Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504150023
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK CHAMBERLAIN
DATELINE: LANCASTER LENGTH: Long
A flotilla of baby ducks, mere specks plowing narrow wakes beyond our neighbor's dock, beats its way up the creek.
A regal great blue heron, like a circus stilt walker, takes slow, deliberate, giant strides stalking its prey in a nearby shallow cove.
Maggie Rose, our resident Chesapeake Bay retriever, drops her well-worn tennis ball at my feet on the deck overlooking the creek and a marina of sailboats. Another toss into the thicket of laurel, holly and old crunchy leaves. Another eager retrieval.
And the Maggie Rose, our 30-foot sailboat, tugs at her dock lines, her white hull gently slapping the water, the wind whistling through her rigging. Let's go! she seems to be saying. Let's go!
March had come in like a lamb. It was going out like a lion. Bright. Breezy. Brisk.
Around a bend where Meyer Creek ends in reeds, wetlands and solitude, Dave and Diane Berry, formerly of Bedford County, live in their own little world of water, otters and a pair of great blue herons.
Such is life in the slow lane, awaiting the real end of winter and the real beginning of spring, the start of another season of sailing the Rappahanock River and the Chesapeake Bay.
Overnight anchoring in a secluded creek. Overnight in Urbanna Creek and dinner at a waterside restaurant. A long, slow sail across the Chesapeake to Tangier Island. Maybe a longer sail up the bay to Annapolis, or down the bay to Norfolk, or out of the bay to anywhere.
On the sail out of Meyer Creek and down the Corrotoman River to the Rappahannock, we see dozens of majestic osprey guarding their huge nests of twigs atop the red or green channel markers. We see other water fowl dive bombing for fish. We hear the plaintive wail of loons.
Last summer, a dozen dolphins playfully followed the Maggie Rose as she ghosted out of the Corrotoman into the Rappahannock, the same water that Capt. John Smith first laid eyes on after he discovered this "very goodly bay" in 1607.
With more than 1,100 miles of shoreline meandering its rivers, creeks and coves, water is a way of life on the Northern Neck, four rural counties between the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers. Sail gave way to steam, steam gave way to highways and bridges, and this former center of commerce retreated into pastoral serenity. Now, pleasure boats abound among the deadrise workboats harvesting the famous Chesapeake blue crabs.
Sailing vessels, from 12-foot day-sailers to 50-foot blue-water yachts, are everywhere. The secluded creeks, the sheltered Corrotoman, the open Rappahannock and the expansive Chesapeake offer sailing conditions for everyone. Ripples on Meyer Creek usually mean a fresh breeze on the Corrotoman, whitecaps on the Rappahannock and swells on the bay.
Power boats, from outboards to cabin cruisers, also ply these waters, many carrying fishermen angling for striped bass, known in these parts as rockfish. They also go for spot, croaker, trout, flounder and bluefish. A rockfish tournament is an attraction each fall.
It's busy on the water during the boating season, but not unnerving like the congested commercial and military traffic around Norfolk and the thousands of pleasure craft jammed around Annapolis.
Oysters were once a major source of income until a virus decimated the beds a decade ago. Marine scientists are struggling to revive the industry. The Urbanna Oyster Festival still attracts thousands each November, but most of the oysters are imported.
Sailers and power boaters dodge colorful crabpot floats on the creeks and rivers during the summer. But last year the obstacles diminished as fewer and fewer crabs were found. Overharvesting has become critical.
The Northern Neck, 815 square miles of woods, farms and small towns, claims a population of about 44,000. Many are retirees and summer refugees from the rat races of the Hampton Roads, Washington, D.C., and Richmond areas.
The natives call us "Come heres."
There are no cities. Just towns (some even have traffic lights) and green signs on two-lane roads. The nearest interstate, I-95, races through Richmond some 70 miles west. Norfolk is about 70 miles south; Fredericksburg about 70 miles north.
Wild nightlife is miles away. But there's plenty of peaceful dining available on the Northern Neck. Seafood, of course, is primary fare. Many restaurants feature water views. Some patrons arrive by boat.
The Lancaster Tavern serves inexpensive home-cooked meals in a dining room built in 1790. For the well-heeled, there's the Windmill Point Dockside Hearth on the Chesapeake or the Tides Inn on Carter Creek -The Homestead with yachts!
For history buffs, there's plenty of it, starting with the estimated 20,000 Indians of the Powhatan Confederation whose ancestors had roamed this land for 10,000 years.
Capt. Smith explored the Northern Neck in 1607, reportedly as a prisoner of Chief Opechacanough, and left the first written records and maps. The Northern Neck is a mixture of English and Indian heritage: Lancaster, Richmond, Northumberland and Westmoreland counties; Rappahannock, Corrotoman and Potomac rivers. Across the Rappahannock, the English imported old-world county names of Essex, Middlesex, Gloucester.
