Stop along the shore; cease pedaling for a moment and wait for the airplanes heading for National Airport to pass and the din of the City to ease.

  Close your eyes and listen and pray you do not hear it. For it is said that when a low moan, a mournful wail is heard above the sound of the Potomac here, the Three Sisters are about to take another life.

  The tale happened a long time ago. The White Man had just begun settling and exploring the wild Indian trading route we know as the Potomac River. Tribes south of here had resisted the rising tide of newcomers. Along this portion of the river though, just above present-day Georgetown, the inhabitants, probably the Necostin, were much more welcoming. Some versions of the legend say it was with Capt. John Smith that one of the three Indian sisters fell in love. Despite the warnings of the other two sisters, she followed her heart and promised to sneak out of her village and meet her lover one night on the shore of the Potomac.

 The problem that evening was that the Captain was on the wrong side of the river. She decided to brave the currents and swim to meet him. Her sisters would watch out for her from the shore. Alas, the river is swift here. Normally 10 to 14 feet deep, there are strange fissures and cracks in the ancient rocks that go down 80 feet or more. She was caught up in a strong eddy and was now in dire trouble. Her sisters moved to action and swam out to save their sister. Fate was particularly cruel that evening and all three sisters would drown in the turbulent water.

  A terrible storm blew in that night and raged for hours, not typical at all for this area. Howling wind, strange noises and rumblings; the river churned violently. In the morning three small rock islands had appeared where the sisters had met their doom. A new curse was uttered that night; no white man would be allowed to cross the river at this point. Indeed, many an unfortunate drowning and boating mishap has happened here over the years. In the 1970’s a bridge was planned; a Potomac crossing for the White Man’s cars. Construction was started but quickly abandoned when the first abutments mysteriously collapsed.

  Legend, curse, fate, or just bad luck?

  For it is said that when a low moan, a mournful wail is heard above the sound of the Potomac here, the Three Sisters are about to take another life. Perhaps soon another canoeist may struggle with an odd current, unexpectedly capsize and the last thing he sees through his doomed eyes are the three sisters reaching to pull him down to his watery grave.

   Or perhaps the luckless lad was gripped by the jaws of a giant 300 lb. sturgeon, the likes of which George Washington once fished from these waters. Perhaps the last ones hide down in the 80-foot crevasses.

  Waiting.

  But that is the stuff of another legend.