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Cruising
Stories
The
Virginia Cut
Making it across the Virginia Cut was at times a little confusing,
for a novice and a licensed sea Captain. I later found out reading
the charts and understanding the little signs and pictures the
Navy had added in to HELP the boaters better understand what was
in the waters below wasn’t so easy to read. However my accurate
and upside down approach to reading the charts was always the
clearer answer. My motto read it like you are following it. I
say, “it is not backwards,” the Sea Captain had other
ideas. My navigation attempts were usually correct so far, so
why change now. Colossal in size can’t begin to describe
the ships in the harbor. The bumpers alone were 1/2 the size of
Arcadian. My brother Phil was a Navy Captain and had lived in
Norfolk for several years. Many times on my visits to see him
we boarded vessels, somehow cruising passed them in a car and
boarding them from shore was incomparable to the appreciation
I now felt, and what an injustice to the marine architect for
my naiveté.The slips and rows of ships were endless miles;
acres of land anchored the gray masses. This was just one base.
How could we ever loose a war? Old and new, steam, diesel and
nuclear power, new paint, faded paint, bandaged and rusted they
sat perched awaiting their next mission. My mind wanders as I
thought of the lives that had been lost, the boys made into men
and the apron strings severed by the slamming of the sealed hatch.
They all had their own stories and memories, some of great adventures
any many of sad endings, not one any more significant than the
other, except of course to those families which were and are affected
each day by the journeys of voyage.The heavy green Steiners seemed
appropriate to view the marvels of our past wartime steel survivors.
These Gray ghosts echo a cold and hollow feeling they are held
together with rivets the size of tires and lines the length of
football fields, they are not effected by our meager wake. They
take us in as friends and gain our respect from this day on. I
held the binoculars and scoped across the lower headwaters of
the Chesapeake Bay until my sights rested on a submerged submarine,
with only her soaring gray coning tower exposed. Headed out into
the Atlantic Sea she glided through the bay waters with grace
and authority. On the homeward bound side a battleship full of
homesick sailors waving and screaming out the calls of freedom
and relief to finally be within arms reach of their welcoming
families. My eyes fill with tears as I to remember the joy that
accompanies the return of our loved ones at sea.Overwhelmed by
the memories not so happy, of lost family and friends of which
many wars have taken hostage. Raindrops started to fall, the clouds
were darkening and sky started to close in on our poetic morning,
a fitting end to my nostalgia.The storm was here with the thunder
of Gods fury humming in our ears and lightning hanging over us.
The skies above us were casting shadows, which would lead the
way, or lead us astray. We never wavered as we sailed past one
ship yard and another the rain now flooding the gunnells, the
wind blowing the against stick to lead Arcadian to a direction
not of our favor.
The above is an excerpt from
The Journey of Arcadian
written by Donna McKay
Available soon in paperback
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