Meandering Magees: St. Michaels, Maryland

Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Day 423
5128 miles

A cancellation by another boat was the only reason we were able to get into St. Michaels Marina on Sunday, as this "Nantucket of the Chesapeake" is obviously the place to be for Memorial Day weekend. Most of the boats in the packed marina were from other places on the Bay, but chose to be here. On Monday morning there was a parade of boats leaving, which meant the marina, town and museum were all much less crowded. The gloomy weather probably played a part in that, too.

If I had a vision of what the Chesapeake Bay area would be like before coming here, St. Michaels would be it. The boat docks shared space with crab restaurants. (we didn't have to turn our radio on as we could hear the live music being played at the dockside eateries). More restaurants and shops were a short, inviting, two block walk from the marina. One of the best maritime museums on the east coast was around the corner. And boats, boats, and more boats. Power and sail. The Bay is seriously nautical.

Before I let the pictures do the talking, here is one story about the "Town that Fooled the British".

The battle of St. Michaels occurred during the War of 1812. The shipyards at this small town became an inviting target for the British. They expected an easy victory. Instead, they were outwitted by a clever group of townspeople who learned of the impending attack and dimmed the lights in their houses and hung lanterns in trees beyond the town, causing the British gunners to overshoot the town!

After running through a gamut of fishing boats in the bay, we made our turn to head into St. Michaels and True North had to navigate a local sailboat race!

I took this picture from a brochure as it is a good representation of the marina and and docks.

Downtown St. Michaels has many historic homes now housing businesses.

The Old Brick Inn was built in 1816 as a private residence.

Our walk to the museum took us past these unique older homes.

You can tell that Sunday (Brick Inn picture) was sunny and Monday (above picture) was gray and overcast.

Crabs in the brick walkways lead the way to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum

Greg and Karen at the entrance. The museum is an 18 acre waterfront campus that details how people live, work and play on the Bay.

Among the nine buildings is this working boatyard where shipwrights restore and build Chesapeake Bay boats.

A boat in progress.

This "Play at the Bay" building had wonderful displays and information on how the Bay has changed over the last 100 years from a place of work to a place of play. This is a full sized pleasure boat from the 60's. The area is still home to working fisherman (crabs and oysters) so the trick now is learning for the two activities to coexist.

Maryland Blue Crab. The displays in this exhibit declared that nothing is as important to the Chesapeake Bay's culture and economy as the blue crab. "Watermen, boat builders, pickers, wholesalers, and restaurant owners have staked their livelihoods on the delicious crustaceans. The State of Maryland has adopted the crab as its symbol."

Crab pots. These are the things we have to watch out for while on the water. We only see the little floaty things.

The Maryland Crab Meat Company recently closed its doors and donated all the crab picking apparatus to the museum for display.

Oyster shells were used for fill on St. Michaels like we use dirt.

The Chesapeake had its own gold rush. From 1870-1880 oysters were worth their weight in gold.

Like combining peanut butter and jelly into a sandwich, someone, somewhere, had to be the first person to look a raw oyster in the face and think it might be a good thing to put in his mouth!