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| Crossing the Chesapeake Bay just north of Smith Island is Solomons Lump Light, former home of another lonely lighthouse keeper |
After a couple weeks at Crisfield MD, plus another
couple days waiting for the winds to die down, we departed the Eastern Shore,
but not before buying another pound of lump crab meat. At only $15/lb, we’ll have to eat crab for
the next couple days (yeah, I know, this traveling life is hard to take).
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| Crossing the Bay, we passed the restored skipjack heading to Crisfield. Skipjacks were the original Bay oyster boats. |
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| READ YOUR CHARTS! In the middle of the Bay are wrecks still used by the Navy for bombing and strafing targets! |
We thought we’d be dodging thunderstorms during the
entire crossing of the Chesapeake Bay to the western shore, but we had no rain
and only 2’ waves. We entered the mouth
of the Potomac River near slack tide, so the water wasn’t turbulent like many
boaters find it. Once we entered the
River, I was amazed at how calm & smooth the waters were. Certainly different from being out on the
Bay.
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| At the anchorage, Sue relaxes on the swim platform while she drinks her beer, just before she jumped into the water for a swim. |
We were told by several boaters about the beautiful
anchorage in Horseshoe Bend up the St Mary’s River, so that was our destination
for 2 nights at anchor. It was a very
pretty location with lots of protection from wind and waves. Following our boater-friend’s advice, the
next day we put the dinghy into the water (after fixing yet another air leak),
and rowed ashore to see the restoration of Historic St Mary’s City.
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| Working replica of the "Dove". Sails are still unfurled by hand by climbing the cat ropes. |
For your history lesson today, you’ll want to know that
St Mary’s MD was the 4th English settlement in the New World, with
everything starting around 1634. Lord
Calvert held the charter to the colony and set up St Mary’s as the capital of
Maryland. Since he was not allowed to
practice his Catholic faith in England, he set up St Mary’s to be open to all
religions, and in doing so, established the “birthplace of religious freedom”. As luck would have it, his “experiment” in
religious freedom lasted about 15 years before the Protestants protested
(that’s what pro-testants do, isn’t it?), tortured the Catholics, and moved the
colonial capital to Annapolis MD.
Archeologists have been reconstructing the homes, businesses, streets
and city for years, so it is quite extensive and authentic.
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| The "Dove" square rigger sailing among the boats at the anchorage |
Of particular note was a replica of the “Dove”, a wooden
sailing ship about 50 feet long which was one of the ships that brought the
English colonists across the Atlantic to St Mary’s MD. We went aboard to see how unimaginable it was
to cross the ocean on such a small ship.
Further, the replica is fully functional, and sails regularly, as we
found out that evening as a square-rigged sailing ship passed among the
pleasure boats at anchor in the cove.
It’s not every day you see something like this! “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto!”
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| Sunset at the anchorage - the perfect ending of another perfect day! |
After two enjoyable nights at anchor, we cruised another
40 miles upriver to a marina at Colonial Beach to check it out for a long term
visit next week. It will soon be time to
put the boat up for a month while we become landlubbers again to take care of
personal commitments. The following day
we fought a 2.5 mph head current 40 more miles up the Potomac to an anchorage
right across from the USMC Quantico base.
We felt very safe & secure sleeping that night.
We’re looking forward to the coming 4 days we’ll spend
in Washington D.C. at a marina on the Potomac right next to the Jefferson
Memorial. We’ll have to write something
in our blog about those experiences!
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