What a day…where to begin. First, we left Solomons Island at 7am thinking we would be sneaking out of the anchorage before anyone else woke. As we were pulling anchor we could see a few boats stirring as well. As we left the channel into the Bay we knew we were not alone. There was about 20 or so boats all in pursuit of another location. This is probably the first time that we have been around other boats going south. I feel that we are now on the right track. It was a relatively easy day. ..just a few crab pot mine fields to go through, but that was it. Kerry managed that one though, as we had to do a few hours of school work. Our destination today was Tangier Island, Virginia with a population of less than 1000. Most of the inhabitants speak a unique English Restoration era dialect of American English. Each of the original inhabitants' surnames, many of which are still found on the island, originated in the UK. The main industry is crabbing and tourism and it is evident with the many crab shacks and boats that encircle the island. We pulled up to Parks Marina and Milton Parks, who is the owner of this marina, helped us tie up. He is a very sweet 80-year old man that has lived on Tangier for all of his life. He has only 3 slips and we are the only ones here. We realized that we were the only visitors to this island. 
After we docked we decided to jump onto shore and explore the town. It is so quaint and it reminded me a lot of what the towns are like in the Bahamas. I just love the feel of these little towns. We walked the small streets, pulling aside only for golf carts and bicycles. A man stopped for a moment as he noticed we were a cruising family. He was also a cruiser and came up this way over a year ago. He ended up staying and now he runs the local history museum. He offered to open up the museum if we were interested. We had decided to do that tomorrow if were staying and try to find the beach instead. He had also mentioned that the beach was one of the best in the Chesapeake. We would be silly not to try to find out for ourselves. It was about a mile away but the thought of dipping our feet in the water kept all of us going. 
After a few winding roads, a couple of little bridges we made it. It was beautiful. By the time we were done both boys were soaked and very happy! We walked back and found our way to Lorraine’s Restaurant (Milton Parks granddaughter served us). Connor was intent on trying crabs since he has seen so much of the industry over the last couple of weeks. He loved it! Dylan had a Dr. Pepper and most of my fish dinner. I couldn’t believe how much he ate. It was so good to see that! I hope he keeps it up. As we were sitting having dinner we noticed that in the building across the laneway a small window had opened and a lady (turns out to be Milton Parks niece) was selling something out of it. Connor jumped out to see what it was all about. Already a few kids had showed up and gone away with a bag of something. As it turned out, they were having a special day for raising money for the local school. And, in conjunction with the selling of treats, they were also having a special Halloween Scare evening on an island only 5 minutes away. After dinner Connor and I walked down to the dock to catch the boat. They only took people in groups of 10 to the island. The students in the school put on the event and did a great job. The premise of the evening was that t
here was a disease on Tangier Island that was incurable. All of the sick people had to be quarantined on this island. It was pitch black when we got there which added to our anxiety. There was a building there and as we approached, you could hear screams and banging inside. There was also a scuffle on the top floor that caused a body to be thrown to the ground. As we turned the corner, we were suddenly startled again with a group jumping up and throwing more body parts at us. The tour took us on very dark paths as patients from the island screamed and ran by us. It was done very well. Connor was certainly a little unsettled by the event, but he claims to love this sort of thing. He did want me to sit for a few minutes while he drifted off to sleep. I didn’t blame him. I still had the feeling that something was going to jump out at me!
Another couple of tidbits for this town were that there were quite old grave stones at the front of several houses. We read that they kept them there so that they could keep them safe from Grave robbers and keep them at higher ground or flooding.. Tangier is very flat and, at high tide, some of the island becomes submerged. Also, the island is a haven for cats. Milton Parks had 26 of them alone.
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