Ghost Ship (2002)

I'm on board of Apollonia, a yacht of 43 feet, riding in the parade Colonial Beach Riverfest boat. Riverfest is the largest city and how it takes place every year since 1951, against all odds, and believe me, they had many times. We just went out into the Potomac away from the Bay of Monroe, which is the back door of the city, and we work our way north, past Colonial Beach Yacht Center and Gum Bar Point and Cape of Once and Future Municipal Wharf. To our right and extends to the rear are the famous Kettle Bottom Shoals, historically some of the richest banks of oysters in the world. It was about 1:30 in the afternoon and the sky was overcast and threatening in June, but the Potomac is flat and happy, at least it feels that way in the ofApolonia comfort. Its owner, Paul Bolin, is driving, we facilitate the parade route in the number two position, just behind the commander of the fleet ahead of the rest of the pack.

It's right here, I look through the six-mile wide Potomac River and then back to the famous city of the range of three miles, it hits me: This is a good thing I'm to driving this boat, because if I at the helm, I'd be dodging the ghosts. You see, this part of the Potomac, 60 miles from Washington and 40 from Point Lookout, is positively littered with historical appearances, and this afternoon I see them every way I turn. For example, there is the starboard bow, I see a fleet of British warships to be distorted by the ghostly hand on oyster reefs in thickness on their way to capture Washington. It is 1814, and they will succeed. To return to the river, they will have a surcharge of 25 vessels in tow, and, again, crews unload everything and get the ships through the shoals in hand. A slow and painful, certainly, but they will do in Baltimore harbor in time for Francis Scott Key glare to see their rockets' red. And look, there, tearing in our wake, is a patrol boat of Maryland in hot on the tail of a tug of local oysters. Listen to the gun? One of them will eventually die. Now look at us while passing under the bridge on Route 301 in the United States, there is the ghost of steam paddle-famous St. Johns, its rails crammed with pleasure trippers early 20th century, destination of Colonial Beach. Yes, ring a thousand slot machines at the crack d'une Confederate train as a spy slips between a pair of warships federal water off Colonial Beach is alarming and charming, full of ghosts.

Paul Bolin, however, is not distracted. He holds Apolonia stable on the road. His eye is not on the past but the future of Colonial Beach and this city, which has had more ups and downs of a plug in a surge of five feet is becoming. Because Colonial Beach, recently beaten by Isabel unprecedented storm surge, is surely on its way to the next big wave of the life of the Waterman is on the decline.

With us on this drive Sunday in the boat are great marshals of the parade, Sonny and Dottie Schick, who live next Bolin Bell House Bed & Breakfast, and their son Kyle and his wife Reld. Kyle and Reld are particularly pleased to be stepping back any wave at all, since Isabel was actually the second punch in a combination of one to two who have left the Colonial Beach Yacht Center reeling.

The largest and one of the oldest marinas in the area, Colonial Beach Yacht Center has been devastated in May 2002 by a fire that destroyed the docks of the marina, boat after boat jump like mine as the port. Fifty-six ships, some of them irreplaceable classic wood, were destroyed. Many of those lost Woodies would have been with us today in the parade of boats, but are now part of a new fleet ghostly. After the fire, the Lavry placed on the reconstruction of the marina and made good progress until I.