Sailing Past Hugo
People ask, “What do you do in a hurricane?” “We learned how to make candles by cutting up shoelaces and dipping them in olive oil,” Karen recalled while sailing the York River. “A friend of ours got a call months later from someone who said, ‘Would you please come here and remove your boat from […]
Navigating a Career
People ask, “What’s with the Army’s Navy?” Ft. Eustis is home to the “Army’s Navy,” where soldiers learn everything from becoming a stevedore to captaining a boat. Donald Topping explained while sailing the York. Tens of millions of dollars have been invested to teach 27 discrete programs to Army troops and Navy SEALS. “We owe […]
Sailing with Dolphins
Dolphins showed up late in the season in the York River, with a pod of seven bobbing for 20 minutes near the entrance of the channel to Sarah Creek. Adrienne and Ben Johnson of St. Paul, Minnesota, took their family sailing on a breezy fall afternoon and were wowed by the sight. They were in […]
Sailing Later
Linda Louise Stamper of Indianapolis and her beau Scott dated a few times in high school before graduating in 1960 and going their separate ways to marry and raise families. Years later their spouses passed away. Scott related while sailing the York River how he caught up with Linda, who had developed a successful advertising […]
Sailing with Swashbucklers
People ask, “How did you get trained?” Dedicated mariners traveled to the Annapolis Sailing School in the summer of 2014 from as far as Maine, Los Angeles and Atlanta to qualify for the American Sailing Association’s higher level of instruction in Coastal Navigation and Coastal Cruising. Many of them run sailing schools and charter boats […]
Sailing Crazy
“Right out of college, I worked for the state of New Hampshire under Governor Mel Thomson. He was crazy. One time he shut down the entire state government so everyone could search for his favorite pen because he lost it. He found out the next day that his brother had inadvertently taken it off his […]
Best Sailing Movies
People often ask, “What are the best sailing movies?” Geni and John’s Nautical web page ranks hundreds of movies going back to the 1930s. Dead Calm is a thriller starring Nicole Kidman. It was filmed almost entirely at sea and presents accurately the difficulty of navigating under terrible conditions. White Squall, starring Jeff Bridges, ranks […]
Back to the Bay
Kelly Mikeselle took her family from Indiana on a sightseeing sail June 24, and they got to see dolphins in the York River. It’s the earliest that dolphin have arrived, since they usually show up with the warmer water in August. The river is already 80 degrees. Three fish were spotted frolicking a half-mile south […]
Sailing to Security
“My husband I operate a hardware and country store way outside Richmond. One night after dark as we were preparing to leave, a deputy raced up with his emergency lights on, and I thought, ‘Good, they saw our store lights and responded to check on us.’ My husband was fixing to leave and the two […]
Sailing with Foodies
Mike and Kate Cash of Kansas City enjoyed their honeymoon sailing on the York River. They are avid cooks and devotees of the Food Channel, where they follow acclaimed Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. By sheer luck, we also took aboard Kathi and Chef Ron Gallo of JoJo Restaurant in New York. JoJo is one of 50 […]
