Winter Harbor

Sunday morning I received a text from my friends Glenda and Billy asking if I'd like to join them for an afternoon boat ride.

Why yes.  As a matter of fact I would love to join them for a boat ride!

I met them at the landing at Peary, and away we went to an isolated beach just around the bend.

This was only the second boat ride I've taken this summer, and the first time I've been outside for any extended period of time since my surgery almost two weeks ago.  It was a much-needed excursion that was long overdue.

This week is the busiest of the year at work, but thankfully I have a vacation looming just around the corner next week.  So although it will be like running a half-marathon this week, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

I'll post more pictures from this boat trip later in the week.

To read about other adventures with Glenda and Billy, click here and here 

Catherine's 50th

Once upon a time, a friend named Catherine turned 50 and decided she wanted to take a two-hour cruise from Tappahannock up the Rappahannock River to Ingleside Vineyards  in we still don't know which county we were in the Northern Neck.

So she did.

She invited a group of friends, one of whom bestowed her with this hat which declared not only that she was an "old coot" (on the back) but also over the hill.  Another of her friends called her Edith Bunker, but that's not really what we're focusing on here today, pearls and actual resemblances notwithstanding.

Catherine spent much of the boat ride there and back regaling her friends with stories.  I'm here to tell you right now, if there is one person on this planet who needs her own reality TV show, it's Catherine Miller Owens.  She can spin a tale complete with hand gestures, facial expressions, perfect pauses, and just the right words to keep everyone in stitches.

To tell the truth, Catherine's story-telling motions were so lively they drew the attention of the older passengers sitting inside the boat.  I peered through the window more than a few times and caught a whole row of people spellbound--and they couldn't even hear what she was saying.

It just doesn't matter with Catherine.  She's hilarious.

Catherine, Alda and Christine

Alda and Lawrence

Catherine's husband Willie B. (making sure she didn't flail herself overboard with her hand gestures),
Catherine and Lisa

When we arrived at the winery, the disembarkation process was smooth.
Here Laura Lane, Catherine and Teresa make the trip down the dock.

The birthday girl, who is also a nurse, received what she called a "laceration" on her upper thigh in a recent boating incident. I wish I could say she was showing the crowd her laceration here,
but alas I cannot.  She was just posing for a picture.

Merlot grapes had just been harvested when we arrived at the winery.
Here, Catherine samples a few.

After a very educational talk about how the wine is made, we sampled some of the wines.
Although I'm more of a merlot fan, I liked their Chesapeake Chardonnay
best of all those sampled.

We enjoyed lunch in their lovely courtyard. There's also a very interesting museum on site.

On the boat ride back to Tappahannock, a feather boa suddenly appeared from nowhere.

And glasses.

It was a great day.

Catherine took the time on the cruise over to say what she appreciated most about each of her friends in attendance.  I'd like to say to Catherine that I appreciate her unconditional friendship.

But most of all, I think she has a true gift.  When nothing or nobody else can, she can make me laugh. She is the queen of telling stories and the queen of physical comedy.  When she mentioned going in to the winery how much she wished she could get barefoot in a barrel of grapes and stomp the heck out of them, I realized then and there that she takes after one of the greats:  Lucille Ball.

She's a one-of-a-kind mess, a comedienne extraordinaire--whether she knows it or not--and we love her.

Just as she is.

Happy 50th birthday, Catherine!

The End.

50th Birthday

Once upon a time, a girl named Glenda decided to celebrate her foray into a foreign age known as 50 by inviting friends to a beach-side party on an island just off New Point.

As usual, Chesapeake Bay Woman was thrilled to be invited but relied on the kindness of others to deliver her from shore to the destination, since a boat is required.  The last two times she joined this group on beach adventures, there were all sorts of misadventures, such as tires falling off trailers and other assorted boat trailer structural issues.

(Click here and here for those stories.)

The point is, CBW knows there is never a guarantee that just because one has received an invitation to such an unusual event as a birthday party on a deserted island that one is ever going to make it there due to Murphy's Law, weather, and/or the syndrome known as Tire, Boat and Other Structural Issues Preventing Maritime Mirth.

Therefore, everyone was relieved when at least the majority of the people and boats scheduled to show 

up at New Point actually did.

Above, Alda and Lawrence start unloading their boat, which they took from Horn Harbor Marina to New Point.

They followed the boat I was in which belongs to Billy and Birthday Girl Glenda.

Coming "around the horn" there was--evidently--lots of wind.  I say evidently because all was lost on me, the kid in the candy shop.  Thrilled to be out there, I took every bounce on a wave like a ride at Busch Gardens.  Throwing my hands up in the air, fists clenched,  I yelled directly into the sea spray coming off the side of the boat that drenched our faces and plastered our hair down. "BRING IT!"

