a description...

Pirate Boy

Carolyn Hosted The Feast...Many thanks

Turkeys...who's which?

Ted's Manhattan, again.

Gusty Looooves Brandon!

Emmy's excited about her new house!

A beautiful sight...these happy young people
with their wonderful son, Isiaih .

Santa's Coming

Gusty The Beach Runner

,,,,,,, Gusty the Lawn Boy


Our Madonnas with wigglers

Austin toasts us all.

Connor loves our Isaiah, too.


A visit to San Francisco, with Mother and Hal
at The Spinaker, for lunch in Sausalito

There's more of course, but this is the flavor of it. Some pix can be downloaded from Kodak's site.

This was a special occasion for Kathryn and me....just seeing all these generations of children of "The Wilson Girls" is a treat, and it's a tribute to them that we all still love one another.

Not bad for a bunch of Nobody Kids from Long Beach, California.

CHESAPEAKE BAY.2006

EACH YEAR WE TRY TO TAKE TWO EXTENDED CRUISES IN "JEWEL."

THIS YEAR, WE MADE IT INTO THE UPPER PORTION OF THE FABULOUS CHESAPEAKE BAY...ONE OF AMERICA'S FINEST CRUISING GROUNDS, AND AN ESSENTIAL NATURAL RESOURCE.

THE BAY IS A HUGE ESTUARY, HOME TO MANY SPECIES OF WILD CREATURES....BIRDS, CRABS, FISH, PLANTS OF ALL DESCRIPTIONS

... AND MAN...IN LARGE NUMBERS, CONCENTRATED IN CITIES LIKE WASHINGTON D.C, BALTIMORE AND ANNAPOLIS, BUT ALSO IN VILLAGES LIKE URBANNA, AND HAMLETS LIKE LEWISETTA.

THIS YEAR WE SAW BUT A SMALL FRACTION OF WHAT THERE IS, BUT ENJOYED OUR TRIP IN ANTICIPATION OF ANOTHER CRUISE, PERHAPS NEXT YEAR.

HERE ARE SOME OF OUR MEMORIES.

*************

This year, we decided that Jerry would move the boat with friends, and Kathryn would join after Jewel was in the Bay. So, Mike Schwartz, a friend from Charleston and I moved her to Solomon's Island, MD.

Mike's In Charge

The weather was fine and after a quick trip up the waterway, we crossed the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds to Elizabeth City, and the Pasquotank River, which drains the Great Dismal Swamp.

There are two inside waterway routes between Norfolk and N.C., and the Dismal Swamp Route is the least used. The Dismal Swamp is a wildlife refuge rich in natural beauty and history.


George Washington first proposed a canal be cut through it to join Virginia and North Carolina. Have a look at this website for details and follow some links. I've never done the Dismal Swamp before, but it's very easy and in the morning, eerily beautiful.




We started after a night at a lovely anchorage in the Pasquotank, and then into the canal itself, through the pair of locks into Norfolk.



By the time we got to Norfolk, we'd worked ourselves "into a state" of serious longing for softshelled crabs, but found them difficult to find at this time of year. With the weather blowing 20 knots out of the north, we stayed an extra day, and then left, searching for crabs.


Urbanna, VA is a small town on the Rappahannock River that I'd intended to visit in the past. Kathryn and I tried to visit once before, during the Oyster Festival, but were begged to stay away by the overwhelmed locals...so this time, believing that surely there'd be softshells in Urbanna, and Mike and I ran up the Bay and Rappahannock to a lovely spot.


Only to be disappointed. We did find a couple of tiny crabs in a sandwich at a local ice cream parlor, but not a real dish of crabs did we encounter.

Again, the next day we proceede past Reidsville, VA, after a call to The Crazy Crab, where I'd found softshells in the past, revealed them closed...and then into Lewisetta, VA on the south shore of the great Potomac River.

Beautiful Downtown Lewisetta, VA

This is a tiny village that's hanging on only by its fingernails. This hamlet has few full time residents, and consists of vacation homes and a small marina. A lot of this was literally taken apart a few months ago by a "no name" storm that dismantled about everything that wasn't tied down, and a lot that was.

Just picked her up and put her on the hard.
She's not likely to exceed the speed limit for a while.

We'd have purchased fuel there, just to be neighborly and help out some folks who need the business, but the fuel pump had been knocked out by the storm, and the dock was in tough shape....BUT, a local waterman offered to find us some softshells. This nice young man drove to town and called in some of his own markers with another local to get us a dozen frozen crabs, and practically wouldn't accept payment for his effort.

The husband and wife owners of this place aren't asking anybody for help, and don't expect any....particularly from their government that's hassling them over environmental permits to even repair their broken up facility. With no income, and no prospects, they going to have to sell the little business that they've spent the last 14 years creating.

