Wednesday, June 7, 2023 -
Wow, we started out this morning in the fire smog along Onancock Creek. This is very eerie - an unnatural spatial disorienting feeling operating Liquid Therapy. I’m glad I have loaded in the route into the autopilot so I don't have to concentrate on steering. I still have to look for other boats in the fog like haze. I scan the AIS for other boats and do not see many in Tangier Sound and certainly have no potential close situations. I am away from commercial shipping and that is a relief. The sun looks like it’s from another solar system. No one is talking on the VHF. Very strange.

We are on one course heading up Tangier Sound for two hours and sometimes you can actually feel the smoke. The horizon disappears and you cannot tell where sky ends and water begins. I turn on the navigation lights and consider running the fog horn

We enter the 5 mile channel into Smith Island and there are many twists and turns and some deep water and then some skinny. I get overtaken by two ferries traveling at high speed and passing close to us. Both leave us bouncing in their wakes. In defense of these boats if they slowed to pass us properly they would be aground. Both are churning lots of mud. We enter the village harbor of Ewell on Smith Island and two guys are there to help us tie up to this under major repair marina. One owner is in Annapolis getting his 100 ton license, his wife is in Pennsylvania. Their friends take good care of getting us snugged into the dock. No water or electricity are yet installed.

The two guys inform us that the restaurants close st 4PM! We rush to get takeout crab cakes for dinner later aboard Liquid Therapy. We then walk to the Smith Island bakery where REAL Smith Island cakes are made. The town of Ewell is bigger than we expected. Fishing and crabbing are the mainstay economies. I snap a few pictures of the weird sun before sundown. But there is no visible sunset.

We run the generator to top off the batteries while we eat our crab cake dinners and have a bite of Smith Island blueberry cake for dessert. We watch a little TV. I plan tomorrow’s route to Tangier and load it into the Chartplotter for the autopilot to follow. The weather looks good until Sunday when the wind will be out of the South 10-15 knots. Liquid Therapy gets mad at us if we take her into those conditions head on - which is the homeward direction from here. Most likely we will be back at our home marina Saturday. Forecast is low 62 º tonight.

Today’s picture is fixer upper restaurant on Smith Island. Humm?? Should I buy it?