THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 6, 1994 TAG: 9407060369
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: AROUND THE BAY IN 50 DAYS
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 260 lines
Editor's note: Staff writer Earl Swift is exploring the geography, history and people of the Chesapeake Bay on a 50-day kayak trip that began June 1.
Ron Booker's comment was so offhanded that I didn't pay it much mind at the time.
``Just about every day in the summertime they forecast thunderstorms,'' he'd said, as we sat on the beach Sunday, the sky cloudless, on Savage Neck on Virginia's Eastern Shore.
Eight hours later I was cursing myself for not heeding his casual remark, as a ferocious storm assaulted my campsite on an abandoned island farther north.
It came without warning. I'd been reading in my tent at 9:30 p.m. after a dinner cooked by gasoline stove on Honeymoon Island, a tiny, crescent-shaped lump of sand at the mouth of Hungars Creek, northwest of Eastville. I shared the place with a thicket of bush-sized trees, about 100 Canada geese and the ruins of an oystering shack. Darkness had settled over the creek's mouth. The fishermen were in for the night, their houses illuminated on mainland necks across the creek's flat, shallow water. A whispering breeze ruffled the tent's thin nylon walls.
In moments, the wind whipped over the water from the west in gusts of 40 knots or better, ripping my tent's stakes loose and cartwheeling the entire shelter onto its side. I crammed all my gear into its windward corners, and still they lifted; for 20 minutes I lay spread-eagle on the tent's floor, holding its corners in place, as the wind pushed the creek to within a few feet. Then the lightning came, flashing so brightly and frequently that the tent's interior seemed lit by a strobe light. Thunder boomed so loudly that at times the air itself seemed to shake, and for several minutes it sounded as if jet fighters were screaming inches above. I heard my stove, just outside, topple onto its side, along with gallon jugs of water. My steel cookset clanged as it skittered off across the island.
For 80 minutes the air crackled and exploded while I lay sweating, certain a bolt would find my aluminum-framed tent out here on this barren island, the tallest object for a quarter-mile in any direction. When the rain came, it poured so deafeningly against the nylon around me that in no time my supposedly weatherproof abode soaked through, and a puddle was spreading across the floor.
Folks on the Shore are fond of noting that the storms that race over this narrow finger between Bay and ocean don't announce themselves. But given the fine weather I'd enjoyed, I hadn't been much worried by the prospect.
After leaving the Sunset Beach Inn, where I'd stayed after crossing the Bay's mouth, I spent Saturday paddling the kayak along pristine beaches toward Cape Charles, riding a gentle southerly breeze and encountering nothing but sunshine.
After stopping at Kiptopeke State Park to wait for an incoming tide, I paddled north to Picketts Harbor, where a World War II submarine lookout juts from a forest at the Bay's edge.
I put in for lunch, then snaked my way through the woods to the tower on a narrow, berry-lined path that rose and fell with the dunes. At the tower's base, the forest's canopy all but blotted out the sun, and thick vines were woven into the latticework of rusted steel that supported the concrete box high overhead.
Four miles to the north, after close encounters with countless loons and brown pelicans that congregated around gill nets jutting from the beach, I paddled across the harbor at Cape Charles to Kings Creek.
The shoreline, so far, had been almost devoid of visible development - mile after mile of sandy beach slid by, uninterrupted by so much as a house. The scene was much different on the small lobe of land on the north side of Kings Creek and the south of Cherrystone Inlet. I could hear it before I could see it clearly: The Cherrystone Camping Resort, a sprawling RV-style campground with a general store, restaurant, bait-and-tackle shop and hundreds of vacationers from New York and New Jersey.
I climbed ashore and was promptly sideswiped by a girl on a bike. Kids on paddle boats swarmed a small inland pond. TVs blared from camper-trailers. One camper treated himself, me and his neighbors to heavy-metal music, cranked up loud enough to clear the surrounding several miles of wildlife. At one campsite a woman was watering a miniature lawn and flower garden around her screen tent. A sign proclaimed her site ``Seasonal Winner 1993.''
A person can be exhausted by this brand of roughing it, so as soon as I'd picked up a few supplies I headed across Cherrystone Inlet to the seclusion of Savage Neck.
The inlet was crowded with Jet-Skis and powerboats. But when I rounded its southern tip I found myself alone.
The neck's southernmost stretch is owned by Dan Hoffler, a Hampton Roads real estate tycoon who had given me permission to camp on his land. I paddled about half a mile up and camped for the night, pitching my tent on a sandy shelf well above the high-tide mark. There were many signs of man about: A 20-gallon trash can lay broken and half-buried a short distance away. During the night, an empty vodka bottle washed to within feet of the tent. But the next morning, as I walked the beach before shoving off, I made a happy discovery: Deer tracks crisscrossed the sand.
