Chesapeake Bay


We left Norfolk and headed into the Chesapeake. It was a beautiful sunny day, the water was very flat, no wind. We did not have the auto pilot so we had to sit at the helm. Unfortunately, we must have looked like one of those fly traps that people used to hang up to catch flies – we were attracting them like crazy. I think this was the test for both Clay and myself on how we can manage being together for such long periods of time in adverse conditions. My thought was to just try to ignore the flies – just keep them out of my face. Clay’s philosophy was to kill everyone of them! He was swatting around the cockpit like a mad man on a mission – there were dead flies everywhere, it you tried to move you were stepping on them, making me very nauseous. I suggested that I take the helm and let Clay going inside with the screens up – take a rest and read. The next thing I knew he was swinging the swatter inside, actually broke the fly swatter. I then suggested he go forward on the deck – maybe with a little breeze the flies wouldn’t bother him as much – no such luck – he was sitting on the deck with the fly swatter. Our plan was to head for Tangier Island. After several hours of monotonous motoring Clay said it’s two hours to Tangier and one hour to Reedville – what do you want to do? We both decided to head to Reedville, have dinner and anchor for the night and head for Tangier in the morning.