38:20.1N 76:26.1W

 

Hello! In this blog, we visited Gloucester Point, the Piankatank River and Anti-Poison Creek. Not only this, but we also visited Williamsburg and Jamestown, which we got to by hiring a car and driving inland. There, we travelled back in time, firstly to the 1600s, the time of the first settlers in America, in Jamestown and then to 1770, to the very place where the Independence War began, in Williamsburg.

 

We sailed to Gloucester Point on the 6th May, where we moored on the hammerhead berth (the slip at the very end of the pontoon) in Yorkriver Yacht Haven.

What is this passing by our boat?

 

There we hired  car and on the 7th we drove to Williamsburg. This historical town has been converted to look like 1770. We got to see Thomas Jefferson talk about the importance of Williamsburg, Virginia, as it was the very beginning of the Independence War. As we walked down the streets we passed carpenters, tailors and bookbinders. In the shops we saw the wares that would have been sold there in 1770 and the artisans talked to us about how the created these items using methods from the 1700s. It was especially fascinating to learn that the bookbinder had in fact made books for the Queen of England and that there were only 20 fellows in the Master Book Binders Guild, in the world (Of which he was 1 of them.)! We had a traditional (and delicious) lunch in a tavern and waved to horse drawn carriages as they passed. I had a great day, but there was still more to come...

 

Standing by a horse drawn carriage.

 

The next day we took the car to Jamestown, another town of historic interest. However, this time it was converted to look like the 1600s, when the first colonists from England arrived. After watching a short movie explaining the journey of the colonists and looking at artefacts from the time period in a museum, we headed to the towns. The first was an Indian settlement and if you’re a vegetarian, it would not be a nice place to be! The huts where filled with fur and the beds, which were covered in fur, was very comfy!

 

Mum standing in an Indian hut.

 

We watched a man dressed in Indian gear cook food, a lady create needles out of deer bones and another woman creating a basket. I even got a go at grinding corn! Pretty much everything the Indians used was recycled. Take a deer, for example; the hoofs would be used as glue, the meat as food, the skin as clothing and the bones as knives and needles and sinew for thread! Next, we visited the English settlement and it was very different. The houses looked like traditional Tudor houses. We visited a church, watched a man fire a musket, tried on armour and walked  through a traditional English house.

Kerry and I trying on armour.

 

It was very hot, unlike the Indian camp, which was under the shade of the trees. Finally we visited the replicas of the English ships, that would have taken colonists to America. They were very impressive!

 

After our 2 days of cramming history in our heads, we left Gloucester Point and sailed to Piankatank River. After taking our dinghy up a little creek and puncturing a hole in it on the rocks, we narrowly missed the 2 thunderstorms that visited the bay. The next day we sailed to Anti-Poison Creek, so named because, legend tells, that the Indians discovered an anti-poison to John Smith’s sting ray wound (John Smith was the leader of the English colonists for a long time and was famously saved by Pocahontas, who did not, despite what Disney says, marry him. She married John Rolfe.).

 

Sunset over Anti-Poison Creek

 

The next day we sailed to Mill Creek and managed to nab the best spot in the anchorage! And then, on the 13th we crossed borders to the first of our northern states, Maryland and went to another Mill Creek, but still no mill to be seen in either of them.

 

Our next stop is Oxford, where we will spend longer than 1 day in, as we have been doing for the past few days.

 

Goodbye!

Robyn

 

Our next stop will