Wild horses and live coral in an Assateague cove

Albert, Bruce, Tom and I crowded aboard Nellie Lankford last week for a few days of coastal Delmarva exploration. Ports of call included Lewes - departure point; Seacrets in Ocean City - first watering stop; Pope’s Bay inside Assateague Island - first night under the stars; and Chincoteague - gasoline and water, fresh scallops and flounder filets, and gateway to the uninhabited barrier islands of the lower peninsula.

We originally aimed for Hog Island along the sea side of the lower peninsula as our ultimate objective. But several groundings in a short stretch of channel just south of Chincoteague, limited time, and greenhead flies drawing blood with every bite convinced us otherwise. We spun Nellie around just before we reached the gantries, towers and gleaming white buildings of NASA’s Wallops Island facility. She kicked up mud. Endless summer marshes made finding the green navigational markers difficult. But we picked our way back past Chincoteague’s maze of cans and nuns before retracing our route into the broad, shallow and seemingly endless Chincoteague Bay.

Layton Moore’s Seacrets is wild and otherworldly - and fun - with its slicked-up and tanned patrons, frozen rum drinks, daylong party music, peace police, dozens of imported palm trees and tropical plants, and ramshackle, driftwoody buildings that give it the feel of a tiki bar on steroids. But for those who love nature and the outdoors, there’s undeveloped Assateague Island south of Ocean City Inlet.

A national treasure of miles and miles of preserved pristine beaches, Assateague offers the water, wind, waves and whinnying of wild horses that reveal a different dimension of wonderful.

Part of Nellie’s attractiveness is her shallow draft that allows her to go just about anywhere. We spent a few days tucked just inside Assateague, anchored in two feet of water, sheltered from east and south winds by marshes and dunes. A bunch of locals from Snow Hill told us the broad cove was their special place. “We’re shorebillies,” said Bill, a cold Coors light in one hand and a spear gun in the other.

Matt, Anna and Tim nodded agreement. The conversation took place in knee-deep water a hundred yards or so from where Nellie was anchored, on one side of the cove, equidistant from where their three boats were anchored. Others in their party clammed, an 18-month-old baby napped in the bow of one of the runabouts beneath a red umbrella, and 150 yards away, on the shore, six Assateague ponies stood along the marshy edge grazing on the summer’s new growth of green grasses. They looked as healthy as the shorebillies and just as happy to be in that special place.

One stallion stood a distance from the other horses. Alpha horse, no doubt. But he obviously didn’t always keep his distance. One of the mares showed pregnant. When a smaller and younger stallion showed interest in another of the mares, the older stallion took no notice, but the mare would have nothing of it. She kicked at his face. “What part of no don’t you understand!?!”

The shorebillies had hauled a big rubber raft across the bay from Public Landing loaded with folding chairs, grills, coolers and other paraphernalia for a Sunday afternoon at the beach. They planned to steam the clams and roast chunks of meat from the wings of speared stingrays, along with burgers and dogs. The beach? Oh yeah, it was about a quarter mile away via a sand road that crossed the marshes and the dunes. Wade to shore, schlep the gear, play on the beach. How sweet it is.

Live coral in clear water

Where we stood talking, we could see clusters of live, dull-golden coral growing from the sandy bottom. Rays - some singly, others in schools of up to 20 - patrolled the bottom, as did small blue crabs darting in and out of eel grass clumps, and lots of mating horseshoe crabs. Glossy ibis, terns, pelicans, gulls and a variety of herons flew overhead against a backdrop of puffy clouds billowing over the bay. You get the picture. A healthy, happy ecosystem that some of our enlightened forefathers and foremothers had the good sense to preserve for all the people to enjoy responsibly.

Bill is a prosecuting attorney in Worcester County and handles cases involving the Maryland section of Assateague. “People driving on the beach with way too much alcohol in their bellies, others messing with the wildlife - mostly stuff like that.”

“Some of them trying to ride the horses?”

“Oh yeah, that’s a big badge of honor, to get up on the back of one of these wild horses. Then there’s the guys that come on the island with a trailer to steal horses. Assateague and Chincoteague ponies bring big prices. But the fines are big too and most of them get caught.”

We parted ways and congratulated the shorebillies on their choice of venue for a sunny summer Sunday celebration.

The cove isn’t named on the charts, but it is real, and it is special, and at least for the rest of my life it’s deserving of a name. So next time we go, we’ll take the grandchildren and tell them we’re heading for Sweethorse Cove in Chincoteague Bay - where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are only cloudy part of the day.