Onancock, VA

Once again, it is my honor to be a guest blogger on the Ohana website, and this time we’re coming to you from the Delmarva Peninsula in the Chesapeake Bay. (You can pronounce “Onancock” however you like because we asked three people how to say it properly and got four different answers.) The lovely Clara and I decided that we would hook up with the “Crew” once they made landfall after their sail up from the Bahamas, and Liza chose the quaint town of Onancock as the meeting place. After some last minute planning (which was helped by not having many choices to begin with) we were all set for a three day visit with the “Crew”.

We drove down on Saturday and met up with everyone at our B & B, the Colonial Manor Inn, located on the main drag of town. We did see one car go by, but remember it was Saturday afternoon. Peter lugged up his portable Happy Hour Cooler, complete with wine, beer, and Sierra Mist, and we had Happy Hour on the porch, taking time to catch up with all of the kids. It still amazes me that all 4 are still here after almost 11 months on the boat!!! After Happy Hour we headed down to the town dock for dinner at waterfront restaurant. All 8 of us dined outside, and I had some soft shell crabs for the first time in my life. I wasn’t sure what parts of it to eat, so I ate everything just to make sure I didn’t miss a good part. It was the first of many crab dishes I would eat in the next three days. That night it poured rain and was unbearably muggy, but we didn’t even notice due to the fine A/C in our establishment.

The next morning (Sunday) we met up with the “Crew” for our short trip to Tangier Island (by “ferry”), another one of life’s little mysteries I had never heard of before this trip. To make a long story short, you’re going to have to read about the island on your own time because I don’t have enough space here to go into all the detail. I think one of the kids on the boat should have written a report on the island, but you know how kids get when the end of school is in sight. Anyway, its one of those little communities (like only 584 residents on the island) which wants to get on with its life without having the outside world poking its nose into their business. Good luck with that. I would like to say it was charming or quaint, but it was just a bunch of buildings on an island. The most fascinating aspect of the island was all of the graves in everyone’s front yards. There really wasn’t a town cemetery; everyone seemed to be just buried where they fell. They did have a very thorough history center/museum on the island, and we learned quite a lot of island history in our short stay. And for lunch we ate at a nice little restaurant and I had a crab cake sandwich (kind of like a crab patty at Mr. Crabs on Sponge Bob Squarepants)!!! Overall a very worthwhile day trip. We even got to see a lot of osprey nests (with chicks) on the channel markers on our trip back and forth to the island.
Once we got back from the trip Peter decided to bring Ohana into the town dock from its anchorage in the harbor, as we were planning on having dinner on the boat that evening (and it was necessary to have the a/c run for a few hours). Yours Truly was chosen to help throw some rope or do some other sailing thing and rode Keiki out to the Ohana to bring her in so to speak. Well, we fired up the engine, started to motor into the dock, and then watched the depth finder on the boat go to 0.0…..and then came to a complete stop. Even with my limited sailing knowledge I knew that wasn’t good. Luckily, there was space at another part of the dock, and we just tied up there instead. Of course all this time we created quite a scene and I think half of the town was there to help us tie up at the town dock. Sadly, I didn’t get to even throw a rope. But a few hours later we were back on the boat having…..not crab for dinner, but instead some grilled pork and apples. It was a little tight in the salon, but the 8 of us had a nice dinner, and afterwards played some games with the kids, and then called it a night.
On Monday morning all of us (minus Peter who stayed behind to do some work in the boat) headed to Chincoteague Island (part of the Assateague Island National Refuge) to see the famous wild horses. It took about 45 minutes to drive there. Now the lovely Clara & I had been there in 1999, but a lot had changed since then. Our first stop was to the Visitor Center to learn about the horses and all the other wildlife on the island. (Since it was an official school day for the kids, you could say this was a sanctioned field trip.) After that we took a 1.6 mile hike though the woodlands to get a better glimpse of the wild horses; at least that is what the brochure promised. All of us (except Clara who wisely stayed in the air conditioned car) were eaten alive by some very determined mosquitoes. In a very bizarre manner, the mosquitoes that bit Catherine left a series of welts on her back which were identical to Orion’s Belt---so in an indirect way we did learn a little astronomy while we were there. But we did see the horses from the road and along our hike, so it was not a total loss. After that hike we headed to another Visitors Center to handle some horseshoe crabs and oysters. Then some of us headed to the beach and others went on a marsh walk, where we learned about all the critters that live in the salt marsh (and about the mating habits of the fiddler crab). After that we took a drive on the wildlife loop in the park and saw some wonderful herons, egrets and other native birds. Lunch was a little late that day, but we ended up in another great little seafood place where I had (who would have guessed) another great crab cake sandwich!!! After we drove back we took a little siesta and then met up with Liza and Peter for an adults only dinner at a little bistro in town. This time it was soft shell crab for the appetizer and crab cakes for dinner!!!

When we got back to the dock, the sky was being lit up with a spectacular lightning display, followed by the booming thunder. Since the “Crew” was due to take off at 7am the next morning we said our goodbyes then (as we don’t do 7am on vacation). I couldn’t believe the time had gone so quickly, but then again I can’t believe they have only one more month to go in their year long sailing trip! It was a great three days in the lovely town of Onancock, a part of the country I doubt we would have ever visited if it weren’t for the “Crew”. Until next time……….

-Matthew

Downtown Tangier

Ponies of Chincoteague

The Fiddler Crabs in the Marsh