Wachapreague, VA

A visit to SAIS in DC (including an HNC Chinese New Years reception there) offered an excuse to head down to see a friend of many, many years – Dr. Michael Willingham – who has now retired on Virginia’s ‘Eastern Shore.’ This is the narrow Delmarva peninsula between the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay…. and Michael’s new home there offered a couple of days of respite from a rather hectic schedule.

I’ve known Michael for more than 35 years now (& mentioned him back in an April 2010 ‘Florence’ posting), and his career is definitely one of the most fascinating I’ve ever encountered: MIT mathematics degree; U. Pennsylvania M.S. & Ph. D.; defense industry quant jock; Peace Corp. in Uganda and Peru; maritime archeological hunting off the coast of Honduras; energy specialist on the Navaho Indian reservation; DC policy analyst in U.S. President’s Coal Commission & the National Commission on Air Quality (NCAQ); Technical Advisor in UN headquarters in NY; and, finally, one of the most well-read individuals I’ve ever come across!

You might have noticed quite a few overlaps: U. Penn, NCAQ, and the UN – and it is perhaps not surprising that we get along so well. Michael wanted to make sure that my visit was not wasted, & so – in addition to early mornings at a nearby cafe with his breakfast regulars (local salt-of-the-earth types, brimming with Eastern Shore know-how!) — we took in a number of other highlights.

One was a visit to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s Eastern Shore Laboratory (ESL) in Wachapreague. Michael recently prepared a proposal that looked at utilizing macroalgae to capture excess nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay – it’s very hard to keep him retired! – and hopes that future (part-time) efforts in such a maritime setting will prove fruitful.

We also visited Chincoteague Island, well known to my daughters because of its feral horses and Misty of Chincoteague, a children’s novel about one such pony (that I have somehow completely eliminated from my memory bank). Most of the horses are actually on nearby Assateague Island, however, and Michael and I went there to the National Seashore to update his nighttime surf fishing license. You can see us standing near the surf, Michael wearing shorts despite sub-freezing temperatures […then again, perhaps that’s what Eastern Shore nighttime surf fishing-types actually wear (??)].

Dr. Willingham & an Eastern Shore tourist