The Great Chesapeake Engine-Break-In Cruise

A new engine means 50 hours of powering around the Bay. But this is a sailboat, right?

by Wendy Mitman Clarke

illustrations by Rick Kollinger here

It's a half-hour before sunup, the creek is skeined with mist from the cool autumn air, and the trees surrounding Oak Harbor Marina in Pasadena, Md., are full of owls. Great horned owls, to be precise; I've known the pattern of their hooting since childhood, and husband Johnny confirms it when he sees a pair fly right across the pale sky and alight on the masts of two sailboats on the hard. They're huge. They look like a couple of beer kegs with wings.

Hmm, I muse. Many Native American tribes consider owls a warning of impending doom, even death. In minutes we'll be casting off the lines and heading Osprey, our 45-foot sailboat on which we live and cruise full-time, toward Oxford. It's the first sea trial for the brand-new Yanmar diesel that Johnny has spent the last three weeks installing with help from the Oak Harbor crew. The kids are visiting friends; it's just me and him and a whole lot of expensive, unproven moving parts.

"Ready?" he says to me.

"Yup," I answer.

I keep the whole owl-as-bad-omen thing to myself.

This is a story that begins with a hole the size of a pin. It may actually begin earlier than that; we're not sure, since the provenance of Osprey's former engine, a Yanmar 4JH3-TE installed in 2004 or thereabouts, is dubious. The mechanic who finally tore it down and then pronounced it utterly ruined said maybe it never had been broken in properly, and so the trouble had begun at the outset. When we bought the boat in 2006, the engine burned oil a little more than usual, but it passed survey and seemed fine. Over nearly three years of traveling, though, from the southernmost islands of the Bahamas to Down East, Maine, it was clear that the Gray Pony, as we called her, was turning into the old gray mare--definitely not what she used to be, despite Johnny's constant ministrations. By summer 2009 she was drinking oil like a sailor drinks rum. The smoke pouring from the exhaust followed us like Pigpen's dirt cloud (Johnny said we should ask for a state subsidy for all the mosquitoes we eradicated cruising through Maine). Clearly something was dramatically wrong, and we nursed her back to the Bay, cringing all the way, expecting the cataclysm to happen somewhere really interesting--like, say, the C&D Canal, with four knots of current running and two ships up our stern.

We made it to Oak Harbor unscathed, though, and within two days we had the engine out and on its way to the shop. Then came the call from the mechanic who was going to rebuild her. It amounted to, "No way, Jose." Likely because it hadn't been broken in correctly, the engine had developed a pinhole leak in the oil cooler, allowing scalding water to penetrate the cylinders. It destroyed the cylinder walls, rendering them irreparable. "This engine actually ran?" the mechanic said. Well, yes, we said. Pretty well, really, notwithstanding the fact that we were a rolling bug bomb.

It wasn't a decision we had wanted to make, but we didn't have much choice. If we wanted to sail to places like Panama and farther, we wanted a solid power plant under the hood. The silver lining was that we could do it here, while staying with friends, rather than sweating it out in some tropical (read wildly expensive) boatyard a thousand miles from anywhere. We bought a new Yanmar 4JH4-TE, and Johnny set about the complicated, arduous process of installing it.

And two weeks later here we are, ready to embark on the break-in, a period of 50 hours when we would have to pay strict attention to rpm, oil pressure, temperature and--first and foremost--make sure everything was running as it should be. We're heading first to Oxford; it's a good day's trip, not too far from anyplace if something goes haywire, and we have friends there we want to visit. If all goes well, we'll continue back to Annapolis, then work our way south, maybe Solomons, Onancock, Norfolk, before heading south to the Bahamas and the Caribbean. It's the Great Chesapeake Bay Snowbird Break-In Tour, brought to you by Yanmar.

We slip the lines, Johnny nudges Osprey forward, and, quiet as an owl taking flight, we slide into the misty creek.

The first ten hours of the break-in are the most critical. We can't let the engine idle for more than a few minutes in any hour, and we have to change the rpm constantly, letting it run for varying periods at each. If we don't do this properly, carbon will build up in the cylinders and general long-term bad juju will ensue.

We set the red egg timer on the binnacle, I pull out the official break-in notebook (one-subject, college-ruled, from Rite-Aid on special, 99 cents) and make a note: 0720, tach at 2000 rpm, oil pressure on the big 3, temperature 175. SOG 6.2 knots, boat speed 6.7 knots. Conditions, flat calm.

It's a gorgeous autumn morning as we clear the Patapsco River and bend southeast toward the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. A lovely 10- to 12-knot east-northeast breeze sets up. A sweet beam reach. We should be sailing! As if to point out this fact, I look astern and see barreling up behind us the 160-foot sailing cruise ship Arabella, all sails set and pure white against the morning sun. She's flying toward us--10.5 knots, the chartplotter's AIS information tells me--and I feel like a complete schmuck motoring along here. We're a sailboat, for heaven's sake, and it's a perfect breeze for sailing. A sign should come with this engine that we could hang off the transom, something like: Break-In in Progress. Maybe then I wouldn't feel like I need a bag over my head.

Off Baltimore Light, Arabella sweeps past, and then I realize she has her engine on too. She's going full-tilt toward the U.S. Sailboat Show at Annapolis; set-up is today, and it looks as if she's late for the ball. I don't feel so bad. Besides, Osprey is beginning to take on the heady scent of new-engine. Eau du diesel--a lovely olfactory melange of heated paint, oil and rubber.

At 0850, I note tach 2500, oil pressure 3, temperature 175. SOG 6.5 knots, boat speed an amazing 7.4 knots. If these numbers continue, we've added 1.5 to 2 knots to our cruising speed with this new engine. It's beginning to look like Johnny's suspicion that we never had gotten a true 75 hp out of the Gray Pony was well founded; now we're motoring far better than we ever have. At 3000 rpm, which the manual instructs us to hit every hour or so for ten minutes at a time, the boat is rushing along at 8.2 knots. We've got a Kady-Krogen trawler in our sights. It's the first time we've ever raced a powerboat, and I start feeling a bit weird about this whole thing.

