Wrapping Up the Chesapeake

Barb at the wheel of Plumpuppet in an early morning mist

Historic boats at St. Michaels' Maritime museum

A quick post to wrap up this part of our trip:
We've been to Oxford (charming, small, very pretty, few stores) and St. Michaels (bigger, also pretty and charming, every kind of store). Spent an afternoon at St. Micheals' Maritime Museum learning about boats used by watermen in an earlier time - the beautiful skipjack - a shallow draft sailing boat designed for dredging oysters in the shallow waters of the Chesapeake, the long narrow "canoe" boats: work boats for shrimping and tonging for oysters - the "Buy Boat": a boat that went around to the oyster boats and off loaded their catch so the fishermen lost no time in dredging for osyters. In our Chesapeake travels, we've seen watermen everywhere so we're interested in their history. We've returned to Rock Hall for one last crab feast and we cracked, ripped and ate until we couldn't eat more. Tomorrow, up early again to sail to Chesapeake City and then weather permitting, we'll leave in the morning to catch the tide through the C and D canal, go part way down Delaware Bay and then anchor for the night before we continue the rest of the way. We're on our way to Cape May and we're getting closer to home.