Summit to Shore Meets The Log of Spartina

One blog I regularly follow is The Log of Spartina. While I do not read every word its author, Steve, posts, I do look at every photograph he posts because Steve is a professional Photographer, and it shows on his blog.

I do not remember how I learned about Steve’s Blog, but we share enough in common that I sometimes enjoy reading it.  In addition to both of us being sailors (obvious) and loving seafood, Steve has sailed in some of the same areas my wife and I have kayaked, including  Baltimore’s developed Inner Harbor, Maryland’s wild Assateague Island National Seashore, the little picturesque harbor of  Onancock, VA,  Virginia’s Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, and  the waters around Ocracoke, NC.   Steve’s shallow draft boat has taken him places I would never be able to sail Mischief, my four foot draft C&C 24 Mischief.  Nevertheless, I dream of sailing many of the places he has already sailed. 

I knew that Steve lived somewhere near Virginia Beach, so I contacted him a month before my wife and I were to vacation in Virginia Beach to see if he might be willing to meet us for lunch or dinner and if he might shows us his hand made sailboat Spartina.  In spite of the fact that we had never met, and perhaps against the best intentioned advice of his wife and a few of his own reservations, he accepted my invitation.

At Steve’s suggestion, and to fit his work schedule, we recently met for lunch at Chick’s Oyster Bar  overlooking the waters of Lynnhaven Bay in Virginia Beach.  I could not think of many other better places for three sailors who love seafood to meet for lunch.  Chick’s is one of the few restaurants I know where I can get a hamburger topped with lump crab meat while dining out on a plastic sheet protected deck overlooking and set right up against a bay.

Over lunch, we talked about sailing, photography, how Steve came to make and sail Spartina, how I came by Mischief, and many other common interests and experiences, as well as blogging on the blogspot platform.  We discovered that the three of us were all three years within the same age and shared some of the same philosophies about sailing.  Unfortunately, we were not able to see Spartina, but Steve issued us an open invitation to sail on her when the weather and our calendars permit.

After lunch, as we were preparing to leave, I asked my wife to take a photo of Steve and me.  A framed nautical Chart of Chesapeake Bay hanging on the wall above a picnic table out on the deck seemed to offer the perfect backdrop.