Behind the Blog: Pumpkin Pie and Shark Teeth

In some of my other posts I have forgotten to mention what a dashing, muscular, mariner my husband is. That Pat, he’s the cat’s pajamas!

(Pssst, its really me Pat. I just thought I’d highjack Jo’s column and so here’s some thoughts about cruising from the other side of the boat. And, while I’m at it, don’t believe that towing stuff she wrote, we could have gotten the boat off that sand bar without a tow boat, I just needed some more time and a bigger dinghy. Coincidentally, about the size of a tow boat.)

I sometimes can’t believe that we’re getting to do this trip. Before we ever got going I imagined days like two we just had recently so I thought I’d share. Here goes.

When we provisioned recently, Joanna mentioned something about making a pumpkin pie. For a surprise, I snuck off to the coffee isle and got some pumpkin spice coffee to go with the pie. We motored all day in calm conditions to make some progress down the Potomac. It’s a long river. When we motor in a calm, Jo goes below and passes some of the time by doing what she really enjoys, cooking, really well. While I was steering the boat, Jo brought up from below four fantastic crab cakes which I devoured. The kids weren’t as keen on their crab cakes so I got a couple of more. Delicious!! But, the kids did do pretty well on their boat schooling lessons which was a BIG plus.

Later in the afternoon, the kids had gotten Jo into a Halloween kind of mood and talked her into letting them carve the pumpkin we had on board.

Then Jo started in with the pumpkin pies. So that the kids could keep their newly minted jack-o-lantern, Jo supplemented with butternut squash. For a snack we had hot kettle corn that she made in her miracle cast iron Dutch oven. More good stuff comes out of that thing than I can believe.

Toward the end of the day we ducked into a not so great anchorage because we were running out of daylight. The wind was making a nasty chop and we had (according to Jo) “learned our lesson about anchoring in strange places after dark”. Besides, despite all the snacking, everyone was ready for dinner. Although it was a bit chilly out, the cabin of the boat was snug and warm and everyone had a great dinner. The salad with crumbled crab cake on top and fresh pumpkin pie for dessert was as good as it gets.

Because the anchorage was a bit rolly, no one slept very well. But in the morning all was calm. Drew decided to make pumpkin spiced coffee for mom and dad and we all sat down to a breakfast of pumpkin pie. This isn’t the way we usually start our most important meal of the day but heck we’re cruising and if we want pie for breakfast then so be it!

While pulling up the anchor late in the morning, we noticed a guy in a small power boat standing off and taking pictures of us. It was a bit odd and so we waved at him in hopes that he’d stop over and let us know what he was up to.

When he did come by we learned that his name was Peter and that he lived on shore near where we anchored. He said that he’d seen us come in the night before and hoped that we’d be around in the morning so that he could take some pictures of our boat. He is retired and an amateur photographer. He offered to send us some pictures of the boat and we gladly provided him our email address.

While we talked with Peter he told us about an island about twelve miles down the river where we would be able to find prehistoric shark teeth washed up on the beach. With that information, we had our plan for the day. That’s a great thing about cruising, you make most of it up as you go along.

The kids did their lessons while we motored (calm again) down the river and a couple of hours later we were anchored in Nomini Bay, VA just off of Elbow Point. We spent several hours ashore walking a pristine sandy beach by ourselves. There was no one else on the island. But, as Peter promised, there were plenty of really cool fossilized shark teeth.

We collected a bunch and then headed back to the boat. We spent some time making shark tooth jewelery. Emily loves here shark tooth earrings and I haven't taken off my shark tooth necklace.

After a late lunch we decided that we’d stay put for the night and enjoy another quite anchorage, some wonderful early fall weather, and the spectacle of bald eagles fishing from the river. These are indeed, the days . . .