St. Michaels

Exhibit at St. Michaels Maritime Museum

I couldn’t post from Oxford because there was no wifi. We spent 2 nights there. Small prosperous town that looks like it should be located in New England (house style). It’s definitely not a tourist town. Only 2 restaurants and one was closed. One market, no “attractions”. Seemed to be more boats (in the marinas) than people.

Did I mention that Tangier is a “dry town”? (I know that is a non sequitur).

The sail from Oxford to St. Michaels was interesting in that we encountered much debris (mostly logs and tree branches) in the water. From what I gather there are flood gates in the northern Chesapeake that were opened after Hurricane Irene. As the flood waters entered the Bay the debris came with it. It wasn’t a pleasant sail for this reason.

When we got to St. Michael we noted the two inner harbors were pretty crowded. We read that the holding isn’t that good and I don’t like things going “bump in the night”. So we anchored just outside the harbors in the Miles River.

We explored St. Michael yesterday. What a contrast to Oxford. It’s a real tourist town. Lots of restaurants, bars, museums, tours etc. There is a dinghy dock just for the visiting boats. I see why this is such a popular cruising destination.

Right now we’re sitting in the boat reading and catching up on computer stuff (as we have wifi). The winds have picked up to 15 and expected later to be 20 kts with gusts to 30. Because we’re unprotected and the wind is coming down the river we have waves and don’t want to take the chance of being marooned on shore (our dinghy and 2 1/2 HP motor are not suitable for significant waves), so we’re going to stay on the boat all day. Weather is expected to be better tomorrow.

Our next stop is Annapolis or more precisely Edgewater, MD (a suburb). The annual Annapolis SSCA (Seven Seas Cruising Association) gam (convention) is Sept 23-25. We’ll get there around the 20th and hope to meet two of my cousins. After the meeting is over we’ll slowly start our way home visiting places we missed on the way up.