Right before my fearless girl got pinched during a crabpot lesson
Jay Flemming IRL
Sunset lighthouse cruise
Doesn't come close to capturing the breathtaking views from the playground on Smith Island
The sweetest little library in oxford
This historic inn and restaurant in Oxford was so charming
The kids spent hours rowing around on the new tethered dinghy
Who needs an electric dinghy pump when you have kids?
Catching waves on the rail
Our grand family vacation turned out to be quite the shakedown cruise. I could fill a book with all of the lessons we learned. We learned that if you crumple an airvent the AC doesn’t work. Our dinghy has about 1.5-2 h before the gas runs out. Oysters are sharp. You need to be careful when moving your dinghy around pilings covered in them. Autopilot can burn your battery out in a couple hours. Engines don’t recharge batteries if they’re totally deplete. When we lose battery power we lose the radio too. Smith Island bakery is closed on Mondays. All slips besides the bulkheads at Parks Marina on Tangier Island are too shallow at this point. The only real waypoint between Herring Bay and Smith Island is Solomon’s.
I could fill two books with the magical memories we made. Patrick at 3 knots Marine on Smith Island took us out on a spur of the moment Sunset Cruise and told us amazing stories about local landmarks. As we sped over the water my 9-year-old turned to me with the most gigantic smile and said “I’m not having a good time. I’m having the time of my life!” We spent so much more time sailing on this trip than I anticipated and the kids handled it like champs. I was amazed. We ate the most incredible softshell crab sandwich at Lorraine’s on Tangier. Drum point market has new management but Ruth Ann’s crab cakes are massive and delicious. And meeting the women who work at the store there and all of the locals down by the water in Tylerton was just incredible. We even ran into the famous Jay Flemming in person there only to find out that my husband and I went to college with him for 3 years! The crabpot line got wrapped around the prop while the boat was at anchor so Colin had to dive down and fix it. The kids took that as an invitation to jump in with him and they spent 3 hours frolicking joyfully in the bay. We had the magical experience of making new friends and then meeting them at a new anchorage twice.