As we pass Sandy Point Light, Johnny is down below, hopping around, wide-eyed, not unlike Marty Feldman as Igor in the movie Young Frankenstein, just before he and Dr. Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) are about to bring the Creature (Peter Boyle) to life. Johnny has his orange earmuffs on, he's dashing around, checking this, dialing in that. An engine mount bolt has vibrated loose, and he's mincing around the hot hunk of metal, fishing for the bolt before it gets into mischief. Every now and then, as he dashes forward to the shop for another tool, he looks up at me and grins a bit maniacally. Igor, definitely.

So the day goes. We're driving like an old lady with restless leg syndrome, our speed fluctuating from 6.8 knots to 8.3, now 7.4. But this is what we're supposed to do, and the engine is running great. Off Poplar Island, Johnny gazes longingly at two guys trolling slowly in a Grady-White. One of them obviously has a big fish on, probably a nice fat rockfish. We're in one of our 3000-rpm phases and fly by at 8 knots--more like 8.5, given the half-knot of current. Assuming he could even get a lure down, Johnny would rip the jaw out of even a Formula One rockfish at this rate. He sighs, missing his favorite autumn Chesapeake hobby. Then he brightens. "At this speed," he says, "we can catch Spanish mackerel!"

By 2 p.m. we are pulling into Oxford, passing the Strand and heading for Oxford Boat Yard, where we're taking a slip for the night. We've made it here in seven hours--our fastest time ever--even with adverse current much of the way. It doesn't seem like the engine breathed hard even once. We decide on its name, grandiose, perhaps, but hopefully fitting its future: The Silver Stallion.

Fast-forward a couple of weeks, and make it dark. Well, dark except for the glaring lights of the LNG plant off Calvert Cliffs; somewhere among them, obscured in the sodium-vaporized foreground, are the lights of a tugboat called Hoss which is bound for Norfolk, pushing something heavy. We see him on the radar, we see his AIS signature on the chartplotter, but we can't really see him, even though he's steadily converging with us. Right now, our instruments say he'll pass within only a few hundred feet. Not nearly far enough. "Maybe we should slow down and just let him go on by," I suggest.

"Won't be good for the engine," Johnny says.

Getting run over by a tug called Hoss won't be good for the engine either, I'm thinking, but keep it to myself. I know Johnny's just waiting to see if we can gain enough distance during our 20-minute, 2,600-rpm phase, which will be followed by the 10-minute, 3,000-rpm phase. But soon it becomes evident we can't, so we call Hoss on the VHF and explain our intentions to turn and duck behind him. In a thick drawl that sounds like something straight out of the bayou, he thanks us for the accommodation. After he passes we slide in a mile or so behind and follow him down the Bay like an obedient puppy, figuring he'll mow down anything out there that we can't see, like fish traps or errant crab pots. It's a beautiful, late-October evening. We'd left Oak Harbor--again--just after noontime and are making a 76-nautical-mile run straight to Reedville, Va., so we can visit my brother and hole up while a low-pressure system swings through.

Also, we're in a bit more of a hurry now. Our trip from Oxford to Annapolis had been uneventful, although I felt like reaching for the bag again off the Naval Academy when a group of midshipmen out enjoying the breeze in a Sonar training boat yelled, "Hey, where are your sails?" as we zoomed past on our way up the Severn River. So embarrassing, this whole Osprey-as-powerboat thing. The delay--and the trip back to Oak Harbor--happened after our Yanmar mechanic came to test the engine's vitals and pronounced that we had too much water in the system, causing too much back pressure--all because of a convoluted exhaust arrangement. It's the same system that came with the boat, and since it's making these problems for our new engine, we wonder whether it was what helped kill the old one. So Johnny spent two days reconfiguring the whole thing, installing a new muffler that allowed him to remove four 90-degree elbows in the system and adding a water-diverter valve. He also changed the propeller's pitch, so the engine could reach the proper rpm at wide-open-throttle. Then another sea trial with the Yanmar guru, who gave it his blessing, and we were free to resume the break-in cruise.

"Ding!" The red kitchen timer makes me jump. I get a little twitchy out on the Bay at night, even with all the wonders of modern electronics. There's just a whole lot to hit out here, but at least I'm not on watch alone tonight, as I am when we're in the ocean. This is a short run, and given the potentially tricky nature of the Bay and all of its traffic in the dark, Johnny and I will keep each other company. The kids are already asleep below.

Our engine numbers are a little different now, thanks to the changes that we've made, but the bottom line remains that the Silver Stallion has changed Osprey completely under power. We're flying along, even into the short chop that the evening southerly has started to build. I write down, "Tach 2600, temp 175, oil pressure 3, SOG 6, boat speed 6.9, wind 15 apparent on the nose." I look up in time to see the 919-foot cruise ship Grandeur of the Seas, bound for San Juan, waltz by at 18 knots. It looks like a floating sequined dinner gown. Passing northbound at the same time is the 581-foot cargo ship Crystal Ocean, headed for Baltimore.

Not until we pass the Patuxent River does the evening traffic settle down for a while, and I do the same with it. To the east, Orion rises like a giant just awoken from sleep, appearing over the horizon at first on his side and slowly climbing to his full vertical height as the night wears on. The Milky Way makes a mockery of the Grandeur of the Seas' dazzling lights, and the night is full of shooting stars. The wind angle keeps opening up, and it would be lovely to be sailing . . .

"Ding!" Time to change the rpm again. Tach 2400, temp 175, oil pressure at the big 3. It's boring but, in this case, boring is good.

At Smith Point we watch as the 958-foot Atlantic Compass and the northbound 689-foot Safmarine Ngami pass one another in the narrow separation lanes. Somehow the ships are even blacker than the night itself, like moving blocks of darkness. Finally, we can duck away from the huge, mobile dangers and head inshore toward Fleeton Point, where we count on our radar to pick up the smaller, stationary obstacles like pound nets and unlit buoys. Even from out here, we can tell they're cooking fish at Omega Protein in Reedville, Va., and not just by the plume of white smoke backlit by the plant's distant lights. Around here, they say that's the smell of money, and maybe so. But, geez, what a stink.

