Madison Lohr works in daycare in New Castle, where she prefers tykes over older children. Mark Mikolhoff works two jobs. “I’m a chef at Chuck Tanner’s Restaurant in New Castle, named for the Cleveland Indian baseball player. I also cook for Grove City College, where I specialize in international foods. The restaurant is tricky these days because we will be limited to 50 patrons starting Friday when the next phase of the lockdown opening begins. We normally can seat 130.”
Madison turned over the helm to Mark as we tacked downriver on an east wind that was building to 10 mph. (The forecast was for westerlies at 6.) She said, “I haven’t been on a boat since Alaska. My church mission went there for two weeks, and we got to go out on a small shrimp boat, just two of us at a time. I recall very bumpy waters, but we caught something every time.” An hour later, she pointed to a passing motorboat. “There it is! A little boat just like that one passing by us.”
Chuck Tanner was a minor player in Major League Baseball, but he famously managed the 1979 Pirates to the World Series championship. I recalled for Mark when as a youngster I saw Bill Mazeroski hit a ninth inning home run to win the 1960 championship over the New York Yankees. It was stunning, simply stunning, because the Yankees never lost in these situations and suddenly were toast.
A few days later we went from a honeymoon cruise to a drinking cruise. Three couples from Richmond picked a glorious June day to sail on the York and commemorate two birthdays and a pending wedding. With three bottles of wine and copious beer, they toasted each other and told rioutous stories about their friendships over the years. They moved back and forth to the bow and brought out meatballs and cheeses for lunch. Everyone got a crack at the helm in light winds that drifted us under the Coleman Bridge. Their laughter was infectious. Nobody talked about work or the nation’s troubles.
Next, we went from a honeymoon cruise to a family cruise. John Kruger of New Kent used to sail solo with me. Last year he brought his daughter Noelle to teach her the ropes. This time he brought the entire family, and they got to run the spinnaker in light winds on a summer adventure. 
As we approached the Chesapeake Bay, John recalled a memory of someone he knew who navigated similar big waters. “We worked a project for a gentleman who was powerboating off the North Carolina coast when he hit a container ship that was partially submerged. It had fallen off a freighter at sea. He sank in 12 minutes but made it to his dinghy. He was stranded out there for three hours. Next, he bought a boat in Lido Beach, Florida, that was salvaged after sinking. Can you imagine what he was thinking? I told him I wasn’t going out with him anytime soon.”
Her husband David retired as the fire chief of Danville and just won the coveted job of fire chief for Williamsburg. I told him it would be a honeymoon cruise of a job, since Williamsburg is so well run and on a manageable scale. 
According to Chat GPT, illegal or abandoned crab pots—known as “ghost pots”—are a growing concern in the York River, with thousands being removed due to their environmental impact. The ones pictured here are not abandoned, just illegal. They form the end of a long string of pots recently dropped along
Windsurfing, kitesurfing, surfing and parasailing are all exhilarating water sports, but each offers a distinct experience shaped by its equipment, technique and environment. We got into this one day with friends of Jeanne Kushabar, a member of our Encore Sailing group. They are repeat customers who get a discount. Ron
I asked Chat GPT for 100 metaphors and 2 seconds later, these came up solid. Let’s Go Sail the York River tomorrow.