SHORE THING: Where’s Cape Charles’ Nude Beach?
Reserved parking sticker on vehicle parked in downtown Cape Charles. (Wave photo)
By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Cape Charles Wave
October 24, 2012
Yesterday was the reason I moved to Cape Charles.
Walking out on the fishing pier, feeling the not-too-hot sun and the not-too-strong breeze on my face, gazing at the beach at low tide, smelling the sea air, hearing the gentle ripples of the waves — it was just perfect.
And almost no one was around. But rather than luxuriate in the solitude, I felt a sudden sadness that more people were not out at the beach to appreciate the perfect day.
Perhaps it was the decades of office confinement tugging at my conscience — I wanted to share the ecstasy of freedom to enjoy nature.
Actually, I was not alone. As I had walked up the boardwalk toward the pier I had noticed a car with Pennsylvania plates slowing down to parallel park.
And as I walked out on the pier I passed two elderly women. The older woman looked vaguely familiar. Perhaps I had met her before. I couldn’t remember. With a sudden pang I realized that very old women often look very much alike.
I leaned over the railing, gazing at the sand flats at low tide. From a distance, walking in the shallows, came two spectacular specimens of youthful beauty.
There I stood, leaning over the railing. I was invisible to the blonde Venuses below me, which I have become used to. Age is often invisible to youth. But I also seemed to be invisible to the old women on the pier, whose conversation was loud enough to overhear but spoken as if I was not there.
Youth and Age — and I stood between the two. The girls approaching me might be nearly 40 years’ my junior, while one of the women on the pier, I soon learned, was nearly 40 years’ my senior. [Read more…]
MONDAY 11/12: Volunteers Needed to Measure Coastal Water Quality
Volunteer opportunity at the Anheuser-Busch Coastal Research Center on Monday, November 12. [Read more…]
TUESDAY 11/13: Deadline for New Cape Charles Tourism Website Proposals
Request for Website Proposal: The Cape Charles Bed & Breakfast Association, in partnership with Arts Enter Cape Charles and the Town of Cape Charles, is seeking to develop a new comprehensive community-wide Cape Charles tourism-focused website designed around the Cape Charles by the Bay – Harbor for the Arts theme, and one that is linked closely to and supports the State’s Virginia is for Lovers, and the Eastern Shore’s You’ll Love our Nature marketing themes. [Read more…]
COMMENTARY: Expert Warns Eastern Shore –
Special Trade Status Slipping Away
Foreign Trade Zone status is crucial to attracting wind energy development. Cape Charles — and the entire Eastern Shore — is in danger of losing FTZ status.
By MICHAEL W. O’BEIRNE
October 23, 2012
Earlier this month I attended the American Wind Energy Association Offshore Windpower conference in Virginia Beach. Coastal Virginia wind-related project sites are in various stages of development. Investors have amassed, and logistics are being refined in hopes that offshore leases will head towards steel in the water.
Yet, as corporate forces are gearing up, the Virginia Port Authority is changing the Eastern Shore’s most vital investment and trade incentive — how they allocate Foreign Trade Zone designations and to whom.
Politics and competing economic interests from Hampton Roads may leave the Eastern Shore high, dry, and out of the game.
A little background: In July 2009 I toured sites along the Delmarva coast in a project development visit for wind energy companies and manufacturers.
Since then, several domestic and foreign interests have proposed, built, and still have site agreements for future wind developments — both onshore and offshore on the Eastern Shore and in the Atlantic Ocean.
But much more work needs to be done.
My business centers on U.S. incentives to attract foreign investment. That’s why I came to Northampton and Accomack counties — to see U.S. Foreign Trade Zone sites firsthand at Wallops Island, Accomack Airport Industrial Park, and the Cape Charles Sustainable Technologies Industrial Park (part of the Southport development).
There is also a tiny sliver of land in Cape Charles used to dump dredged materials designated as a Foreign Trade Zone.
Cape Charles Mayor Dora Sullivan raised FTZs in a 2011 letter to Governor McDonnell urging focus upon her town in the offshore wind energy game. [Read more…]