We drop out of warp speed (that's how it feels coming off of 3000 rpm now) and pick our way carefully into Cockrell Creek, past the roaring, fuming menhaden plant and up to the doorstep of Reedville, where we drop the anchor. It's about 2 a.m. We're treated to a few more shooting stars until the smell of money drives us down below to sleep. Safe and sound, and quiet at last, we don't really mind.

It seems to be a sailing axiom that wherever you wish to go is the direction from which the wind will be coming. The exception seems to be when sailboats have to be motorboats. Our friends Julie and Mark Kaynor, from Blacksburg, Va., told us that after they repowered their Tayana 37, everywhere they went on the Chesapeake during the break-in period would have been perfect sailing. The same is holding true for us.

We enjoy a pleasant, two-day stay in Reedville that includes visits with my brother, frequent trips to Chitterchat's ice-cream parlor, and tours of the town's exuberant Halloween decorations, all punctuated by the occasional knee-buckling wave of aroma from the Omega Protein smokestack across the creek. The predicted thunderstorms and nasty weather do not really materialize, but when the front does finally pass, it's followed by a blustery northwest wind.

Naturally, it's this wind that's directly up our sterns as we leave the Great Wicomico River and turn south toward Norfolk. This is Osprey's kind of weather--strap down the mainsail, pole out both headsails, and she flies on rails straight downwind. But here's the problem: Once in Norfolk, we'll head to the Dismal Swamp Canal. Narrow, shallow, and at this time of year busy with other southbound traffic, the canal is not a place where we can power according to the break-in rules, that is, change rpm constantly, limit the idle time, and race along at 7 to 8 knots from time to time at the high end of the rpm range. We need to have as many of the 50 hours under our belts as possible by the time we enter the canal, and as we leave Reedville we're only at 36. And so we wallow along in the quartering swell like a skinny, low-slung trawler with a big stick poking out of her deck.

Pretty soon, though, we can't stand not having any sails up, so we unfurl our small jib, which helps stabilize the boat in the waves, and also makes us feel better. Sort of. All around, other southbound boats are popping out of the Bay's woodwork--the myriad creeks and hidey-holes that make such wonderful, protected anchorages and quiet places to rest. And every one of them is taking advantage of this perfect breeze, the white of their sails flashing every now and then above the ruffled, pewter water. Down here, the Bay seems as broad as the sea, and we start to see the Chesapeake's autumn oceanic visitors flitting over the waves--gannets and small petrels.

Off New Point Comfort we pass the milestone of 40 hours, and with the ebbing tide and a slowly diminishing breeze, the seas are flattening out. So, okay, we can motorsail now without feeling too guilty about it. But as we

approach Hampton Roads, it's clear that we aren't going to have our 50 hours by the time we drop the hook in Portsmouth, off Hospital Point. In fact, it's 44.6 hours on the dot. For once, we've gotten here too quickly. We should have dawdled some more.

Oh well. We spend the night in the Hospital Point anchorage and wake up at dawn to the low, chesty thrumming of a really big engine. Just across the Elizabeth River, only a few hundred yards away, the cruise ship Carnival Triumph is sidling into the pier at Nauticus. It's still all lit up with its nighttime dazzle, and I'm amazed again at how these enormous ships manage to move so precisely in such tight quarters. The ship isn't tied up for more than a few minutes before a Vane Brothers tug and barge start to maneuver into position for fueling.

I hear the ship's melodious chime that precedes an announcement to the passengers. A lovely voice is saying something over the ship's P.A. system, presumably about arrival and breakfast. Then more chimes. Hmmm, breakfast. Up on the binnacle, our red timer and its own little chimes await, promising nothing quite so delicious. Just 5.4 more hours of life by the "dings;" we should be nearly to the North Carolina border by then. But at least, on this last morning in the Bay, there aren't any owls hooting.

By Boat & Bike to Easton

It's all the way up the Tred Avon River, but if you're okay in five feet of water and don't mind a one-mile walk or bike ride, the jolly old town of Easton can be your oyster.

by T.F. Sayles

photos by T.F. Sayles & John Bildahl here

Here's an interesting coincidence: Easton, Md., that lovely old town on the Eastern Shore, seat of Maryland's Talbot County, was founded in 1710. And, as it turns out, that was also the year I first mentioned in an editorial planning session that Easton might actually be a decent boating destination, despite its apparent distance from the nearest deep water. The subject has come up in every planning session since 1710--and there have been several--and the conversation has always gone something like this:

Me, pointing at the map: "See, it's actually only a mile or so from downtown Easton to the Tred Avon River, which is definitely navigable this far up. So, if you could tie up there, or anchor out and find somewhere to leave a dinghy, it wouldn't be all that long a walk or bike ride into town."

Someone else: "Sure . . . you could do it in a powerboat, but not in a cruising sailboat, because you're down to four or five feet of water there. Also, that's a pretty small marina there and it's kind of an industrial spot, with fuel storage tanks all over the place. And to get into town from there you have to go through a pretty rough neighborhood. 
I wouldn't want to walk it at night."

Me: "Hmm . . . Oh look, Oxford! We haven't done Oxford in 
a while, have we? . . ."

And so it would go, year after year, century after century--until last summer, when I was driving through Easton, on my way from Salisbury to Annapolis, and decided to scout out this theoretical boater's back door. I'm delighted to say I was right, because (a) it always delights me to be right, and (b) I now knew exactly where I'd be going on my upcoming and much anticipated September cruise: Easton. My spur-of-the-moment scouting trip revealed that, yes, the mile or so of Port Street that takes you from the river to downtown Easton is not exactly scenic. But it's not a "rough neighborhood" either, at least not in my vernacular. A bit down at the heels, yes. A modest-income neighborhood, yes. But rough? No. The scouting trip also revealed the funky but sublimely hospitable little camp store of a place that would be my beachhead for the trip--Easton Point Marina, which, according to owner and manager Kathy Meehan, did indeed have some open slips in early September and would be happy to reserve one for me. All that remained was to jigger my early-September schedule a bit, reserve one of the Chesapeake Boating Club's Albin 28s for, say, a Thursday through Saturday, and get my 15-speed Huffy out of the basement. The latter was important because my walking distance is limited these days, thanks to the ol' trick hip, which goes for only a quarter-mile or so before I start to toddle like Walter Brennan. (It's official, I'm old; not only do I have an arthritic hip, but my cultural references include Walter Brennan.) So I'd need a bike. But, on second thought, maybe I could rent one, which would save me a lot of bike-schlepping--lashing it to the car, lashing it to the boat, etc. Enter the Eastern Shore Bicycle Company, which was happy to rent me one of its very civilized and blessedly simple single-speed, coaster-brake, fat-tire Electra cruising bikes. The charge for three days was a reasonable $68, which included a helmet, a cable lock and, best of all, delivery to and pick-up from the spot of my choosing. Clever chap that I am, I chose the marina.

