To this day, there is a strong connection to sailing here. The Zahniser Yacht center, where we stayed, was 90 percent sailboats. Invictus felt right at home surrounded by sailboats made by her manufacturer in Maine.
The locals have built a world class museum near the Marina and we borrowed bikes from the Marina office to get to the Marina. The sky was overcast, but the chance of rain was slim.
The centerpiece of the Museum is an old Maryland style lighthouse that used to sit low in the water showing the safe way in to the Pautuxet River. In the 1970s, the lighthouse was abandoned and the locals convinced a bridge contractor to lift it onto a barge and bring to the site of the museum. They spent several years restoring it and now offers hourly guided tours of the building, it's ghosts and mechanisms.
The museum also houses an excellent collection of boats made in the area from the 1800s through the 1970s. They also have a nice aquarium that is like a tiny version of ours in Chattanooga. One unique exhibit displays the bones of a prehistoric fish, larger than a great White Shark. The bones were excavated from the Calvert cliffs nearby.
Just down the road from the Museum there was a strip mall that had a West Marine Store and a Liquor store. What more does a boater need? We put a reserve bottle of bourbon in the basket of the bike and pedaled carefully back to the boat.
As we were preparing the grill for dinner, I checked the radar and we abandoned the grill in favor of the onboard oven. A massive rain was headed our way again. After the storm passed we were treated to a perfect end-to-end rainbow as the sun was setting. We hoped that it was a sign that a week full of rain was going to end.
We have now learned that for a week we have been sitting in a massive low pressure system that is stalled over the eastern U.S. It is called an "Omega Block" because it looks like an upside down Greek letter Omega on the weather isobar map. Linda says it is called that because Omega means the end of time, and that is when she thinks it will quit raining.
On Wednesday morning we got off to a slow start to savor the Marina's luxurious bath facilities. We topped off the fuel tank ($1.80 diesel) and headed east across the bay toward Oxford. It was cold (56 degrees) so we pushed Invictus quickly across the smooth bay waters. We made the 37 mile trip in less than two hours.
We tied up in the rain, awaiting the arrival of our friends John and Sarah who had been driving all day from Chattanooga to join us. We explored the beautiful little town in their car (guess what, it was raining and misting). We found an open bar where we raised a glass in memory of their 88 year old next-door-neighbor who had passed away this week. She liked to drink Scotch, so we did too.
On Thursday morning we awoke to 49 degree temperatures. This is no longer funny. All four of us bundled up and left in Invictus to motor 38 miles to St. Michaels. It's only seven miles "as-the-crow-flies" but we had to make big loop into the Bay and back to get there.
We took a detour up the creek beside Tilghman Island because John wanted to show us an anchorage that his family used when he was growing up in the area. While doing so, we passed a working "Skipjack" sailboat that was fishing nearby. This boat, built in the 1880s, is one of 40 remaining vessels that fish under special permits in the Chesapeake.
We cut thru a skinny little passage called the Knapp Narrows. There is a low (12-foot) drawbridge and I called the bridge tender and asked him to lift the bridge. Invictus only needs 16 feet of vertical clearance, so he just barely lifted the bridge for her little mast. We had barely passed under when the bridge clanged shut behind us.
After idling thru a very shallow cut (5-feet deep) we picked back up to cruising speed to make it to St. Michael's Marina by 1:00 p.m. The temperature had risen to 52. Break out the speedos.
The dockhand at the Marina volunteered to take John and Sarah back to Oxford to retrieve their car. A few hours later they drove back to St. Michaels and we headed up to town to have dinner in a French Bistro. We chose this restaurant because my daughter Ginny had given me a gift card to this restaurant for Christmas in 2014. At that time, we thought we would be making this trip in April, 2015. But she got pregnant and her sister Betsy got engaged and we decided to postpone our trip for a year.
That reminds me of a funny story. Last spring, I ran into a guy in our Marina and he said, "I thought you were taking a big trip this year?" I said, "Well, we were but now we have a wedding in August and a grand baby due in September." His eyes got big and he said, "Whew, you cut that one close, brother!" I explained it was two different daughters and he was a little embarrassed about his assumption.
The little town of St. Michaels needs to be on your travel list. The weather for our stay has been awful but we enjoyed it anyway. It is a postcard photo on every corner. It is a fabulous destination by boat but is would be a great place to visit by car, as well. And...as you can see from the next photos, it has been a very friendly place for the Chief Morale Officer.
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