Wed Sept 16: Deltaville to Reedville ancorage

In which we find a town that has closed for the winter ....

Rick speaking today:

Back in cruising mode with all systems go, so to speak, we cast off the lines and headed north for our next stop in Reedville.   

 

Since we had been paying for quite a few marinas  (TOILET ISSUES - marinas a must) we decided to find an anchorage and explore the town from the dinghy.   The trip was a little rough but nothing we haven't seen before and we arrived in a beautiful anchorage right in front of Reedville. 

 Historically Reedville was a big fishing port and fish processing town.  The fishing was for Menhaden, a small, oily fish relative to the sardine and anchovy, and the fish was processed into fish meal to be used in many food stuffs, animals foods and as fertilizer.   Today there is only one processing plant in operation - Omega Protein - and as we motored into town the smell was noticeable but not offensive...just strong enough to let us know that the plant was operating. 

Once anchored we lowered the dinghy  (it gets easier every time) and motored over to a free dock at the Reedville Market restaurant.   We were excited to walk through the town - but....there was no town.  More like a street with some houses on it - and it was a ghost town.   It appeared that they had closed for the winter ... there was literally no one else in town, except a painter and the town sheriff who drove by us twice (on the same street - there is only one street) just to make sure we weren't up to no good.   The Reedville Market restaurant had gone to winter hours - open only Thurs - Sun (note that we arrived on a Wed).  We had read about the ice cream shop - Chitter Chats - and we walked down Main Street to see if we could get a cone...nope, open only Fri - Sun.   We walked all the way up main street to the highway - found an out of business gas station and an automotive repair shop  - with lots of cars but devoid of human life. 

It was a cute' town' with some lovely houses, but once again we were stymied in our attempts to sample the local cuisine (see our post on McClelanville from last year).  Between The Rona and summer being over, nothing is open Mon-Wed.

Closed - because, of course it is...

This house was the biggest thing in on 'Main Street' and completely different than everything around it.  There is a vulture on the chimney - maybe that explains what happened to all the people...

This was Mel's favorite thing in the 'town':

We took the dinghy back to the boat and found that our isolated anchorage now had two more trawlers in it.  Oh well, at least they were quiet and there were no barking dogs.  HOWEVER, as soon as we settled in for a quiet book read someone fired up a lawn mower.  That's a pet peeve of mine - people have the uncanny ability to start mowing their lawns just when I want quiet.  Even in a town where there were no people.

 But in the end, a quiet night in a beautiful anchorage with bald eagles looking us over from the town water tower....