A tale of boats, New Hampshire and adventure

Becky and I drove to New Hampshire last week to pick up a boat. It was a long journey that started 56 years ago when my father hauled Richard Fleetwood and me to a dock on Lankford Bay on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. He gave us a red metal can of gas and a bailer, made sure the three-horsepower Evinrude started, and then watched as we motored out into open water in a 14-foot blue wooden skiff.

“I’ll see you boys in Chestertown,” he said. “Be careful.” His trust felt good.

The boat could have been named Swisscheese. We did a lot of bailing. But several hours later, and through plenty of rough water and uncertainty, we made our way up the Chester River to our destination. We arrived with a sense of accomplishment in our heads and a giddy feeling in our stomachs that would forever signal adventure.

Becky replaced Richard six years later. In the decades since, we - and partners - have had lots of different adventures on lots of different boats including sailboats, paddleboards, a round-stern Chesapeake workboat named Gloria, a pontoon boat named Funtoon, wooden skiffs and canoes, kayaks and, for the past 14 years, a  22-foot Pacific Northwest C-Dory named Nellie Lankford in honor of my grandmother.

On a particularly rough crossing of Albemarle Sound in North Carolina two springs back, on our way to the Alligator River and her hands white-knuckling anything she could hang onto in the cabin, Becky quoted the line made famous in the movie “Jaws”:  “We’re going to need a bigger boat.”

So after researching and soul-searching, we ordered a Rosborough 246 from Eastern Boats in Milton, New Hampshire - a downeast-style trailerable trawler - and put Nellie Lankford on the market. Then we started plotting our next adventures.

Nellie Lankford took us as far north as Wildwood, New Jersey, as far south as Savannah, Georgia, and as far west as many different ports on the Western Shore of Chesapeake Bay. Now she has nice new owners in Manassas, Virginia who have started dreaming of their own adventures.

We couldn’t give up Nellie completely. We named our new boat Nellie Peach. That name honors two grandmothers - Nellie Lankford and Emma Peach - and two granddaughters - Nellie Frances and Maisy Peach. The new vessel should stretch a little farther, maybe up the Hudson into the Great Lakes, maybe south to Florida and the Caribbean. Have to see what the days ahead bring.

Onward to New Hampshire

We drove 10 hours before stopping in Hampton, New Hampshire, a stone’s throw from the coast and an hour short of Milton. Using a setting on Google maps to avoid highways, the route took us through many beautiful parts of the Eastern Seaboard.

In a tavern called Old Salt, in a heavily timbered and dark 1740s inn where I’m pretty sure locals plotted the American Revolution, we soaked up New England. Clam chowder, of course, and buttery baked haddock. And even though Sam Adams was a pain in the butt to Delaware’s John Dickinson leading up to the Declaration of Independence, I still ordered a Sam Adams October draft.

Friendly people at the bar spoke in a sweet New England accent while the Red Sox played on a couple of different TVs hanging in corners. There were Patriots signs and Celtics signs and a large, framed black-and-white photograph of Ted Williams swinging for the fences during one of his triple-crown seasons.

Sports and maritime memorabilia, old signs and lobster floats hung everywhere there was room. It reminded me of Lou Ianire’s restaurant in Lewes where the Inn at Canal Square now stands, except Lou’s restaurant was filled with Philly memorabilia.

Outside the tavern, the smell of salt and sea and nearby marshes at low tide filled the air. It felt coastal and sea level and boaty. It felt like home, and in my gut, once again, that old, old feeling of adventure  - on a bigger boat - beckoned.