Oh, and one more thing: I should book a room somewhere in town for at least one night of my stay. No, let's make it two nights. Yes, I know, that would be wasting a perfectly good V-berth . . . but what am I, an Explorer Scout? Yes, I could sleep on the boat all three nights. I could also dine every night on canned Vienna sausages from the Wawa, but I'm not going to do that either. No, given the choice, I'll go with mints on the pillow every time. The Tidewater Inn, with its $120 Labor Day special, was the hands-down winner of the price wars, so I booked it for Friday and Saturday nights. I'm a weenie, but I'm a frugal weenie.

And so it was that, after an uneventful three-hour cruise across the Bay, through Knapps Narrows, into the Choptank River and finally up the Tred Avon, I found my helmeted self pedaling eastward on Port Street, headed for dinner at Mason's Restaurant on Harrison Street--though not directly, because I had half an hour to kill before my seven o'clock reservation. I happily squandered the time exploring this pretty old town, learning the street names, relishing the perfectly temperate September air, and coming to a near-religious appreciation of the beauty and simplicity of a fixed-gear bicycle on flat land. Down Harrison Street, back up Washington Street, across on Dover, up Locust, down Harrison to South Lane and . . . oh, look, there's Mason's. And there's a bit of sturdy picket fence where I can chain the bike. Ah, how civilized I am, how light my carbon footprint on this fine summer evening.

Mason's, it turned out, was a very good place to start. What had begun in the 1960s as a small knickknack shop with its own line of chocolates gradually evolved over the years into a popular lunch spot. Now, after two significant expansions in the last decade, it has blossomed into one of Talbot County's best restaurants--still with its own line of chocolates, and a lovely new coffee bar to boot. And chicken piccata to die for. That's what I ordered, though it's a miracle I had room for it after the "ciabatta tower" appetizer--a little orgy of toasted ciabatta bread and Gorgonzola. Add a glass of pinot grigio to that and you had one happy little scout riding his retro red-and-white bicycle back to the boat, whistling the theme song to "Leave It To Beaver" and having a good laugh at the nickname I'd come up with for the bike: Mrs. Cleaver. I know, it's not that funny. But to me, that night, under the influence of Gorgonzola, it was hilarious.

I had a lot on the agenda for the next day, so I resolved to get up at . . . nine-thirty? How did that happen? Oh well, up an at 'em at the crack of nine-thirty, then. I found Mrs. Cleaver exactly where I'd left her, chained to a post behind the marina building (egads, that doesn't sound right), and off we went, straight up Port Street. This is a quiet stretch of road nowadays, but it was designed to be just the opposite. Straight as a string, it was laid out in 1711, only a year after the town--originally named Talbot Courthouse--was established by the colonial General Assembly. As it does now, the road led from Easton Point (once called either Cow's Landing or Cowe's Landing) to Washington Street just south of the courthouse, and it was of course the town's very lifeline. Easton Point was "the wharf," where the schooners and clippers and steamships came and went, where the lumber and lampshades came ashore and the oysters and canned tomatoes went aboard, and abroad.

So, with all that history passing under my wheels, it was appropriate that my first stop that morning would be the Historic Society of Talbot County's (HSTC) Museum and Gardens on Washington Street, to see about signing up for the weekly tour (Fridays at 11:30) of the restored 1810 James Neall House next door. But--my bad luck--only moments before I arrived the volunteer docent who normally does the Neall House tours had called to say he had a family emergency and wouldn't be coming in. Sorry, said the museum volunteer. Rats, said I. Maybe some other Friday. So I grabbed a self-guided tour map and struck out on my own, vowing to come back to the museum later that day to have a closer look at what looked like an intriguing exhibit on Talbot County during World War II.

As with so many towns of its age, fire has re-written much of Easton's architectural history, erasing most of the wood-frame structures of the early-18th-century chapters and replacing them with the less vulnerable brick buildings of the Federal period (the Market Place Fire of 1878 must have been a big one; it's mentioned repeatedly in the self-guided tour). But that's not to say it's all brick or Victorian-era wood. Indeed, way down Washington Street, past the hospital and nearly out of the city proper, is what is thought to be the oldest frame building in all of Maryland: the 1684 Third Haven Meeting House, still used by the local Quaker community. And in the center of town there are a number of late-18th-century frame houses still standing--the 1789 Mary Jenkins House on Washington Street, for example, home of the HSTC's own revenue-generating consignment store, Tharpe Antiques.

After tooling around town for an hour or so, I began to see that everything I needed or wanted to see in Easton was in, or within easy walking distance of, what I came to think of as the Historic Rectangle--the four or five parallel blocks of Harrison and Washington streets between Goldsborough and South streets: the HSTC museum and historic properties, a dozen restaurants, three or four bars, at least four B&Bs, countless shops and galleries, the Avalon Theatre (where I planned to see a jazz trio on Saturday night), the Academy Art Museum (which a friend had told me not to miss and was on the next day's itinerary) and of course the Tidewater Inn.

I stopped for a late-breakfast nosh at the Coffee Cat, a sunny little corner cafe at the foot of Goldsborough Street, which had been known as Coffee East until late 2008. Now, under new management, it's the daytime half of a very popular commercial duet. Right next door is the Night Cat--a 60-seat nightclub that features local and regional music three or four nights a week, depending on the season. That night's act didn't ring a bell, but on the list of upcoming shows I saw more than a few names that did--Deanna Bogart, Tom Principato, Danni Rosner. Clearly not a musical backwater by any stretch.