The land will probably sell for it's real estate price, and luxury condos will be built there. The watermen will have to go somewhere else. The world will be a better place. Sure it will. These really friendly people deserve better than they're getting.

But.......we did get some softshells....and for those who don't know of what we speak...here's the deal.

In the life cycle of the Blue Crab, there's a period after molting in which the crab's hard shell has been shed and not yet re-hardened. When dredged in flour and Old Bay Seasoning, fried in butter and almonds, they're a delicacy that few folks can deny.

They can be eaten with a nice white wine. That's called dining.

Consuming, however is another thing entirely, and they're actually better consumed with some form of Brown Likker, a glass of which is in the left lower corner of the illustration.

Leaving after a night "on the hook," we made our way to the Patuxent River, and Solomon's Island, where we made arrangements to leave Jewel for some repairs at Zahnizer's Boat Yard, a place we've known from the years we had our ketch, Tzigane. A day's drive home, lunch with Isaiah, a sort of fix...to return with Kathryn in short time.

Solomon's...home to a gazillion boats.

After a short time at home, and a trip to Kansas for another Gusty 'n Gracia Fix, Kathryn and I returned to Jewel for a couple of weeks together on the Bay. There's a story here, too, but I won't burden you with it....let's say that our Jewel wasn't completely fixed, so we made lemonade in several ways, and enjoyed that also.

Oysterman Monument

During our upper bay time, we visited Rock Hall, MD, a place we'd never been before. It's a nice little town, home to a lot of Maryland watermem who earn their livelihoods in the traditions of their heritage....crabbing, oystering, fishing....cleaning their boats, repairing their equipment...it's the same the world over.

These fellows found us a 18 softshells in their freezer, for sale. Ummm.

While in the area we visited one of our favorite galleries in Chestertown, The Massoni Gallery, and then returned to Zahnizer's to complete the work.


We also spent a day in Annapolis, the Capital of Maryland, and visited our old haunts ... shopped for little kids, and old friends....drank a little beer....ate a little seafood....took a long nap,

Annapolis Waterfront

and went to Washington DC for a day at the National Gallery of Art....a wonderful place...lunch and Prosecco in the cafe...just like when we were young...

What a deal! An incredible treasure that we never fail to love.

Cold and rainy in DC

Finally, Jewel's done....the heater works....we don't need to be tied to a dock to stay warm and we're off again.

Running downwind in 15-20 knots of wind across the great mouth of the Potomac, in a confused sea with wind and tide against one another sounds daunting....but our Jewel did just fine...really fine. All day long, I don't think more than a couple of much larger boats passed us, and when we got into the lee of the Virginia shore, it was a short run to Deltaville.

We stayed at the dock of the Fishing Bay Yacht Club, as guests visiting from Charleston, and these folks made us very welcome. They shared their weekly potluck dinner with us, and we made some new friends, who I hope will visit us at the Charleston YC in the future.

This time of year, weather is always an issue in the Chesapeake, and I chose weather windows to minimize risk and discomfort. So, we next spent a couple of days in Hampton, VA at the Hampton YC. This town is an old place....but with precious waterfront and is therefore on the cusp of redevelopment...it's an interesting town that we've never visited....a space museum and near the great Maritime Museum in Newport News, VA. There was a neat Pirate Exhibit, and look who I found.

Avast there, ye pirate Grandma! Aaaaaarrrrggghhh!

We spent a couple of days here and enjoyed some of what this area has to offer....with the intent to return again for more.

A short blustery trip across Hampton Roads back to Norfolk and to visit Portsmouth, VA...another town we'd formerly only run past...and enjoyed their art museum, a sports bar for lunch, and the old houses in their gentrifying historic district...reprovisioned, and made Jewel ready for the trip to Charleston.

Don Waters delivered Kathryn's car to drive to Durham for another Isaiah fix while Jerry and Don left for Charleston.

The trip to Charleston was supposed to be "dicey" with a very short weather window for crossing the Albemarle Sound. That can be a dangerous and uncomfortable place in a strong Norther...but with luck and Jewel's speed we used the entire window to run, fast, back down the Sounds for a night at Ocracoke, one at Mile Hammock Bay on the ICW and back to Charleston.

Officer Waters Has The Helm

Don's a great guy to be on a boat with. A strong, easy going young man...Don's a Charlotte Policeman...and a credit to the CPD. We're lucky to have such folks on our side.

Leaving Ocracoke at sunrise

This was a great trip, despite some technical glitches....but we found places that we need to revisit....saw some places that we've yet to go, and which we will visit in the future. We're already making plans for next year.

Life is good.