Five Fair Rivers

Alone - with not much more than a notebook, a sleeping bag, and insect repellent - the author sails, motors and at times rows up the shallows of the James, York, Rappahannock, Potomac and Patuxent. In cruises spanning three seasons, de Gast follows the shorelines in his Dovekie, "Fiddler". A devoted sailor, de Gast takes his inspiration for these trips from Captain John Smith who, while exploring the Chesapeake in the early 17th century, found himself mesmerized by the magnificence and unexpected charms of the bay's "fayre and navigable rivers." Travelling in Smith's wake, de Gast records the details of wind and sail, landscape and water - always with an eye toward how things differ from what greeted the captain almost four hundred years ago.