Fortified with a breakfast sandwich and three cups of really good Guatemalan medium roast, I mounted Mrs. Cleaver again and. . . . Okay, I'm thinking maybe this whole Mrs. Cleaver thing isn't such a good idea. I think from here on I'll just go with "the bike." You'll know which bike I mean. There was only one. . . . So, anyway, I hopped on the bike and headed north on Washington Street, intent on visiting the HSTC Museum's World War II exhibit--before I realized that this would probably be my best chance to scoot out to the bike shop I'd looked up the night before--Easton Cycle and Sport--which, according to Mr. Google, was straight east from here on Goldsborough, out near Route 50. Mr. G was right, as he usually is, and I found the two things I was looking for at the bike shop: a rear-view mirror and some kind of hey-here-I-am-on-a-bike-please-don't-run-me-over flashing light or reflector strip. Twenty minutes later, with the help of a disposable hex wrench and my Swiss Army knife, I was all set--a side-view mirror attached to the left handlebar and a flashing light Velcro'd to my helmet. (I didn't realize it at the time, in the sunlight, but it was a damned powerful little light. I caught a glimpse of it that night in the reflection from a store window, and I looked like a channel marker on wheels. I imagined a boater groping his way up the Tred Avon two miles away: "Is that the red 16?" First mate: "No, it's some guy on a bicycle. He seems to be having fun.")

Anyway, safety issues resolved, I worked my way back west to the Historic Society Museum, eager to have a closer look at the World War II exhibit. I'm a sucker for World War II history, so it doesn't take much to get my attention . . . but this was really a fine exhibit. Taking up a good two-thirds of the museum's narrow but deep space, it was an intriguing glimpse of the war from the homefront, from the citizen's point of view, with most of the artifacts and photos donated by or on loan from Talbot Countians: plane-spotting and civil defense, boatbuilding (Oxford Boatyard built 126 boats and repaired 71), scrap-saving, sugar rationing, tire rationing (Price's Tire Shop switched to retreading and recapping for the duration), war bonds, victory gardens, blackout window shades, military uniforms, weapons, food packages for allied POWs, and, to my great surprise, a display about the German POW camp right here in Easton--from which, during the growing season, prisoners were sent out to work at local farms.

After a quick browse through the aforementioned Tharpe Antiques, across the street from the museum, I hopped back on the bike and rode a block south and then east to the Academy Art Museum at the corner of South and Harrison streets. I'm glad I listened to my friend and didn't miss this. It's a splendid old building, for starters, built just after the Civil War as the town's first public high school. Now its large, bare rooms and halls are filled with art--mostly photography during my visit, which coincided with an exhibit called Picturing America, 1930–1960--Photographs from the Baltimore Museum of Art (Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Walter Rosenblum, et al.). Supplementing that was an exhibit featuring photographs from the museum's own collection, called American Photographs from the 1950s Until Now. It was all quite absorbing, as was the small (12-piece) but well chosen survey of paintings by Baltimore painter and academic Bennard Perlman.

Back out in the fresh air, strapping on the helmet once again, I was tempted to just head vaguely northeast and see what I might see, but good sense intervened, telling me it was time to move my base of operations from the boat to the Tidewater Inn. I pedaled back down Port Street, jammed two days worth of clothes into a backpack and locked up the boat. An hour later I was sprawled across the bed in my rather small room on the second floor of that lovely old 1949 hotel. But the term "small room" is relative, is it not? Indeed, to me, a 6-foot man having spent the previous evening in a 5-foot-10-inch V-berth, this room seemed quite nearly cavernous. I took a shower, because I could. I took a nap, because I could.

Later, after a leisurely twilight ride around town (that's when I saw my flashing head reflected in the store window), I ventured only as far as the hotel's own restaurant for an excellent dinner of wood-grilled pork chops, accompanied by a warm apple and blue cheese slaw and marvelous, lemony German potatoes. Yet another splendid meal. Then it was off to bed, to that acreof mattress and embarrassment of pillows that awaited me in room 303. I drifted off to sleep, thinking how grand life would be if every day had such an easy, nourishing cadence: eat, ride the bike, absorb culture and/or history, ride the bike, eat, ride the bike, absorb culture and/or history, nap, eat, ride the bike, rinse, repeat. This I could get used to.

It all came to a lovely crescendo on the third day, and I use the musical term intentionally, because the day ended with a concert by jazz pianist Monty Alexander. That was at the Avalon Theatre, Easton's homegrown Art-Deco movie theater from 1921 to 1985 and now its lively and very successful performing arts center. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The day--another perfect one, headed for the low 80s, with no discernible humidity--started with a tasty French toast breakfast at Darnell's Grill, a homey cafe next door to the Tidewater Inn, then a pleasantly aimless bike ride up and down the streets of the mostly residential neighborhood east of the historic rectangle.

Then I moseyed down to the north end of the rectangle, looking for the Saturday morning Farmer's Market I'd read about in one of the brochures I'd brought along to breakfast. The map had showed it at the north end of Harrison Street, just before it bends west and merges with Washington Street. And sure enough, that's where I found it. Actually I heard it before I saw it. That's the thing about bicycle touring; you hear things you'd never hear in a car. From a bike, a well attended farmer's market is audible from a block away. And this was well attended indeed. I didn't stay long though--not because there wasn't plenty to see and buy, but because there was no point in it. Whatever I bought here would have to survive transport by bike, boat and car, and that seemed like unnecessary vegetable cruelty to me.

So off I went for a bit more aimless exploring, then a light lunch (hummus and grilled naan) at the organically minded Out of the Fire restaurant on Goldsborough, and then back to the Tidewater Inn for a quiet afternoon of reading and people-watching from a rocker on the hotel's shady wrap-around portico.

Soon it was time to get dressed for dinner and the show. Of course by "dressed" I mean merely a shirt with an actual collar and pantlegs that reached all the way to my ankles. Resplendent in my grown-up shirt and largely unwrinkled khaki pants, I strolled (if it can be said that Walter Brennan ever "strolled" after riding a bike all day) to the Inn at 202 Dover--a beautifully refurbished 1874 mansion, now a B&B that quietly dominates the corner of Dover and Hanson streets a block east of the Tidewater. There, at the inn's Peacock Restaurant, I enjoyed a splendid meal of free-range chicken, served with sea-salt-sprinkled asparagus and a heap of macaroni and cheese (clearly the retro side dish de rigueur these days) and a nicely matched glass of organic French sauvignon blanc. Okay, what the heck, two glasses--I'm on foot tonight.

