Heavy seas
A wave breaks
Sending shards of broken water
Onto the decks
Scattering early morning light
And leaving a rainbow of mist
Where the wave used to be

In the trough
A valley forms between two emerald hills
The fleecy foam like sheep
Dotting the smooth hillside

At the peak
A mountain landscape opens up
Snowy summits as far as the eye can see
Treeless and stark as the top of the world

A slide to the bottom
A thrill ride, a wind-made ski slope
The roar and rush fill my ears
And overflow into the other senses:
I see the roar, smell the rush, taste the crash

To my right
The next wave builds
In its translucence,
I see a sudden shape, a silhouette—
A lithe, sleek body, curved back, tapered tail
A fin breaks the surface
A submarine skier
Slides down the slope, leaps into the next,
And circles back around to take
Another sweet run
Like a ram on the Matterhorn,
The dolphin is at home in these mountainous waves

A wave breaks—
An alien in this liquid landscape,
A mere visitor from terra firma,
I’m transfixed and mesmerized—
My fear dissipates like the spray

No trip into the Chesapeake would be complete without a stop in the York River. Easily accessible and picturesque, Yorktown is a perfect place to start a history field trip. We did a 2½-day passage from Charleston and stayed a few days at the York River Yacht Haven, directly across the river from historic Yorktown. The marina has a good restaurant, swimming pool and very nice ship’s store, and is only a ten-minute dinghy ride away from Riverwalk Landing where you can dock your dinghy for $5/day and either walk around town or ride the free shuttle to see the sights.

Yorktown is one corner of the so-called “Historic Triangle,” connected by the beautiful Colonial Parkway to Colonial Williamsburg and the historic Jamestown Settlement. There are so many things to see and do in this area that it would be easy to get sucked into the triangle—we spent a few days in Yorktown alone, then rented a car to take the children to Jamestown Settlement (not to be confused with the National Park, Historic Jamestowne, that sits on the actual site of the 1609 settlement). We went to Colonial Williamsburg later, at the tail end of our trip, while waiting in Hampton, Virginia for good traveling weather. One recommendation I would make for visitors headed this way: figure out what you’d like to do ahead of time and buy combination tickets.

In Yorktown, there are three must-see stops: the Yorktown Victory Center, a museum and living history park, Historic Main Street, capped at its eastern end by the eye-catching Yorktown Victory Monument, and the Yorktown Battlefield (a National Park and the scene of the pivotal battle in the Revolutionary War). There was something very special about seeing Revolutionary War cannons in place on fortifications that were built so long ago. We had lunch one day on the waterfront at “The Carrot Tree,” a local favorite, and walked across the street to the Ben & Jerry’s for cool treats.

Jamestown Settlement has changed a bit since I was there as a kid. The outdoor sites, the Indian Village, Fort and three historic ships at the Riverfront are just as I remembered them, peopled with guides in period-dress who answer questions and explain life as it once was. But the new indoor museum exhibits almost dwarf the exterior living history ones. The enormous, air-conditioned building tells the whole story of Jamestown, from its days as a private business venture to its role in the American Revolution, with more artifacts and information than one could take in in a single perusal. I was very happy we took the extra day and rented a car—the kids got a chance to see, in a sense, where the whole American story began.

By the time we visited Colonial Williamsburg, the kids had ceased to be amazed by living history museums and hundreds-of-years-old buildings that had been preserved and restored. Too bad, really, because Williamsburg really is amazing, if only because of its size and scope. The town exists as it did on the eve of the Revolutionary War—period costumes, furniture, re-enactments, the whole bit. On the recommendation of a friend, we decided not to buy admission tickets and simply see what we could for free. We parked at the Visitor’s Center and watched a free film there on the Revolutionary War (very good) and got on the free shuttle bus which makes a circuit around Colonial Williamsburg and stops at important places where you can hop off/on. We walked around the 1774 town and peeked into windows and watched a demonstration of Revolutionary War cannons. We even got to hear a rousing speech given on horseback by the Marquis de Lafayette himself! Lunch, of course, is never free, but we found a great sandwich place (the Cheese Shop) and had a lovely picnic on some park benches. Given more time (and more enthusiastic traveling buddies), I would spend the money to go inside the historic buildings and the folk art museum, but with the time and energy we did have, I felt like we got a great idea about what life was like in the colonial era just by walking around Williamsburg.

Taken individually, each site has something valuable to offer, but as a trio, one gets a clear picture of how what started as a small band of English colonists became, over time and with much struggle, the United States of America. On that note, I might suggest an order for visiting the Triangle: start at Jamestown, then go to Williamsburg, and end in Yorktown. Plan to spend at least a day in each place, but be warned—you may start reading plaques and get lost in the Historic Triangle!

Take Two Sailing is now on WordPress.  You may have noticed that our pictures widget disappeared from the right sidebar some time ago.  It broke, and rather than figure out how to fix it, I upgraded the whole shebang.

Everything should be back to normal or better now.  The pictures are back.  We might be changing things around a bit, but for now I’ve gone for equivalency.  If something doesn’t work, use the Contact page to let me know.

One of the fun things about living on a boat is you never know what problems you’re going to face.  Maybe it’s keeping your boat from sinking, and maybe it’s keeping your hammock in the shade.  Every day is an adventure.

This morning we woke up to the twittering of little birds, and soon realized that they were building a nest in our rigging.  Cute, right?  How about baby birds falling on the deck during the next strong breeze?  Or rotten eggs up on our mast because we’ve moved the boat and mom & dad can’t find their nest?  And what about the poop?  Not so cute.

So we spent a significant part of the day trying to get the point across to these little birds that our mast is not a good place for a nest.

We started by sending Sam to remove the nest-in-progress from the second spreader, and to sit up there for a while and play scarecrow.  The birds were quite perturbed by Sam’s presence and wanted to peck him, but he’d shout and scare them off each time they tried.   They gave up, but it was only temporary.

They’d go away and come back, go away and come back.  Eli took a turn playing scarecrow.  We tried Nerf guns.  We tried an air horn.  They weren’t getting the point.  Itty bitty birdy brains.

Eventually the female gave up and only the male would return periodically.  He’d alight on the mast and chirp an “all clear” to his mate, which simultaneously alerted me to his presence.  I’d go out and shake the rigging until he went away again.

Finally, I managed to whack him by swinging a halyard.  There was a small puff of feathers and he fluttered away, beaten but unharmed, to the distant trees.  He fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia", but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against a Sailor when his deck is on the line"!