"Rosalie B." wrote in message
...
Larry wrote:

Rosalie B. wrote in
m:

But your eyesight is faulty - we just put
the boat in the water about 2 weeks ago - stuff doesn't grow quite
that fast around here.

Oh, sorry. It must have been all that new bottom paint I could see
reflected off the bottom......(c;

That's OK g

This is the rest of the story

I decided that we could go out Wednesday and come back Monday as I
thought I had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday. Actually it was
Monday afternoon, but I thought it was Tuesday because my last
doctor's appointment (dermatologist) was on Tuesday. The
dermatologist gave me a clean bill of health, but emphasized that with
two close relatives with melanomas (Bob and me), all of my children
should get seen ASAP if they have not done so.

The last time I suggested going out, Bob said it was too hot and no
wind. This time the weather was going to be cool and the wind from
the north and west for two days and then turn around and be from the
south. So I thought - go south and then come back north with the
north wind and we'd have a couple of nice days.

So Tuesday I spent researching where we could go to the south, and
I've always wanted to go to Cape Charles and also see the Cape Charles
Light. I didn't realize at the time though, how far south that would
be. So I called a few marinas, and made some reservations. The
marina guy in Cape Charles said it was only 35 miles from Crisfield,
so that would be OK I thought.

Wednesday morning, I still had to shower and pack, and most important
- set the computers up for the trip. I wanted to put the old Toshiba
(Windows 98) in an old computer bag and couldn't find the bag, and I
also needed to be sure that the secondary computer would not be asking
to update the virus definitions automatically when it wasn't attached
to the internet as that makes it freeze.

Of course Bob was impatient to be gone. We did get everything loaded
on the boat and got underway about noon (which was my goal). We were
intending to go to Crisfield. Our main navigation computer got drowned
in Onancock last Labor Day in a storm (we went to dinner and it hadn't
rained in days so we didn't have the boat closed up - my bad). We
haven't used the Toshiba for navigation recently (because it has a
habit of stopping in the middle and just displaying the Toshiba
screen), none of the recent routes and tracks are on it , and I had no
previous track to put on for Bob to follow, so I made a route which
went through the Kedges Straits so I could get a better look at
Solomon's Lump lighthouse.

We motor sailed (the wind was more or less in the predicted direction
but was light at 5 to 9 knots but it was on the tail instead of on the
nose) down the Potomac, and I finally went below and took a nap
because I was tired from all the flurry of leaving. One of the nose
pieces came off of my glasses. When I came up, I saw that we were
not going to be close enough to either Smith Point or Point Lookout
for pictures. Bob said he couldn't fix my glasses without some glue.
About 14:45, we saw six of the small Naval Academy boats (can't
remember what Bob called them) steaming up the bay in formation with
their flags flying. I went down into the aft cabin to read. That's
when the first noise happened.

But we were in the middle of the Chesapeake, so we continued. From
15:15 to 15:30, we were passing the target ship Old Hannibal (a
bombing site), and I took some pictures, and then we saw two different
spiders, one of which was the Holland Island Bar ATON. I'm not sure
what the other one was

We didn't get to Holland Island itself - that is a small marshy piece
of land to the west of South Marsh Island. Its western side faces the
Chesapeake Bay and its east side faces Holland Straits. All sides of
the one and one-half mile long island are surrounded by shallow water
of from one to three feet of depth. It sounds like an interesting
place to go to if we had he appropriate boat for it - it would have to
be a dinghy I guess.

Having the only trees within an eight-mile radius, Holland Island has
several large heron rookeries and hundreds of other shorebirds and
waterfowl also nest here - egrets, curlues, oyster catchers, ospreys,
mallards and black ducks, geese, swan, gulls, terns and now even bald
eagles make their nests the island. Diamondback terrapins lay their
eggs on the sand bars and thousands of fiddler crabs reside in the
cord grass. Some unlikely visitors also come to the island from time
to time. Whitetailed deer sometimes swim across miles of open water to
feed there.

Settled in the last decades of the 1600s, by 1910 approximately 360
people lived on the distinct ridges of high ground. There were
several general stores, a grade school, church, Red Men's Hall, post
office, a full-time doctor and minister, and a thriving fleet of
workboats, including schooners and 55 skipjacks. A typical home was
roomy with many windows for the family to keep an eye on the sails of
the boats working in the distance and to provide light during the
daylight hours.