Then it was showtime at the Avalon--two mesmerizing hours under the spell of jazz great Monty Alexander, the Jamaican pianist who has shared the stage and studio with everyone from Frank Sinatra to Dizzy Gillespie.

It was the perfect coda for my Easton adventure, made all the more memorable when I ran into Alexander and his drummer the next morning at the Coffee Cat. They were grabbing a quick bite before heading to the airport and, eventually, Chicago. I was grabbing a quick bite before heading to Easton Point Marina, and, eventually, Annapolis.

Speaking of which . . . have I mentioned that Easton is in fact accessible by water? That's what I've been trying to tell people since 1710. Turns out I was right, and I like being right.

Mr. Annapolitan

I'm no longer a Baltimorean (or, as some cruel folks put it, a Balti-moron). That quirky little city on the Patapsco has its merits, to be sure--great restaurants and neighborhoods, gobs of marinas and maritime culture, a remarkable aquarium, a fantastic visionary arts museum, and a world-class symphony orchestra. I could go on, but I won't, because I'm an Annapolitan now.

Yes, back in November I became a bona fide work-here-live-here-vote-here-recycle-my-trash-here Annapolitan. And I like it--even more than I thought I would. Of course I knew I'd love the short commute. The trip is now one-thirty-sixth of what it used to be: one mile instead of 36 miles. And, for the first time ever in my working life, I can pop home for lunch. Let me repeat those lovely words: I can pop home for lunch. Yes, miracle of miracles, I can be home in less time than it takes to heat up a chicken breast in the office microwave.

I expected all that, but I didn't expect the suddenly heightened sense of belonging, of being home, of truly being an Annapolitan. (And that very word has a lovely ring to it, does it not? I think so, which is why I've already used it three times, four if you count the headline.) Of course I've worked in Annapolis for a long time--nearly 14 years--and I've gotten to know the place fairly well. But I see now that I've only known it in a shallow Monday-through-Friday sense. I see now that because I merely worked here, instead of both working and living here--and shopping here and going to the movies here and owning a home here and buying cat food here--I've kept a sort of emotional distance from the place. Yes, I agree, that's an odd thing to say about a place, but there it is; those are the best words I can find for how it feels to both live and work here now.

And then there's the matter of Annapolis's sheer . . . Chesapeakiness. It's just so much more Chesapeakey than Baltimore. Some will take issue with that, I'm sure. How dare you, sir! they'll say. Baltimore not Chesapeakey? She's the queen city of the Bay, sir! She's as Chesapeakey as it gets! And of course I accept that, up to a point; Charm City is very much a part of the Bay's history and culture and aura. But it's a city. It's Baltimore. So it can only be Chesapeakey in a . . . um, city-like, Baltimorey way. Know what I mean? (Yes, I know, I'm throwing around some fancy words here, but try to keep up with me.)

Annapolis, on the other hand, fairly oozes Chesapeake mojo. There are maritime businesses on every corner and boats everywhere--in driveways and parking lots and backyards and of course in the marinas, those little groves of aluminum trees that grow at the edges of the countless creeks you find at the ends of countless woodsy dead-end streets. I haven't found a good Afghani restaurant here yet, but that is offset by the fact that I can, on any given Saturday morning, walk the few blocks to Bay Ridge Road and buy a dinghy.

I suppose it boils down to this: For all those years, leaving Annapolis every night and heading up I-97 to Baltimore, it always felt vaguely wrong, like going off the reservation or wandering away from the home fires at night. On the contrary, leaving work and heading for my spiffy little condo, exactly one mile away, feels quite right. That said, I think I'll pop home for lunch.

Tim Sayles, Editor

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Fleet Week

by Paul Clancy

Four peaceful creeks and one lovely old Virginia town--a Fleets Bay package deal.

Here's what I remember best about our trip: the day we dropped anchor in a lovely creek and rustled up lunch. Sandwiches (with pickles, or else why bother?) and cookies to follow. And our boat, ever attentive to wind and current, did a nervous about-face as the wind shifted from west to north to northeast. If it was a harbinger of things to come, we'd worry about that later. What mattered most was that as we left the creek and headed back north, we were flying close-hauled up this gorgeous little bay, thrilled just to be there, doing that, on such a splendid day.

We were exploring Fleets Bay, just around the corner from the mouth of the Rappahannock River. Tucked in just north of Windmill Point, it's the broad collective mouth of four neatly arranged creeks--Antipoison, Tabbs, Dymer and Indian. And for us, out on a mid-October jaunt, determined to go somewhere we'd never been, it was just the ticket. Three of the four creeks (all but Tabbs) are wide and deep enough for Ode to Joy, our five-foot-draft sailboat, and they all offer generous, protected anchorages. Plus there's Kilmarnock, Va., a great little town to explore, with a bustling marina that has much to offer. And the bay itself? It's one great big watercolor painting, with a shoreline brush-stroked with sandy beaches and deep woods.

We'd come to see the place we'd heard much about, and to visit its revitalized town, soak up wisdom and jokes at a popular hangout (favored by a former governor and his breakfast buddies) and enjoy some quiet nights at anchor under 14-carat stars. It had been a little rough coming up the Bay from Norfolk. We'd splashed anchor in Horn Harbor in late afternoon and resumed the journey at dawn, still bucking north winds and waves. But soon after Barb and I turned the corner at Windmill Point and silenced the engine at last, we felt Fleets Bay's welcoming tug. And the tug of its history.

First of all, there's Antipoison Creek and its famous Captain John Smith story. Everyone who gives you an explanation starts by saying, "Legend has it . . ." a phrase that always makes me suspicious. But this story actually makes sense: During his travels in 1608, the famous English explorer had been badly stung by a cownose ray at the mouth of the Rappahannock. Smith was certain he was a goner, the story goes, but the local Indians knew better; they applied a poultice of mud from the banks of the creek. Ergo Antipoison Creek. And, for that matter, ergo Stingray Point, where the incident had begun.