Savage Neck is, despite its ominous name, a quiet place. It was named for Thomas Savage, one of the most skilled go-betweens in talks between early Virginia settlers and Indians. He won such a rapport with the natives that Debedeavon, co-ruler of the ``Kingdom of the Accawmacke,'' gave him this neck of land in 1619.
On Sunday afternoon I reached Tankards Beach, where cornfields abut the sand, and where the Booker family was entertaining friends from Richmond.
Ron Booker, an assistant principal at Northampton High School, grew up within a few miles of Tankards Beach, and before going off to the University of Virginia cooked ketchup in a nearby factory.
Such jobs are gone now. Northampton County is in dire need of industry. And Ron's wife, Sarah, wondered how long it would be before places like Tankards Beach are snatched up by out-of-towners. ``It's going to break my heart if that happens,'' she told me. ``We took the kids down to Virginia Beach last year, and it was one umbrella on top of another, and I spent the whole time trying to keep Cody and Charlie out of everybody else's food and chairs and out of their drinks.'' The kids were playing now in the shade of an umbrella, the only one visible along the shore. ``This is what they were expecting.''
On Monday morning, I meandered around Hungars Creek until I found a channel through the old oyster beds ringing the island, and made it back to the Bay.
Three miles to the north I reached the mouth of Westerhouse Creek as a bank of dark clouds glided from the northeast. Still weary from the previous night's excitement, I beached the kayak on the property of Bill and Karen McCarter, who have framed a house they hope to finish by year's end on a tree-shaded promontory overlooking the beach. Bill, another Northampton High School educator, moved here from Suffolk and found the adjustment trying. ``It felt real remote over here,'' he said. ``And people aren't very friendly.''
He proceeded to belie those words. Not only did he let me beach the boat, but he invited me up for the family's Fourth Of July picnic.
After a feast of fried chicken, crab stew and cake and ice cream with the McCarters, relatives, friends, four dogs, two cats and two chickens, I pushed off again and headed for Belle Haven. MEMO: Swift's next report will appear Sunday.
Staff writer Earl Swift is exploring the geography, history and
people of the Chesapeake Bay on a 50-day kayak trip that began July 1.
Ron Booker's comment was so offhanded that I didn't pay it much mind
at the time.
``Just about every day in the summertime they forecast
thunderstorms,'' he'd said, as we sat on the beach Sunday, the sky
cloudless, on Savage Neck on Virginia's Eastern Shore.
Eight hours later I was cursing myself for not heeding his casual
remark, as a ferocious storm assaulted my campsite on an abandoned
island farther north.
It came without warning. I'd been reading in my tent at 9:30 p.m.
after a dinner cooked by gasoline stove on Honeymoon Island, a tiny,
crescent-shaped lump of sand at the mouth of Hungars Creek, northwest of
Eastville. I shared the place with a thicket of bush-sized trees, about
100 Canada geese and the ruins of an oystering shack. Darkness had
settled over the creek's mouth. The fishermen were in for the night,
their houses illuminated on mainland necks across the creek's flat,
shallow water. A whispering breeze ruffled the tent's thin nylon walls.
In moments, the wind whipped over the water from the west in gusts of
40 knots or better, ripping my tent's stakes loose and cartwheeling the
entire shelter onto its side. I crammed all my gear into its windward
corners, and still they lifted; for 20 minutes I lay spread-eagle on the
tent's floor, holding its corners in place, as the wind pushed the creek
to within a few feet. Then the lightning came, flashing so brightly and
frequently that the tent's interior seemed lit bya strobe light. Thunder
boomed so loudly that at times the air itself seemed to shake, and for
several minutes it sounded as if jet fighters were screaming inches
above. I heard my stove, just outside, topple onto its side, along with
gallon jugs of water. My steel cookset clanged as it skittered off
across the island.
For 80 minutes the air crackled and exploded while I lay sweating,
certain a bolt would find my aluminum-framed tent out here on this
barren island, the tallest object for a quarter-mile in any direction.
When the rain came, it poured so deafeningly against the nylon around me
that in no time my supposedly weatherproof abode soaked through, and a
puddle was spreading across the floor.
Folks on the Shore are fond of noting that the storms that race over
this narrow finger between Bay and ocean don't announce themselves. But
given the fine weather I'd enjoyed, I hadn't been much worried by the
prospect.