By 1920 the erosion from wind and tide was taking its toll on the
island's bay (west) side. By 1922 most of the residents of Holland
Island were forced to leave. Many residents moved their homes, piece
by piece, to mainland sites. Today, only one home remains. The
island's size has been reduced by erosion from approximately 160 acres
in 1915 to approximately 80 acres today. Many former residents still
rest in the island's burial sites. Two graveyards are left on the
island, and one has been lost beneath the waves. Some families moved
their loved-one's remains before they were claimed by the sea to the
graveyard beside the old church. Of the two remaining burial sites
there is a family plot of a dozen graves. The other, is the main
cemetery with over 50 graves.

We did see the Holland Island Bar spider. This automated beacon which
was placed here on the screwpile foundation of the previous lighthouse
by the Coast Guard in 1960.

The original ATON here was a hexagonal screwpile light which was built
in 1899 on Holland Island Bar to mark the approach to the Kedges
Straits. Since Holland Island Bar was located in the center of the bay
its relative isolation made it a more difficult assignment than some
of the other bay lights. In the winter of 1917-1918, assistant keeper
W. F. McDorican struggled alone for a month to keep the light
operational, despite terrible snowstorms and ice. Head keeper C. C.
Tyler had gone ashore just prior to the storms, and was unable to
return once the weather turned foul. An exhausted McDorican finally
conceded and walked from the lighthouse across the frozen bay to
Holland Island.

Holland Island Bar's isolation also contributed to the mystery
surrounding the death of keeper Ullman Owens in 1931. Keeper Owens,
who had served since 1911, was last seen alive on March 11, 1931.
Shortly afterwards, keeper Henry Sterling of Solomons Lump light
observed that Holland Island Bar was not lit. Sterling's light was not
equipped with a radio, so Sterling had to wait until a vessel came
within hailing distance to communicate his concerns. Sterling finally
was able to flag down the Winnie and Estelle, whose first mate, H. J.
Garner, agreed to check on the keeper. On the way, Garner was joined
by oyster boat captain John Tawes Tyler of Crisfield.

Garner and Tyler arrived at the Holland Island Bar light to find a
horrific and bizarre scene. Keeper Ullman was dead in the kitchen. The
kitchen was in disarray, as if there had been an altercation. There
were blood stains throughout the station, and a bloody butcher's knife
near Ullman's body. Despite the blood, there was no visible sign of
any gunshots or stab wounds on Ullman's body - only scrapes and
bruises.

A later autopsy revealed that Ullman suffered a cracked skull - a far
more severe injury than identified in the initial examination. On May
12, federal agent C. J. Callahan testified that he overheard Guy
Parkhurst, arrested for rum running, say "There go the rats that
turned us in. Well, the lighthouse keeper got in the headlines. We did
that. What these rats get will be worse."

Further complicating matters was that Ullman had several girlfriends -
two of whom left their husbands. Some surmised that one of the
ex-husbands was responsible for the keeper's demise. Ultimately,
however, the investigation was closed as the autopsy revealed an
enlarged heart - symptomatic of heart disease. The ruling that Ullman
died of natural causes stood, and the case was closed.

In another incident, a Japanese freighter collided with the lighthouse
on a particularly foggy day. Fortunately, the freighter did not hit
the lighthouse squarely - the freighter rolled off and continued on
course.

Further misfortune befell the lighthouse on the night of February 19,
1957. Nearby, an old grounded hull of the Hannibal was frequently used
as target practice by pilots at the nearby Navy stations. One night,
three pilots confused the lighthouse for the hulk. Flares were dropped
at the "target" site, and three ADSN Skyraiders fired seven five-inch
rockets - three of which hit the lighthouse. Fortunately, the practice
rockets did not carry explosives, but they still managed to tear holes
in the walls and cut several of the cast-iron legs. The keepers
radioed the Coast Guard, and the lighthouse was evacuated. The next
day, shaken but unhurt, the four Coastguardsmen returned to the
station to begin repairs.

We approached and passed Solomon's Lump around 1700. This is a
strange looking lighthouse - it has a tower on one side of a caisson
that is much bigger. This site originally had another screwpile
lighthouse which was built in 1875, But in 1893, that lighthouse was
destroyed by pressures from the winter ice. Although it was not swept
away, the Lighthouse Board reported the structure "was pushed over so
that part of it is submerged. Instead of building another screwpile
light, the board opted for a caisson design.

