St. Michaels

Tuesday (Oct 1)

Motored over to St Micheals on the east shore. Very little wind. Had full sail up for about an hour, but wind faded. Arrived mid-afternoon and headed into town for a walking tour. We walked by the Blackthorn Irish pub and they were having their Tuesday happy hour, 25 cent oysters on the half shelf and three dollar beers. We quickly turned around and took an outside table. Obviously this is an off season special, hardly anyone was there. Unfortunately after my first 8 oysters they ran out. Linda reminded me that she told me I should of ordered more, oh well. Linda got one of their ½ price appetizers. I forgot what they called it, but it was basically an over size German Egg Roll, a Rubin, with a wonton wrap, fried. Very good. Didn't need much for dinner that night when we got back to the boat after sundown.

A local fellow sitting next to us told us this is the best time of year to sail on the Chesapeake. Summer is hot in the 90's, crowded anchorages, no wind, and lots of biting bugs and further more, added even the butterflies bite. I can't say much about the wind or lack off, but there have been no bugs, have not even bothered with the screens.

We have been wondering when we will have our first night on the boat with the front hatch open all night. Well, this was the night, temperatures got down to only 68 F.

Wednesday (Oct 2)

We spent a good part of the day at St Michaels Maritime Museum. We first headed to breakfast at Carpenters Saloon, by name, not the place you would think of for breakfast. Excellent breakfast, but strangely they don't open until 8:00 AM. Not a problem for us arriving around 9:30. Then we headed for the Museum. Enjoyed watching volunteers finishing up the rebuilding of an old Skipjack. Excellent view on the history of the Chesapeake, not as big as Mystic Sea Port, but you can still spend most of the day there.

Note the fine woodworking tool

 

 After a long day at the museum we hit one of the local ice cream parlors, definitely not Ben & Jerrys, apparently they don't like a lot of stuff in their ice cream down here. Then we did some provisioning at the local supermarket, before heading home. Fortunately, I had previously bought a folding wheeled cart to get everything back to the dock. Thanks to John Soboslai, I re-read their blog on their first time to the Bahamas to see what items they picked up along to way that they wished they started with.

 

Wednesday evening races

Thursday (Oct 3)

Slept in late and planned on working on a few things on the boat and then heading into St. Micheals for lunch. Nothing ever goes as planed. Head clogged, so I had a new morning project, fun. We then headed into the “Town Dock” for lunch. There was only about 6 people in this large restaurant on the water. After lunch we walked through town on many of the side streets admiring the many beautiful old homes.

Each day here keeps getting warmer. Water temperature is 70 degrees, would love to jump in for a swim, but the bay is full of nettles (jelly fish to us New Englanders) which sting.

Friday (Oct 4)

Hung out on the boat for the day, working on various projects. Temperatures in the mid-80s. After a couple two blanket nights on the Hudson we now are sleeping under just a sheet. Temperatures will be back to the high 60's next week. Washed the boat. The port side was especially dirty from our transit through the locks.

Saturday (Oct 5)

 

Another sunny morning, was up for the sunrise. Our daily early morning visitor, again came by. A local crabber lays down his crab line around 6:00 AM. His ¼ mile long line has a buoy on both ends and a series of baits hanging off the main line. Every ½ hour he comes by and runs the line up over a roller of the side of his boat and nets any crabs hanging on to the bait. He services a couple other lines in the area and he usually quits around noon time.

Later today we plan to head north to South River, south of Annapolis to anchor off Quiet Waters State Park for a couple days.

 

 

Crabber sunrise