After leaving the Sunset Beach Inn, where I'd stayed after crossing
the Bay's mouth, I spent Saturday paddling the kayak along pristine
beaches toward Cape Charles, riding a gentle southerly breeze and
encountering nothing but sunshine.
After stopping at Kiptopeke State Park to wait for an incoming tide,
I paddled north to Picketts Harbor, where a World War II submarine
lookout juts from a forest at the Bay's edge.
I put in for lunch, then snaked my way through the woods to the tower
on a narrow, berry-lined path that rose and fell with the dunes. At the
tower's base, the forest's canopy all but blotted out the sun, and thick
vines were woven into the latticework of rusted steel that supported the
concrete box high overhead.
Four miles to the north, after close encounters with countless loons
and brown pelicans that congregated around gill nets jutting from the
beach, I paddled across the harbor at Cape Charles to Kings Creek.
The shoreline, so far, had been almost devoid of visible development
- mile after mile of sandy beach slid by, uninterrupted by so much as a
house. The scene was much different on the small lobe of land on the
north side of Kings Creek and the south of Cherrystone Inlet. I could
hear it before I could see it clearly: The Cherrystone Camping Resort, a
sprawling RV-style campground with a general store, restaurant,
bait-and-tackle shop and hundreds of vacationers from New York and New
Jersey.
I climbed ashore and was promptly sideswiped by a girl on a bike.
Kids on paddle boats swarmed a small inland pond. TVs blared from
camper-trailers. One camper treated himself, me and his neighbors to
heavy-metal music, cranked up loud enough to clear the surrounding
several miles of wildlife. At one campsite a woman was watering a
miniature lawn and flower garden around her screen tent. A sign
proclaimed her site ``Seasonal Winner 1993.''
A person can be exhausted by this brand of roughing it, so as soon as
I'd picked up a few supplies I headed across Cherrystone Inlet to the
seclusion of Savage Neck.
The inlet was crowded with Jet-Skis and powerboats. But when I
rounded its southern tip I found myself alone.
The neck's southernmost stretch is owned by Dan Hoffler, a Hampton
Roads real estate tycoon who had given me permission to camp on his
land. I paddled about half a mile up and camped for the night, pitching
my tent on a sandy shelf well above the high-tide mark. There were many
signs of man about: A 20-gallon trash can lay broken and half-buried a
short distance away. During the night, an empty vodka bottle washed to
within feet of the tent. But the next morning, as I walked the beach
before shoving off, I made a happy discovery: Deer tracks crisscrossed
the sand.
Savage Neck is, despite its ominous name, a quiet place. It was named
for Thomas Savage, one of the most skilled go-betweens in talks between
early Virginia settlers and Indians. He won such a rapport with the
natives that Debedeavon, co-ruler of the ``Kingdom of the Accawmacke,''
gave him this neck of land in 1619.
On Sunday afternoon I reached Tankards Beach, where cornfields abut
the sand, and where the Booker family was entertaining friends.
Ron Booker, an assistant principal at Northampton High School, grew
up within a few miles of Tankards Beach, and before going off to the
University of Virginia cooked ketchup in a nearby factory.
Such jobs are gone now. Northampton County is in dire need of
industry. And Ron's wife, Sarah, wondered how long it would be before
places like Tankards Beach are snatched up by out-of-towners. ``It's
going to break my heart if that happens,'' she told me. ``We took the
kids down to Virginia Beach last year, and it was one umbrella on top of
another, and I spent the whole time trying to keep Cody and Charlie out
of everybody else's food and chairs and out of their drinks.'' On Monday
morning, I meandered around Hungars Creek until I found a channel
through the old oyster beds ringing the island, and made it back to the
Bay.
Three miles to the north I reached the mouth of Westerhouse Creek as
a bank of dark clouds glided from the northeast. Still weary from the
previous night's excitement, I beached the kayak on the property of Bill
and Karen McCarter, who have framed a house they hope to finish by
year's end on a tree-shaded promontory overlooking the beach. Bill,
another Northampton High School educator, moved here from Suffolk and
found the adjustment trying. ``It felt real remote over here,'' he said.
``And people aren't very friendly.''
He proceeded to belie those words. Not only did he let me beach the
boat, but he invited me up for the family's Fourth Of July picnic.
After a feast of fried chicken, crab stew and cake and ice cream with
the McCarters, relatives, friends, four dogs, two cats and two chickens,
I pushed off again and headed for Belle Haven.
Swift's next report will appear Sunday. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
TIM WOLF
Earl Swift camps on the Eastern Shore's Honeymoon Island before the
storm.
Map
STAFF
DAYS 2-4
by CNB