In the summer of 1608, Captain John Smith used a small open boat, or shallop, to make the first detailed European exploration of the Chesapeake Bay, and in the decades that followed, knowledge gained from those voyages helped open the interior of America to tens of thousands of European settlers. In the summer of 2007, a crew of 12 modern explorers set out in a replica of Smith's shallop to retrace the 1608 voyages, traveling 121 days and 1,700 miles under oar and sail power and revisiting all of the waters traveled by Smith. The voyage officially inaugurated Captain John Smith's epic voyages and their importance in American history. Today, the shallop serves as a roving ambassador for the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, where modern explorers can follow Smith's route through the Chesapeake he encountered, a world of ancient forests, widespread native communities, and waterways teeming with life in the early 1600s.