"Tell me what you don't see," says Rick Kellam, an
Eastern Shore native who runs trips to all of Virginia's 23 barrier
islands through
Broadwater Bay Ecotours. "Not a condominium, not a
high-rise. Life here on the Eastern Shore in some respects is
probably 10 years behind the rest of the world, but we wouldn't
have it any other way. The Eastern Shore of Virginia is a well-kept
secret." And it's a secret fat with outdoor opportunity. Kellam,
for example, offers activities like clam digging, kayaking, surf
and fly fishing, hunting, and bird-watching, to name a few. In the
spring and fall, great masses of migrating birds alight, and
thousands of waterfowl - black ducks, mallards, snow geese - winter
on the islands.
Today, we're wending through the marshy channels of the Machipongo
River, past mounded islands that are home to deer, fox, and
white-tailed rabbit. We pause in the vast spread of Broadwater Bay
to absorb the hypnotic sound of Atlantic brant, the birds issuing
odd, basso croaks like frogs clamoring beside a creek. We watch a
peregrine falcon vectoring in low, and finally stroll past wild
blackberry, wax myrtle, and stands of black pine to arrive at a
dune ridge overlooking the Atlantic.
In the early 1900s, Hog Island was home to the village of
Broadwater, a thriving community of about 250 people, with 60-plus
homes, a church, three general stores, a post office, a school, and
an ice-cream parlor. What was once Broadwater now rests a
quarter-mile out to sea. The island migrated out from under it.
Waves unfurl, their tops blown back in vapor-trail wisps by a light
wind blowing refrigerator cool. The beach is smooth as velvet.
There are no footprints.
Kellam grins. "I hereby proclaim Hog Island beach mine for the
day."