Can you believe it? we're in Washington DC, all the way up the Potomac River from the Chesapeake Bay. Wow, what an experience. Anchoring in bays along the way, chugging along against the current, dodging the flotsam that at times amasses like an island and, finally just before DC, anchoring in the river off Mount Vernon where the slaves of George Washington fished for the Mackerel he used to feed his people and sell for income.

Mount Vernon is an emotional experience; separating ones self from the hundreds of school kids visiting and then grasping the significance of the more than 300 years of history. This place has been preserved so elegantly, so professionally that this writer is so proud of what I observed and felt. I am an American and being there this morning made me pause and contemplate just how fortunate we all are that a man such as George Washington and men of the times like him had such vision and courage. It saddens me that our current batch of politicians are seemingly absent such virtues of courage and vision. Today was a good day, a proud day a day that brought tears of passion for the bravery, the sacrifice, the accomplishments of this man and his colleagues.

So now I need to shift gears and try through these humble words to describe an experience we've enjoyed from Florida to the Chesapeake. Here we are at night in Lucky Bird anchored in some creak by ourselves. We've finished dinner, we've cleaned up, we've settled down to read and listen. I emphasize listening to tell you this story. The hull of Lucky Bird is only an inch or so thick so sounds in the water pass easily though. At night when all is calm the sounds of the waters around us begin to catch our attention. Shrimp picking at the hull make there special sounds, it's as though all parts of the boat are alive, we wonder if these guys are doing harm, but no it's just those little tiny shrimp feeding. But then...the clicking starts. I mean loud clicking, so loud that I though it might be our anchor snubber slipping. The first time I actually went forward with flash light in hand to check it out. Nope, nothing going on there, so... what is the source of this sound?

Let me describe the sound as best I can. Remember when we were kids and we took playing cards with a clothespin and attached them to the frames of our bikes? Maybe I'm dating myself but I remember the sound, it was a clicking sound based on the spinning speed of the wheel. So Alice and are in our bunk listening, first to a sound of very slow clicking, then another sound and another. One starts slowly then speeds up, coupled by another and we are listening to conversations of beings we can't see, of what I believe are porpoises talking. It really is amazing that something is going on beyond that one inch of fiberglass of which we can only speculate. Every night we listened and every night it returned. Sometimes so slowly that the clicking created an anticipation, sometimes there were sounds of so many varying frequencies that we must have been amidst many many animals. We are so pleased to have witnessed this natural phenomenon. Here in the Potomac I miss our nightly visitors and hope to reconnect once we are back in the Bay.

Lucky Bird has gone to Washington and here we'll continue our discovery journey.