We've Been Adopted By A Town, And It Feels Good

Rob Hedelt: "Australian couple cruising the world on their sailboat adopted by folks in Reedville"

BY ROB HEDELT THE FREE LANCE-STAR.  August 28, 2018

"REEDVILLE—Though I’ve never done much deep-sea, blue-water boating, there’s something magical about the thought of circling the world on a stout ship."

"Meeting Neil and Ley Langford—who’ve done just that, logging some 60,000 nautical miles in 13 years of circumnavigating the globe—just added to the mystique of that idea. I connected with the couple from Melbourne, Australia, several weeks back at the tip of the Northern Neck, in the town menhaden fishing made famous, Reedville. The connection happened because I was in the Reedville Fishermen’s Museum when Neil Langford popped in one morning."

"Museum Director Lee Langston–Harrison, a former neighbor of mine here in Fredericksburg, explained when the blue-water sailor left that the Langfords had sort of adopted the town as a summertime port of call. They were back this summer after first arriving the same time last year. That piqued my interest enough to set up a time to talk with the couple a week or so later, arriving at the dock where their steel-hulled, sloop-rigged 50-foot sailboat, Crystal Blues, was moored on a toasty summer day."

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