THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 18, 1995 TAG: 9509180042
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CAPE CHARLES LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
Tied to a bulkhead in Cape Charles harbor, the two-masted Delight bobs with wind and tide, waiting. Then Greg and Laura Lohse step onto the deck.
They unfurl the schooner's sails without a word. None are needed. The Lohses know the wind, the water, the boat. Greg takes the helm, Laura hauls the halyards.
Then they sail out of the harbor with rare elegance, a spontaneous ballet with man, woman, sun, sea and breeze all dancing their parts.
The Lohses have danced this ballet before. A large part of their adult lives - she's 32, he's 44 - has been spent as contract sailors, cruising the Atlantic, Pacific and Caribbean on tall ships.
``It's pretty powerful out there, just living with the elements, having to live with your own skills and knowledge,'' she said about life at sea.
The Lohses have trained at-risk teens to sail. They've searched for the remains of Amelia Earhart, helped researchers study whales and dolphins, and taken medical supplies and personnel to remote South-Sea islands.
Now, the Lohses have settled in Cape Charles. They're using their talents to entertain and educate people with a taste for salt water.
``Trying to do the eco-tourism thing,'' Greg said. The Lohses plan to give sailing lessons and maybe start a sailing school. Meanwhile, they charter the Delight for excursions that they hope will raise the environmental awareness of those who sail with them.
``We'll show them what type of life is out there,'' Greg said.
Some of the sea stories the Lohses can tell are worth hearing. One year, they cruised to Alaska on the research vessel Acania, a 126-foot power yacht.
The Acania was built in 1929 for John Wheeler, a businessman who made his fortune before the stock market crash and the onslaught of The Depression. The ship - which cost $1 million even then - was later owned by movie star Constance Bennett, then the Navy. The Lohses said it was used as a missile tracker and spy ship during the Cold War.
On that trip they helped researchers study dolphins and whales.
``Whales are great,'' Laura said of the experience. ``They're so graceful and so powerful. Majestic.''
A separate contract on the same ship took them to the South Pacific to look for Amelia Earhart's plane. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, which hired the Lohses and their expertise, had done a systematic study of Earhart's last flight.
The organization concluded that the famous flier's two-engine Lockheed 10-E Electra landed on Nikumaroro, a 3.5-mile long atoll in the Phoenix Group, about halfway between New Guinea and Hawaii.
``The coconuts didn't even have milk in them,'' Laura said of the island. ``Very desolate.''
On that trip, researchers broke into two groups. One group chopped through brush and used metal detectors, searching for pieces of the aircraft. Sonar attached to the Acania scanned theocean floor for debris. Nothing turned up on the sonar.
``But the shore party did find some aircraft aluminum,'' Greg said. The analysis by the Smithsonian said the fragment was made of the same alloy, had the same coating and rivets as those used to build Earhart's plane.
Greg also said the search party also found the remains of a woman's Oxford, the same type that Earhart was photographed wearing on her last flight.
``That was a fun trip,'' Greg said.
Next, they worked on a sailing school called the Tole Mour, a 156-foot, three-masted tall ship. They took at-risk teens from Hawaii and the Marshall Islands and taught them to sail. That was hard work, Greg said, but not as frustrating as another trip on the Tole Mour, with a group called Vision Quest. On that trip, teens from Pennsylvania were sentenced to sail from Hawaii to Cape Charles via the Panama Canal.
Greg said there was a big difference between the at-risk island teens and the ones from Pennsylvania.
``The Marshalese and Hawaiians respect sailors and navigators,'' Greg said. ``But the kids from North Philly didn't care at all. You didn't earn their respect by knowing where to go on the ocean.''
It was a heart-wrenching experience, Greg said, because after their voyages, the teens went back to the lives they had left behind. One went to jail for murder. One committed suicide. One turned his world around, returned to school and was getting A's.
``The point is, you don't know if it's a success or failure,'' Greg said.
Now, the Lohses have set anchor in Cape Charles. Housing prices are good there, she said, and you get a lot for your money. They like having the Delight docked nearby, and they see a lot of growth potential for the area.
``It's nice to be here and not travel as much during the year,'' Laura said. ``We'd like to start working for ourselves instead of always working for somebody else.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by PAUL AIKEN, Staff
Greg and Laura Lohse pilot their sailboat Delight out of Cape
Charles. The couple has settled on the Eastern Shore after many
adventures at sea.
by CNB