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St Michaels MD, way up the winding Miles River on the Eastern Bay, was a major destination of ours. We had heard of it from many friends and family and we wanted to make sure we stopped there for a while. St Michael's has the historical significance of being the first town to use a unique variation on the blackout tactic. Back during the War of 1812, the British sailed up Miles Creek and decided to shell the town from their warships. The folks in St Michaels extinguished all lights in their houses and placed lanterns high in the treetops. The British gunners aimed their cannon at the lights and so overshot all the houses in the town. The British, after assuming they had punished the rebellious colonials enough, sailed away leaving St Michael's intact. Pretty ingenious!
We spent the previous night on the Little Choptank River tucked into a nice little cove. There was no wind and the water was like glass. You couldn't tell where the sky ended and the water began as we gazed at the billions of stars above and below. We arrived on Labor Day and tied up to the face dock at the St Michael's Marina. We were greeted by a friendly Michael and his great team of Anne, Steve, Pat, and young guy that was a dead ringer for Prince Harry. We had planned a rendezvous with our friends Joe and Denise - they drove over from the Jersey Shore to spend a few days with us. One night we went over to the Crab Claw, a famous crab house here, and scarfed down some delicious crabs and crab cakes. Rhonda, the great waitress there, showed us a different way to undress the crab. Her method involved some serious moves with the knife. Very funny lady.
After a wonderful time with Joe and Denise, we found that Tropical Storm Hanna was headed directly our way and so we decided to stay through the storm at the marina. The only other boats there were Ron on a trawler and an abandoned Cheoy Lee 100 foot meso-yacht parked right on our stern. As the rains came and the wind blew and the dock went under water, the marina crew diligently checked all boats and lines. That's a picture of Pat in his boots during a lull in the storm. We were very impressed with them. On top of that, Michael gave me some great cigars to celebrate the passing of Hanna. We will be back here!
The town itself is filled with well-kept old houses under giant trees. One of the churches has a carrillon that chimes the quarter hour and plays different tunes each day at 3:00pm. On Sunday the church bells go crazy. The town center is a single street filled with tourist stores, ice cream shops, and a few restaurants. We spent some time at the Carpenter Street Saloon listening to a couple of guys on guitar and bass play whatever they wanted. There we met Audrey, who sang a few beautiful songs, and Marc, the head shipwright at the Maritime Museum - that's a picture of it with the old Hooper Straight Lighthouse and several skipjacks. Speaking of maritime, St Michael's is also famous for their Log Boat racing. The log boats are gorgeous - hollowed out logs joined together for a shallow draft. We watched the three or four lead boats race each with two masts rigged with fore and aft sails plus a top gallant. The photo at the top left show some the boats as the head for the wing mark.
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