She Said Yes

Meghan Mannas said yes when Gregory Eyler proposed marriage to her on the bow of a boat during a charter sail with Williamsburg Charter Sails. Brisk breezes required that we move to lee of the wind and let the trees on the Yorktown cliffs slow the force. Otherwise Gregory might have dropped the ring, to say nothing of either of them falling overboard if the boat heeled in a gust. The sails were double-reefed to preclude that.

They knew each other vaguely at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, and then wound up in the same history/archaeology class that was bound for a field trip at Jamestown Island. “I really needed the course,” Meghan said, “to round out my studies in environmental biology. The class was filled but the professor said, ‘Oh come on, anyway.” That puts them as bookends in time to another Jamestown couple, John Rolfe and Pocahontas. As it happens, Meghan and Gregory are staying at Powhatan Resort, named for the father of Pocahontas. We talked briefly about the Disney movie “Pocahontas,” which was box office boffo for Jamestown. To this day, people still ask to see the (nonexistent) waterfalls.

As Gregory got down on bended knee to propose, a passing tugboat pushing a barge tooted his horn as if to say, “Congratulations.” They sailed along the York River in obvious bliss of the moment, with their lives before them.

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