The Chesapeake Bay of Virginia offers many wonderful places for Great Loopers to visit – Norfolk, Yorktown, Deltaville, Onancock, Smith Island – to name a few. It’s difficult to select which ones to see. Thanks to our good friends, Bob and Pat James, who reside in Cape Charles, our next stop after Portsmouth was Cape Charles, to visit them. We phoned Bob when we arrived at the Cape Charles Town Marina. Bob wasn’t kidding when he said he lived near the marina. He and his dog Wilson arrived in minutes – on their golf cart!

Bob helped Pat clean the boat (thank you, Bob!) and then played tour guide in his golf cart as he showed us some of the sites. The first was this memorial being built to honor those who built and attended the Cape Charles Colored School.

Cape Charles is located close to the mouth of the Chesapeake bay on the eastern shore. The town has a population of about 1,000. The town was founded in 1884 by William Scott as a planned community of railroad and ferry interest. The railroad connected the towns on the eastern shores of Maryland to facilitate the transport of goods and produce to markets further south including Norfolk.

Our first night Bob and Pat treated us to dinner at the Island House in Wachapreague, Virginia. The restaurant had great seafood and spectacular waterfront views.

Following dinner we drove to Oyster, a small unincorporated community not far from Cape Charles. It is at an elevation of three feet above sea level.

The drive to the restaurant and to Oyster was so scenic. We even saw in a field at least 20 deer just grazing. Here are some photos from our visit to Oyster.

The next day Captain Pat had the boat engines serviced. We found a mechanic via the AGLCA Facebook page. I took the opportunity to walk downtown and to the beach – both just minutes from our marina. I fell in love with this little town. There are a number of historic homes featuring different architectural styles, including Victorian, Colonial Revival, and craftsman.

Patrick described this town as “stepping back into the ’50s.” Neighbors sit on their front porches enjoying the sunsets and their swings and rocking chairs. You can walk anywhere – or take your golf cart. It’s small town living with a beautiful beach and wonderful restaurants and shops. I definitely want to come back! Here are photos from our visit to Cape Charles.

We left Cape Charles and anchored overnight on Tangier Island. The weather was rainy and wet, and continued most of the night.

Tangier Island has a population of about 700 people. Since 1850, the land mass has been reduced by 67%. Under the mid-range sea level rise scenario, much of the remaining landmass is expected to be lost in the next 50 years and the town will likely be abandoned.

Initial settlers in the 1770’s were farmers. In the late 19th century, the islanders began to become more dependent on harvesting crabs and oysters from the Chesapeake Bay. As the waterman livelihood became more important and lucrative, there were often conflicts among the oyster dredgers and oyster tongers in the bay, and between those living in Maryland and those living in Virginia.

Many people who live on Tangier speak a distinctive dialect of American-English. Scholars have disputed how much of the dialect is derived from British-English lexicon and phonetics. The persistence of this dialectal variety is often attributed to the geographic isolation of the population from the mainland. Tangier Island is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Tangier today is a quiet village and place to explore and observe the Chesapeake Bay waterman’s lifestyle. characterized by fishermen who go out daily to in search of crabs and oysters. Tangier has the feel of a small British town somewhere in the Caribbean or the Bahamas.

Here are some photos from our visit to Tangier Island.