A dozen or so years later, Captain Henry Fleet (also spelled Fleete) arrived in these parts after dropping off a boatload of settlers at Jamestown. His idea was to trade with the natives--English goods, tools, fish hooks and such for furs and skins. But as he made his way up the Potomac, he was captured by the Anacostan Indians, who kept him as a prisoner for five years. Making the best of the situation, Fleet learned their language and, later, after being ransomed, proved invaluable as a negotiator. One of his noteworthy accomplishments was securing land from the Yeocomicos for what was to become St. Mary's City, Maryland's first capital. He served in the general assemblies of both Virginia and Maryland before settling in what became known as Fleets Bay. He's buried at Fleets Island near Windmill Point. Fleets still abound in the area, including Alex Fleet, the mayor of Irvington, Va.

As everywhere on the Chesapeake, the names of the creeks mirror the history of the people who have lived on them--though no longer the Corrotoman, Chickacoan and Wicomico tribes that once dwelt here. Dymer and Tabbs were both fur traders. Antipoison and Indian are European monikers as well, even if they do make reference to the earlier inhabitants. The land here also offers up the occasional evidence of British occupation and Civil War skirmishes--the latter in the form of Union cavalry raids and gunboat bombardments. But there's a gentleness too--you might even call it gentility--as well as a sense that people living here belong here, however temporarily. Maybe even we cruising sailorfolk.

We sailed straight up Indian Creek to Chesapeake Boat Basin, and were invited to tie up at the T-head of one of its piers. The marina presides over the small harbor where Kilmarnock Wharf used to welcome steamboats, and even the occasional showboat. Right next door is a Perdue grain depot, where corn from local farmers is trucked in and then heaped into barges, bound for chicken processing plants. Until Clay and Lisa Holcomb bought the marina in the late 1990s, the place had been more than a little run down. But the Holcombs brought new life to it, and continue to make improvements. Indeed, we saw a bit of that for ourselves as workers put finishing touches on floating docks, 32 of them, that will be open this season for overnight visitors. And right next to a newly painted clubhouse, an old building was coming down to make way for a swimming pool.

The Holcombs do as much as they can to attract transients, though their very location does most of the work. Being roughly halfway between Norfolk and Solomons, it's the perfect layover for people making that run--and the approach from the Bay couldn't be easier, with a channel that is straight, wide and deep. And if you're in an exploring mood, Kilmarnock is only a mile and a half away--a 10-minute ride on one of the new fat-tire, coaster-brake bikes that are available free to marina guests. The town has good restaurants, a new inn and dozens of nice gift and antiques shops. The Holcombs also hope to persuade the town to make the marina one of the stops of the Kilmarnock Trolley, which offers 25-cent rides to White Stone, Irvington and other nearby spots.

Kilmarnock was no more than an Indian trail crossroads at first. In the 1700s, William Steptoe began operating a storehouse and ordinary there, and "The Crossroads," as it was called, became "Steptoe's Ordinary." Then, in 1764, an agent for a mercantile firm in nearby Glasgow changed the name to Kilmarnock after his hometown in Scotland. But Steptoe lives on. From May to October, merchants and the local art league put on "Steptoe's First Friday Walkabout," a kind of street party, with live music, entertainment, food and sidewalk sales.

Barb and I had a little walkabout of our own--or a ride-about, to be exact. Right after landing at the marina, we borrowed a couple of bikes and rambled to town on the quiet country road, past a large cornfield dotted with purple and pink morning glories. In town, we parked the bikes and strolled along newly brick-paved sidewalks, part of Kilmarnock's recent Main Street revitalization project, and peered into gift, home furnishing and antiques shops. "Everyone in this town has perfect taste," Barb quipped after we paraded past several . . . well, tasteful places.

That night we prepared dinner on one of the grills provided by the marina and dined in its guest lounge while pouring over charts and making plans for the next day. Our choice for breakfast was easy. Lee's Restaurant has been serving home-style food, homemade pies, fried chicken, stewed tomatoes and the like in Kilmarnock since 1939, but it might be best known as the place where locals gather almost every day for breakfast. And from the chatter at the long back table we knew we were in luck. First of all, while polishing off our eggs and grits, one of the waitresses smiled at a fellow who had gotten up to leave. "See you, Governor," she said.

I followed him outside and mumbled an introduction. "I'm Linwood Holton," he said with a craggy smile. Holton was governor from 1970 to 1974, and is probably best remembered as a progressive Republican who set an example by sending his four children to majority black schools when Richmond was ordered to desegregate. One of them, Anne Holton, is now married to the most recent governor, Tim Kaine. Governor Holton is also known as the politician who fought the old-South Democratic Byrd machine and brought Republicans to power--before falling out with them when, in his mind, they went too far to the right.

He now lives in Weems, Va., on a point of land on the Corrotoman River, just off the Rappahannock. Until recently he had a 38-foot yacht, on which he and his family cruised the Bay from one end to the other. He's enjoyed great power and prestige in Richmond and Washington but now finds small-town life more agreeable. He grew up in Big Stone Gap, a town of 3,000, "and we're now in a town that doesn't have 300, I wouldn't guess. I'm back to my roots, except it's the other end of the stick."

While we talked on the corner near Lee's, he referred to his friends inside as "my redneck crew," but wished he hadn't said it. "Don't get me in trouble with my friends." I didn't get him in trouble--even though I used the line as an introduction. The whole tableful of locals laughed and invited me to sit with them. It was about 9 a.m., the start of "the second shift," they said--the shift that makes sure the stories told in the first jibe with the second. True or false, the stories told at this table, looking out on Main Street, are the stuff of news and gossip.

"I can come in here at seven and sit till ten," said Robert Mason, editor of the Rappahannock Record, "and get more news than I can print."

Dave Hinson, sitting in the middle of the group, warned me not to take them seriously. "You listen to some of these people long enough," he said, "you won't know what right on red is." I moved down to the end and spoke with Bradley Sisson, who told me he was 94 and doing okay, although his vision wasn't so hot. It's been a great place to live, he said. Even back in 1933, just before he joined the Marines. "We had plenty to eat--oysters, wild duck and fish," he said. "but we didn't know what a dollar looked like!"

