Following John Smith - Solomons

John Holum and his wife, Barbara, undertook a cruise to Jamestown last month in their 48' Krogen trawler, Solveig III, to help friend Terry Smith research a magazine article on the John Smith Water Trail. John has shared his travel logs with us, and we'll be posting excerpts here, starting with his first from June 19th.

Solomons Island, June 19th

Today, we’re headed not only to unfamiliar places, but back in time, which suggests a resumption of reporting notwithstanding that our companion for this cruise, Terry Smith, is actually doing serious journalism, which should intimidate me into silence but hasn’t. 

We’re off to retrace some highpoints of Captain John Smith’s exploration of the Chesapeake Bay, through which the first mate [Barbara Holum] and I will enjoy nooks and crannies of these waters which heretofore have escaped our attention, such as the James and higher reaches of the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers, and Terry will turn out a comprehensive article contrasting conditions now with what his ancestor (Terry neither confirms nor denies this, but we choose to believe it), Captain Smith, beheld 400 years ago. 

The elder Smith undertook this in the months of July and August aboard a heavy 30 foot vessel called a “shallop,” propelled by either sail or 14 men bending to the oars, wearing heavy wools and linens, not bathing (they considered it unhealthy) and sleeping outdoors among the bugs, to say nothing of hostile locals.  We’re doing it in June, with much better charts and in considerably greater comfort – although as a gesture of solidarity for the original crew we’ve opted not to run the air conditioning.  But today’s natives are distinctly friendly, we’re showering often, and our wardrobe knows no wool. 

Terry is also letting us tag along for interviews, beginning last week with John Page Williams, a senior naturalist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and Michael Shultz, who is working on what is to be the first National Park Service trail entirely on the water, named after Captain Smith.  Then today we heard more about environmental changes from Drs. Walter Boynton and Ed Houde of the University of Maryland’s Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, who gave us a sweeping overview of the Bay’s discovery and, since the 1950s, its accelerating demise. 

To be continued...