(Note that vacation photos will appear here as they get copied up to SmugMug.)
The first excursion of this vacation was to travel by boat to Saint Michaels, MD. I had a good recommendation from Captain Gary to use the Saint Michaels Marina and then to visit Ava's for their meatballs. Both recommendations turned out to be perfect.
The day started with a walk at Osprey Point where the place was all set for a wedding this afternoon. I'm sorry my boat wasn't part of the background (there might be a gap in the line of masts for the photos). You can see why Osprey Point is a great place for a wedding.
After some assistance and last minute tips from Captain Gary, I finally got the auto route working with my chart plotter.
There wasn't a lot of wind north of the Bay Bridge. It picked up south of the bridge, but I was more interested in getting to this destination than sailing. This was my first time single-handing to an unfamiliar destination.
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I came within a few hundred feet of the deepest point on the Chesapeake Bay
(Which is about 165 ft deep, I'm told.) |
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Hard to see here, but the Miles River has some shoals right out in the middle.
I had to watch carefully for the buoys (and was glad for the auto-routing). |
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| Approaching Saint Michaels Harbor |
The one universal truth about boating is that when you're least sure of your actions, that will be when you have your biggest audience. I approached Saint Michaels Harbor and... there was no answer on Ch. 16 when I hailed the marina. I came to a stop and tried again... ran below and grabbed the handheld and tried yet again (at least I could hear it echo on my main radio, so I know the radios were working). Finally I called the marina and explained. They got the dockmaster on the phone who gave me directions.
Of course, in a strange marina, I got to back in right next to
Foxy's Harbor Grille, one of the restaurants at Saint Michaels Marina, meaning I was the afternoon's entertainment for the dozen or so tables dockside (I swear I'm less than 10 feet from the nearest table).
Saint Michaels Marina is clearly a boater's paradise. It's just a half a block from "downtown" Saint Michaels. It has a wide variety of amenities - rental electric cars & bikes, a pool, several restaurants (all with bars) and very helpful people. My only issue is that I'm a bit aways from the office and so I'm having issues connecting everything to WiFi.
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| A town qualifies as rural if police escort farm equipment through the downtown. |
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| Another restaurant at the marina |
After dinner, as sunset approached, I went out for another walk. This town just invites you to walk. All the properties around the marinas are extremely well maintained even when it's obvious that some of the homes are quite old.
Finally, after dusk, I took a final walk around the marina complex before settling into the cockpit to enjoy my nightcap (rum & ginger ale) while taking advantage of all the music and sounds without the high prices.
Sunday I woke up at sunrise, then decided to take another walk around town before it got too hot. I happened among a nice crepe restaurant and went there for breakfast.
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| What other town is so nice to leave cups of beer out for the early morning church people? |
One block of downtown has three ice cream places!
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I'm thinking of buying these for my living room...
(Vicky, I hope you read this and can stop me!) |
This is the crepe place that caught my eye for breakfast. I had the smoked salmon and spinach crepe.
For Sunday Dinner, I thought that a vacation on the Chesapeake Bay would not be complete without getting crabs somewhere and with 3 crab restaurants around Saint Michael's harbor, I decided this was the place. I went to
Saint Michaels Crab & Steakhouse, where I had stuffed mushrooms and crab imperial.
It was... good. Honestly, though, the Rock Hall restaurants are just as good (if not better). You want your vacation dining experiences to have a serious WOW factor (like last night's meatballs). This was a solid "OK" (reflective of the 3.5 stars on Yelp).
The plan for Sunday afternoon was simply to be a slug and enjoy Seas The Day's air conditioning. Temps outside were in the high 80s climbing into the low 90s and a "real feel" temp of close to 100 was predicted. I got the WiFi connection to the marina working and planned to catch up on YouTube.
In the evening, I was still feeling full from dinner so I just had a snack and drink and listened to the live music from Foxy's.
As the sun set and the live music finished, the energy seemed to drain from the place.
On Monday morning (actually Day 4, but still in St. Michaels) I had breakfast at The Galley enjoying their Local Crab-cake Bene and a sticky bun to go. It was a delicious breakfast, but far too much (even for me).
Summary of Saint Michaels costs:
Marina slip - $361
Tips for dock-boys - $20
Ava's - $54
Ice cream - $5
Crepes by the Bay - $32
St. Michaels Crab House - $100
The Galley - $66
Total - $638
Plan for tomorrow:
Sail across to Herring Bay. It looks like it will take about 4 hours. With an expected heat index around 100 again, it's going to be brutal, but there are supposed to be fair winds from the south, so sailing may be a possibility.
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