Then he told me about the old menhaden factory, which didn't have controls on its boilers and put forth a ferocious odor. "We had an old boy who ran a service station, Fitzhugh Stevens, who could aggravate people to death," he said. "One morning Stevens opened up early and this [out-of-towner] pulled in. When he got out of his car, he said, 'My God, what in the world is that smell?' Stevens said, ‘We have an undertaker in this town, and he's got an old tar barrel with a fire in it and sometimes when he gets behind and starts his cremations up. . . .' He was lying, of course, but the guy thought he was serious. He said he'd never smelled anything like that."

Later that morning, eager to continue our exploration, Barb and I cast off and sailed out of Indian Creek--and before long we were swinging around the wide shoals of Fleets Bay Neck and heading into Dymer Creek, the next stop south. The second inlet on the creek's south shore is dominated by one of the largest mansions I've ever seen, a rambling English Tudor-like affair that locals refer to as "the castle." It occupies the spot, I later learned, where the old fish factory once sat.

Just around the corner from there we tied up at the dock of Dymer Creek Seafood and Winegar's Marine Railway, side-by-side businesses that have long served the region's palates as well as its boats. There we met Cathy Davenport, granddaughter of the business's founder, John Winegar. She runs the onshore operation now, while her husband and their son, both watermen, bring in the catch. They sell to wholesalers.

A couple of fishing boats, the Bay Princess and Ashley B, rested at their dock. There's a large soft shell business there, too, with almost 60 tanks.

Nearby, a yellow-painted deadrise (owned by a clammer, Davenport told us) rested on rails after having been hauled up by a 1929 Model A Ford motor. For us, it lent a timelessness to the whole scene. For Davenport, it's just part of it all, part of who she is. "You see that house?" she said, pointing through trees to a gentle rise just back from the railway. "That's where I was raised." Back then, she said, there were only 11 other houses on the creek.

Even though it was October, it seemed like a summer day. An old black dog lay in the sun, a kitten rolled in the dirt and several fat gulls perched on pilings. Davenport told us that even though she loves to travel in the winter, sometimes to exotic places, this is where her life is centered. "I'll be honest with you," she said. "Nothing makes me happier than sitting on my patio with my coffee and watching the world go by. It's so peaceful."

Our next stop was Antipoison (pronounced by locals as if it were spelled "Antapoison"). What appears to be the creek's wide mouth is in fact another bay, according to the chart--Little Bay, to be exact, tucked in under the brim of the mushroom-cap peninsula called Fleets Island, which has Windmill Point at its other end. We only had time to duck into Antipoison Creek for a quick lunch on the hook, but we could see why it is known as the most protected of the creeks, with Fleets Island blocking the easterlies.

We got back to Chesapeake Boat Basin in time to walk the mile and a half back into town and get a tour of the Kilmarnock Museum, tucked into a small frame building on Main Street. It's loaded with photos of bygone years--the old firehouse, an outlandish hotel, a Spanish-style theater and a couple of bottling plants--a time when local promoters touted Kilmarnock as "the New York of the Northern Neck." Our guide was museum founder Augusta Sellew, whose family has lived in town for generations. "My grandfather and his brother had a general store that sold everything from horse collars to feed to women's hats," she told us. "You name it, they had it. And all of it had to come here by boat." The town endured three disastrous fires, as well as a 1933 hurricane that took out the wharf--ending the town's steamboat era with a bang, not a wimper. Building booms followed each of these catastrophes, so it's no surprise that Kilmarnock, after a bit of a slump a few years ago, is growing and prospering yet again.

We fed our faces at a place called Buenos Nachos, a Mexican grill on Main Street. There's something on the menu called a Kilmarnock Quesadilla, containing shrimp and crab, and in the interest of careful reporting, I tried it . . . and liked it. They also didn't do so bad in the margarita department, either--although here, where the Spanglish pun is king, it's called a "buenarita."

From there, feeling quite bueno, we strolled over to the Kilmarnock Inn, to have a peek at what would be our decidedly upscale accommodations that night. Nothing like sleeping on a sailboat to make you appreciate a great big fluffy bed and a bathroom with an actual tub. This extravagant inn's story goes back to 1984, when Shawn Donahue, a local real estate developer, bought a vacant century-old house on East Church Street and couldn't figure out what to do with it. Kilmarnock was pretty much a ghost town then, he says, but he knew it was coming back and he'd be part of it. An anchor hotel was what it needed, he decided. One day while having lunch at Sal's Italian Pizza, where they had one of those paper placemats showing all the Virginia presidents--eight of them--it dawned on him: a B&B with eight "presidential" cottages!

"I never have an original thought," he said with a shrug. "I see something I like and copy it." It took years, but eventually, the idea came to fruition. Each of the cottages, placed in a campus-like half-acre compound, has a distinct architecture; thus there are buildings resembling Jefferson's Monticello, Washington's Mt. Vernon, Madison's Montpelier and so forth. There are even cottages representing minor presidents like Taylor, Tyler and Harrison. The main house, the Wilson, includes "The 14 Points Lounge." It's all quite elaborate, with multiple guest rooms in all but one of the cottages (the Madison is dedicated to the honeymoon suite). We stayed at the plantation-style Monroe Cottage, which has four guestrooms, each named for a Virginia river.

The next day--sadly, our last on Fleets Bay--we had a choice: try to make it home in spite of the nasty weather approaching, or leave the boat and come back. We chose the latter, renting a car and going home. High winds persisted for two solid weeks and finally, in very late October, we retraced our steps to Kilmarnock. Back on board, we fueled up that afternoon and motored to Pitmans Cove--another popular anchorage here, just around the corner from the marina. There, planning to get an early start the next morning, we dropped anchor near a trawler from clear across the continent: Victoria, B.C. There were more Canadians about, as well; as Barb and I broke out the wine and cheese and settled in the cockpit, a riot of Canada geese took to the air from a nearby farm field. One of the squadrons was so big it seemed to take forever to form up, ending up looking like a fish hook trailing a long line. We swung gently at anchor, reading and knitting, listening to John Williams playing classical Spanish guitar. At night, the cove was splashed with stars. Dawn on the Bay was drop-dead gorgeous as we sailed out of the creek, glad to have come this way.

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