Jun/090
Day 2 – Across the Chesapeake Bay
Here are your options for crossing the Chesapeake bay when you’ve decided to start a bike tour on a peninsula:
The Bay Bridge
We drove over this from DC. Cycling over it would be illegal and a fairly bad idea for anyone who doesn’t want to become a hood ornament for an 18-wheeler.
Bay Tunnel
Right down to the south of the Delmarva peninsula there is a tunnel. A big tunnel. A very big tunnel. Unlike the bay bridge above, there would be no sides to fall off of, but there would be a significant lack of visibility and manouverability.
Ferry from Crisfield, MD to Reedville, VA
A relaxed ferry cruise setting off late enough in the day that you can have some breakfast first, changing over to another ferry at Tangier Island in the middle of the bay. Not only that, but Callum absolutely loved the fact that 1) the ferry did exist (read day 1) and 2) it went from Chris-field to Reid-ville. When I first told dowds about this ferry I hadn’t noticed and he thought I was joking because of the names.
So, based on the names of the ports, the existence of the ferry and the convenient fact that we were in Crisfield to catch a ferry… we caught the ferry. $45 each with bikes which we thought was v reasonable.
On the way there we spoke to a guy about our trip and he told us some stuff about Tangier Island. Apparently a load of mercenaries from Somerset, UK were brought there back in the civil war. They were stranded on the island and the commander decided he had no contractual obligation to pick them up again, so he didn’t. Contract law – screwing people over in a very clean, neat way for centuries. Apparently if you speak to he old people on the island they still have a slight West Country accent. Since I don’t think we gave him the website, I think it’s worth noting that the guy sounded like Big Bird from Sesame Street which made his anecdotes all the more interesting. Callum loved the sound of this and decided that during the changeover he would find an American Bristolian.
Instead, he boarded the second ferry, laid down and fell asleep. Priorities.
Arrived in Reedville expecting a town full of Callum Reid’s where the mayor is a dog and the water towers are filled with cider but it ended up being one of the poshest places we’d seen. Boat captain said that at one point it had the highest income per capita in all the USA.
We planned to do a short ride to a campground in Sunnybank but the boat captain very kindly let us stay on the yard behind the boathouse which had a shower and restrooms and everything like that. This saved he a bit of cash so we thank him greatly. For anyone else in the area, it’s a very nice trip on some nice boats with good tour guide info. The first boat was called the Steven Thomas and the second was the Chesapeake Bay Breeze.
Nipped out to the shops before setting up camp and met some retired couples boating around the coast. It seems that a popular pastime for well-off retired people over here is to just boat around and drink lots of wine each night. Sounds like a hard life.