Solomons Lump Lighthouse is one of only eleven light structures in the
United States sunk by the pneumatic process. This meant that water was
pumped out of a chamber in the lower reaches of the caisson, so that
workers could enter and move dirt and sand away from the caisson's
'cutting edge.' At the same time, this edge was pushed farther down
into the shoal by the addition of concrete and stone weight in the
cast iron cylinder. A twenty-five foot tall, octagonal brick keeper's
dwelling was built atop the cylinder. This dwelling was built around a
square brick lantern tower, which formed two of the eight sides of the
house.

Before the installation of radio and telephone technology in the 1920s
there was no way for the keepers to communicated with the mainland.
The keepers were forced to make an eight-mile journey in a small skiff
for shore leave, and the opportunity to visit family was seldom
delayed except in extreme weather. During the service of keeper Henry
Columbus Sterling, who oversaw the lighthouse from 1900 to 1937,
keepers worked for one week and had shore leave for one week. This
meant that Sterling had to take four trips to and from the shore a
month, which he made in a tiny sailboat.

In 1936, shortly before Sterling retired at age 65, there was a great
freeze and the Jane's Island light was swept away by ice. Sterling's
son, concerned for his father's safety, climbed atop the Ice Plant in
Crisfield in a desperate attempt to determine if the lighthouse was
still standing. Although the light still shone, Sterling had in fact
abandoned the station and walked across the heavy ice to the safety of
Smith Island (much like his predecessors had done in 1893, when the
first station was wrecked). Sterling had initially been unwilling to
escape the potential danger, but was ordered to abandon via a note,
which was dropped to him from a plane.

Solomons Lump was converted to unmanned status in April of 1950, and
the keeper's house deteriorated and was demolished. The tower is
still there though, and it looks peculiar.

During the nomination in 1996 of the Solomons Lump Lighthouse for the
National Register of Historic Places, it was concluded that the
station was not eligible as the "station's integrity was compromised
when the integral keeper's quarters was demolished."

I called Somers Cove Marina where we had a reservation to ask them
what would happen if we got in after 1900, and they gave me a slip
assignment and the number of the night watchwoman. I asked if we
could just tie up to the bulkhead, and they said that the end of D
dock was open, so I said I'd take that. I figured it would be easier.
They didn't think that it would be past 7 if we were in Kedges
Straits.

And I thought we might make it too. We were at the Jane Island light
by 6:30. But we didn't get to the entrance channel to the harbor
until 7:10. So I called the night watchlady, and she helped us tie
up and brought us the information packet with the gate combination
numbers. Bob tipped her $5.00. We asked if the Original Captains
Galley were open and they said not, but the Cove WAS open.

We stuck everything below and locked up and went to walk over to the
Cove. We were passing some people with foam take-away boxes in their
hands, and I asked where they had eaten and they said the Cove and it
was excellent, but they were closing in 10 minutes (at 2000). So we
hurried up.

This was the restaurant where Bob really liked the crab cakes so he
ordered a one crab cake dinner for $15.99, and I got the special which
was Crab Imperial with two sides for $9.99. We both got asparagus
which was the vegetable of the day as one of our sides, and Bob got
cole slaw and I got potato salad. They brought us two biscuits which
tasted like they had honey butter in them and two that were made with
pumpkin or sweet potato. My crab imperial proved to be a crab cake
with a rich topping on it which tasted by itself like a cheese and
tartar sauce custard. I could only eat half of it and got it in a box
to go. We had virgin pina coladas for dessert ($3.99 each). Still a
fairly cheap dinner and really good.

We walked back to the boat. I noticed that there was a restaurant
open in the next block which had a second floor with a kind of
lighthouse thing on the top and there was a flashing light in it. We
made our beds up and Bob tuned the TV to the new digital channels
through the antenna rather than setting up the satellite TV receiver.
We got 5 or 6 channels really nice and clear.

When he looked at the weather, he said that it looked like we were
going to get a thunderstorm and maybe he should put the cockpit
curtains down. So he did that. And we did get a storm with a lot of
lightening and thunder and the electricity went off for a brief moment
or two. I was doing the route to the Cape Charles marina on the
computer, and it turned out to be over 50 miles. So I asked Bob if we
shouldn't forget going there and just to go Deltaville instead. He
agreed.

I downloaded my pictures and edited them, and then went to sleep and
slept soundly all night.



Very entertaining. Now why can't Skip Gundlach learn to write like you? His
stuff is so formulaic and boring compared to yours.

Wilbur Hubbard