Even at 6:30 a.m., traffic is buzzing along nearby Shore Drive, a busy artery serving a sprawling metro area of 1.7 million residents that includes not only Virginia Beach but also Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Hampton Roads. Improbably and delightfully, the sights and sounds of


the metropolis fade away as our boats enter the nooks and crannies of the Lynnhaven’s creeks and marshes, vibrant with the singing of redwing blackbirds and saltmarsh spar- rows. It’s at least a hint of what colonists from Jamestown found here when they explored up the Lynnhaven nearly 400 years ago. Green herons stalk shorelines clumped with oysters and mussels, and shorebirds peck mudflats ahead of the rising tide. Black skimmers glide inches off the water sipping minnows, their lower beaks tracing delicate Vs in its glassy surface. Periwinkles climb the marsh grass stalks, grazing on algae. A fisherman ambles down a sandy trail from a nearby condo complex and wades out waist deep into Pleasure House Creek—casting for toothsome speckled trout.


JOHN HENLEY


“Tree-hugging capitalist” Tim Solanic in his Save Pleasure House Point shirt. Pages 26-27: Kayakers explore the waterways around Pleasure House Point.


A CLOSE-TO-HOME WETLAND Our trip is a celebratory voyage of sorts, complete with champagne and oysters shucked out fat and creamy on the half-shell. Local conservationists—some of them


28 LAND&PEOPLE Fall/Winter 2012


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