(Picture of Tangier Island taken by grandmaR (Rosalie B.) from her posting on VirtualTourist.com)
Peaceful, lazy, uneventful day. Hot and calm. Motored almost due north to Tangier Island. Anchored off the island in the early evening.
One interesting coincidence occurred. While we were eating breakfast, we saw a sailboat headed south. Her name was Solaris, which sounded familiar. We were sure we'd seen her before, but couldn't remember where. An hour or two later, when we were headed north, we passed the Solaris, also headed north. They called us on the VHF. Turned out they were the couple, Dale and Herb, who had talked with us for nearly an hour in Oriental. They're fairly new to sailing and were unsure of where they were. Dale was trying to calculate their position using the TD's on the Loran. When Loran first came out, two or three decades ago, you had to use special charts and go through complicated calculations to figure out where you were, but nowadays the Loran does it for you, so why bother. I advised Dale to use the latitude and longitude given by the Loran.
They were also headed for Tangier Island and asked if they could follow us. We had no objection to that but knew they wouldn't be able to keep up with us, as they make only about five knots, so I gave them the course to follow. They arrived at Tangier Island not long after we did and anchored nearby.
Roy and I paddled to the "town". This is an amazing place. There is almost no land; most of the buildings are on stilts in the water. People go around in motorboats instead of cars. We were glad we'd gotten to see it. Even saw a "U.S. Mail Boat". It carries the mail back and forth between the mainland and the island. First time either of us had ever seen a mail boat.
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