Our original plan, shown left, was to swing westward and take the ferry from Reedville, VA to Tangier Island and then, after about a four-hour layover, take a second ferry from Tangier Island to Crisfield, MD. Sounds easy enough, no? Well, there are always complications with ferries, especially early in the season and over large bodies of water like the Chesapeake Bay. In fact, these ferries only start "summer" operations on or about May 1st. If we kept to our schedule, we'd be in Reedville on May 5th, a Tuesday. But that doesn't guarantee the ferry will run. A note on their website says:

"Any trip to the island may be cancelled due to severe weather conditions or due to a lack of participation."

Nice. So when we met the cyclist in Kitty Hawk and he told us that we could shuttle across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel for the price of the toll, courtesy of the tolling authority, we decided to change our plans, shown right. This would also shorten the trip a bit, get us back on the original schedule, and help with our travel arrangements back to Washington for our layover. Plus it would keep us closer to our goal of biking the East Coast . . . so right it was.