We had such a great time in Deltaville that we did not want to leave. Readers of this blog have heard this over and over again, of course. However, we have a continuing fear of being caught by Jack Frost before we can get south to warmer climes, so with great reluctance we departed from Deltaville to go onto the next place we did not want to leave. We had a beautiful sailing day south to the York River and thanks to Merry's navigation we avoided all shoals by a wide margin. We proceeded up the river to Yorktown scene of the final decisive British defeat in the American Revolution. The Riverside Marina floating docks are only a few hundred yards downstream from a narrow place in this very deep river where there is a highway bridge. When we pulled into the marina we encountered a current of at least 1 1/2 knts the person from the dockmaster's office who came down to take our lines certainly knew what she was doing; her name is Susan and she is a 20 year veteran of the United States Coast Guard. Mike, whom we met later, also works at the dockmaster's office and is a retired captain in the U.S. Coast Guard, who for his last assignment commanded all the small boat units on Chesapeake Bay. As you can imagine, Wiley was completely in awe of both of them and loved listening to their stories as well as ask them a multitude of questions. However, Mike told us that there was going to be a strong wind out of the east which would cause large waves when the tide was ebbing and advised us to leave the marina. We went across the river to Sarah's Creek. We made the crossing in about a half an hour but the entrance to Sarah's Creek is tricky because of a sandbar and Wiley managed to run us (softly) aground. Since we were only going perhaps 1 knt we backed off without difficulty and ended up spending 4 nights at this marina, Yorktown Yacht Marina. They are incredibly nice people and one of the services they provide is a free ride to and from Yorktown whenever you want. We took advantage of this to tour the Yorktown battlefield, colonial Williamsburg, and Jamestown. We were amazed at the Yorktown battlefield that many of the field fortifications are still visibly evident. We learned that Lord Cornwallis had made the inexplicable error of abandoning 18 of the 21 redoubts that constituted his first line of defense. This shortened the siege by at least two weeks. A large British fleet and relief force arrived off the mouth of the York River just 5 days after Cornwallis surrendered so his inexplicable action ended up being the difference between victory and defeat. Two of the redoubts that he did not abandon were taken by storm, one by French troops and the other by American light infantry under the command of Lafayette under the command of Alexander Hamilton. One of the most interesting things we learned is that the French actually sustained more dead in the siege of Yorktown than the Americans did. The names of the American and French dead are on the Victory Monument.
We took a free shuttle bus to Williamsburg where we were able to see the mansion that the last British colonial governor, Lord Dunmore, fled from. We were able to go through a church built in 1740, where George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, James Madison, and many other great Americans attended services. We were also able to learn how colonial women gathered wool, made thread, wove cloth, and made clothing. It took over 140 hours to make the cloth for one petticoat and that did not include sewing it.
We enjoyed the street theater presented by re-enactors playing Martha Washington, an early free African American minister, George Washington, and more.
We took the shuttle to Jamestown where we visited the both the "historic" Jamestown (the site of the actual colony) and the Jamestown settlement (which is not where Jamestown was but is an effort at a replica of Jamestown). We went on a Jamestown tour led by a young archeologist whose enthusiasm for his work made this a highlight of our journey so far.
We got to see the "dig" that uncovered 2 sides of the triangular stockade in 1994; before that it was believed that erosion of the island had removed the site. A "dig" after that uncovered the site of the first church built at Jamestown which was revealed by the holes that the settlers dug for the wooden pillars that supported the roof of the church.
The archeologist described artifact that he had uncovered which included an armored breast plate from the 14th century (bought on the cheap as war surplus from the tower of London!). We have posted a large number of photos on our blog site if you are interested take a look.