The Northern Neck was so isolated that the Revolutionary and Civil wars passed it by. So many of the 16th- and 17th-century buildings survived the pillage.
Among them are Christ Church in Irvington, built in 1735 by Robert "Ring" Carter, a major tobacco plantation owner. It's a National Historic Landmark, still in use and open to the public. St. Mary's White Chapel, founded in 1669, is still alive in a building built around 1740. Public tours are available.
The Lancaster County birthplace of Mary Ball Washington, George's mother, is still a private residence. Fox Hill Plantation, a private home in Lively, has survived since 1761.
The Richmond County Courthouse, built about 1748-49, is the oldest still in use in the Northern Neck. Mount Airy, another state and national landmark built in 1748, is still a private home.
Westmoreland County, where the Potomac's Colonial Beach was once a steam boat destination for vacationers from Baltimore and Washington, is the birthplace of George Washington, James Monroe, Robert E. Lee and the Leedstown Resolutions of 1766, forerunner of the Declaration of Independence.
Northumberland County on the Potomac also claims many historic sites of the 17th and 18th centuries. The entire town of Heathsville, founded in 1679, is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Fishing charters and cruises to Tangier and Smith islands in the bay and St. Mary's City, Md., attract many tourists.
Antique shops and museums of Colonial and maritime lore abound.
The Northern Neck is far from the beaten path, so you need good directions or good luck to find it. We just stumbled on it, like Columbus "discovering" America and Capt. Smith "discovering" the bay.
Ten years ago, when we couldn't afford a real vacation to New England, Maine or Nova Scotia, we decided to explore the East Coast of our home state. Don't ask me how we ended up buying a piece of it. It was like a vortex of circumstances that sucked us into a mortgage up to our eyeballs.
Jo and I had learned to sail on Smith Mountain Lake. We enjoyed a decade of cruising and racing there. But let's face it. The creeks, the rivers and the Chesapeake are sailing heaven.
The Northern Neck looks nautical. It sounds nautical. It even smells nautical. And from our front yard, we could sail around the world.
That's the theory, anyway. Fat chance of us venturing out of the Chesapeake, except with an experienced captain and crew - on the OE2.
The Berrys, who lived Montvale, also fell for the Northern Neck after a few visits to our place. They bought our neighbor's 25-foot sailboat. A couple of years ago, they found their dream home on Meyer Creek. Last December, they moved here full time.
"Friendship and sailing got us here," Diane Berry said. "I've always wanted to live on the water, all my life."
Dave Berry took early retirement from C&P Telephone Co. in Roanoke last year and got a similar job within commuting distance of their new home.
Diane, data processing manager for Orvis in Roanoke, struck a deal with her bosses to continue her job by computer -commuting the information highway instead of U.S. 460.
Jo and I had no intention of buying property when we were tourists a decade ago. We were nosing around Deltaville, visiting marinas and boat yards, when it happened: a little yellow house on Broad Creek with a "For Sale" sign on it.
That started the pipe dreams. Buy the house. Quit our jobs. Work around boats. Sew sail covers and boat tops for a living.
Get real!
Reason prevailed. We didn't buy the house. But it started us dreaming about retirement on the water 15 years down the road.
The real estate guy showed us all kinds of stuff that just wouldn't do: A scrub-covered, narrow lot on the Rappahannock was just a stone's throw from the water - 300 feet straight down! An exclusive subdivision had covenants and deed restrictions to keep the riff-raff out.
Sir, you have met the riff-raff and they are us!
When we told him we weren't interested, he said with disdain, "Well, to find what you want want at the price you want, you'll have to go on the other side."
The other side of what?
The other side of the Rappahannock. It was like he was condemning us to the Black Hole of Calcutta.
We crossed the Robert O. Norris Jr. Memorial Bridge from Middlesex to Lancaster County and found another agent on the other side.
We waded through swamps, brambles and chiggers until there was only one place left. We weaved along country roads. We crossed the Corrotoman River on a free, state-run two-car ferry.
At the end of a dirt road we trudged through a woods to the top of a hill overlooking Neyer Creek, Yankee Point Marina and a forest of sailboat masts.
"Pssst, Com'ere," Jo whispered, frantically waving me away from the real estate guy. "This is it! I want this! This is it!"
It was more good luck that Jo and I built our vacation house and future retirement home three years before anyone knew the Roanoke Times & World-News would offer early retirement to employees 55 or older.
How could I refuse?
Jo, an elementary school librarian in Roanoke County for 20 years, landed a similar job with Westmoreland County schools just two months later.
Maggie Rose, the dog, again dropped her ball at my feet. And Maggie Rose, the boat, was at peace. Her rigging was silent. The wind had quieted. Meyer Creek was like glass. The afternoon sun was warm.
Spring, at last, had come to the Northern Neck.
Jack Chamberlain, former education writer for the Roanoke Times & World-News, was assistant editor of the paper's New River Valley bureau when he retired in 1993
by CNB