It's hard to notice that there might be reason to be worried or concerned or careful when one is so caught up in having fun.  But it happens.

While CBW was busy being oblivious, Captain Billy carefully navigated slowly and methodically so that Alda and Lawrence, in a smaller boat behind us, were able to safely negotiate the incoming wind and waves.

The sun was shining, the temperature was perfect, and, aside from a choppy ride over that took a little longer than anyone expected, everyone was happy.

(The passengers on Alda and Lawrence's boat may have had other opinions.  But it was all good. Everybody made it without incident.)

(Well, almost everybody made it.)

After hearing how choppy the bay was, the rest of the birthday party--that included Catherine, Willie B. and Laura Lane--were told to please participate in Plan B, which did not involve taking a small craft out into the bay but rather entailed driving to the dock at Davis Creek and merely stepping aboard Craig's boat. Craig then safely delivered them to the island.

Everybody made it to the destination safe and sound.

The unloading of the boats began.

When these people set up shop on a deserted beach out in the middle of nowhere, they come well-prepared, let me tell you.  We had everything from cocktail wieners to 65 pieces of Best Value's delectable fried chicken, deviled eggs, baked beans and a one-of-a-kind birthday cake.

And that's just the start of what came off these boats. You'd have thought we were setting up for a wedding reception.

Absolute strangers came over to our area because they could smell the food and couldn't believe the spread.

These are no amateur party throwers, these friends of mine.

Here Chip delivers the box of Best Value fried chicken off the boat.  If he wasn't telling
himself, "Please Lord  don't let me drop this," I guarantee you every single one of us
drooling starving on shore was thinking--or maybe even shouting-- it.
That was some GOOD fried chicken.  And every piece did make it ashore without incident.

This was our main base of operations, before the buffet line food was set up.

Carol Ann and Lisa

Here the buffet stations food area started taking shape.
There was everything you could possibly imagine.

Glenda's cake.  

Willie B., Craig and Lawrence 

Here Alda poses innocently (?) with Birthday Girl Glenda's boyfriend

Birthday Girl Glenda and Alda's husband Lawrence
appear to be oblivious to what is going on in the photo above.

Carol Ann, who is indeed irresistible.  Or irresistable.
No matter how it's spelled, that's what she is.

Laura Lane

Catherine and Laura Lane.
(With lots of hand gestures to accompany the story.)

Lawrence

Craig

Willie B

Chip

Dear Chip, I know we've gone over this before, but I truly am sorry for stabbing
you in the hand with a pencil in Whatever Early Grade at Gloucester Day School.
Also, thanks for not dropping that box of Best Value chicken into the Chesapeake Bay.
We all greatly appreciate that. Truly.

Dear Billy, Thank you for delivering us safely to and from shore even
if one of your passengers was behaving like a teenager on a roller coaster
during the choppier moments. You have a great deal of patience.

Alda's daughter Betsy

OK.

So before we move on to the next photo, there's a story to tell relating to the aforementioned choppy waves on the bay.

As the day was winding down, we noticed the wind had picked up even more. Enough that everyone started to get cold.

That was the sign for us to leave.

Everyone else went back to Chip and Carol Ann's dock which did not require a trip "around the horn" into the choppy bay.

Those of us in Billy and Glenda's boat--which is a substantial boat--ventured back the way we came, very slowly.

There were more waves than before, and it seemed to take way longer to move any sort of distance, but some of us were still viewing it as a thrill ride--even with water now splashing around our knees ankles due to the water splashing into the boat.

The long story short is Captain Billy made an executive decision to turn around and head back to Chip and Carol Ann's dock, where we were greeted by the slightly worried welcoming crew below.

This is a Before Shot of Kain, who, along with his girlfriend Ashley, rode in the boat with us.
See how he looks like a strong, confident football player here?  

Well, by the time the return boat trip was over, Kain looked like this.
To survive what felt like an episode of Deadliest Catch,
Kain had donned Ashley's purple strapless terry cloth cover-up to keep warm.

Kain was so traumatized, he didn't even care whether everything
was covered up by the purple cover-up.

There was a lot of stuff going on.  

Everyone was relieved to 
be on solid ground, safe and sound,
no matter what we were doing for warmth.

The calm here is in such stark contrast to the trip we had just survived endured.

Glenda and Carol Ann

Aside from a few bumpy boat rides, the day was filled with fun and laughter.

Happy birthday to Glenda, and my thanks to everyone there 

for allowing me to join along in the Deadliest Catch episode fun.