A Trip Back in Time

Upon leaving Solomons we sailed back across the Chesapeake to one of, if not our favorite place on the Bay - Tangier Island.  Tangier is a small - about 6 miles long by 1 mile wide island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay just south of the Maryland/Virginia state line.  Approximately 450 people reside there and most have lived there their entire lives and are decendants of the same.  They live a simple life that reminds us of "the way things used to be".  The people are very friendly, politically conservative (may be one reason we like it so much!) have high morals and are very patriotic.  You see American flags and buntings everywhere and this island has sent many of it's sons and daughters to serve in our military.  All of the names of those whose lives were sacrificed in battle are engraved on memorials in front of the Methodist Church. 

It was just wonderful to visit with our friend Milton Parks, owner of Parks Marina.  We first visited this very special island about five years ago for the first time and have loved every visit since.  Unfortunately, it has been three years since our last visit and we were long overdue for our "Tangier fix"!  As soon as Mr. Parks made his way out to assist with our tie up last week the first thing he said after "hey" was "how long has it been since you were here"?  That was a nice welcome!  Happy Birthday Milton, who will be 82 in just a couple of weeks!  We love you and your island!

Tangier is the softshell crab capitol of the world.  Many generations of watermen have put in longer days than most of us can fathom - setting and checking their crabpots and then sorting the softshells from the rest of the blue crabs.  Many of them have not only their own deadrise crab boats but also a "crab shanty" where they process their catch.  These shanties line the canal that cuts right through the island from east to west.

Unfortunately, Hurricane Sandy took out a few of them last year.  You can see one that is falling into the water.

 As you walk from Parks Marina to vist the rest of the island you immediately come to "the center of town" where there are a couple of restaurants, ice cream parlors, a small grocery store and the Methodist Church (steeple in background).

On Tangier there are very few cars - mostly limited to the policeman (singular) and firemen.  Everyone else rides a bike, a motor scooter or a golf cart.  Lots and lots of golf carts!  There are a couple of bridges over the marshlands similar to this one.

Scenes of Tangier

Tangier School

New medical center

Parks Marina

This will be my last post for awhile as we are leaving the boat for a few weeks to visit family and attend our nieces wedding.  We'll be back sometime in August and will begin making our way south.  Until then!

Solomons Surprise

After all the excitement of the 4th of July we continued to make our way south to Solomon's Island (again) because it is a nice, pretty place and is about 40 miles due south of Annapolis.  It's also fairly easy to provision there at a nearby Food Lion store, which we knew we needed to do pretty soon.

The Calvert County Museum, which I shared pictures of earlier on our blog has a nice outdoor concert venue at which we had seen Styx and 38 Special a few years ago on a vacation trip.  Well, to our surprise upon arriving there recently we discovered that Daughtry, 3 Doors Down as well as two other bands we had never heard of were doing a concert that very night!  We were able to relax in the cockpit and listen to a fairly good, free rock n' roll concert!  Nice!

Southbound

Since the Sassafras is very near the "top" of the Bay an we have a wedding to get back to NC for we decided to begin making our way back south.  We had skipped the small, but well-known town of Rock Hall, MD on the way up so we decided to make that our next destination.  Rock Hall is a really neat little town on the Eastern Shore across the Bay from Baltimore (on the western side).  We spent a couple of days just walking around and exploring as well as taking the official tour on their town trolley.  Unfortunately, we experienced some very nasty thunderstorms two nights in a row and had problems with our anchor holding, which resulted in shortening our stay in Rock Hall.

With more stormy weather predicted for the next several days to a week we decided to revisit Annapolis where we could stay on a mooring ball, which is much more trustworthy than an anchor in heavy winds.  Once there we decided it would be a great place to be for Independence Day so we stayed all week.  We were told that the fireworks would be shot from a barge in the harbor and that hundreds of boats would come from all around and completely fill the harbor.  They did not lie!  I have never seen so many boats in one place before!  The 4th festivities begann in Annapolis with a parade at 6:30 followed by a patriotic concert by the Naval Academy on the waterfront and then the fireworks.  The parade was a little lackluster but the concert and the fireworks were very memorable!  The fireworks were so massive that the water all around our boat was completely lit up in one color after another from the reflection.  Once the fireworks were over and it was finally dark the harbor looked like Christmas with all the anchor lights glowing on the hundreds of boats in the harbor!  Awesome sight!

A "tall ship" that came into town for the 4th!

And a few yachts that came to join the fun!

   

To Points North

Continuing northward on the western side of the Bay we entered into the Patapsco River, which is the one that takes you to Baltimore.  It was a cloudy and somewhat hazy day when we entered the river that afternoon and made our way into our chosen anchorage.  We could barely make out the Frances Scott Key Bridge (named that because it is the site where he wrote our national anthem during the War of 1812) which spans the Patapsco just before you enter the Inner Harbor of Baltimore.  What a difference a day and clear weather makes!  The next morning when we came back out of the anchorage into the river not only could we see the bridge clearly but also the entire skyline of Baltimore "was right there"!  We chose not to actually spend time in Baltimore because we have both been there in recent years on business trips and it can be a bit dicey with all the commercial barges and tankers that go in and out of there constantly.

Once we re-entered the Bay we had a beautiful sail all day as we made our way across the Bay to the eastern side and up to the Sassafras River, which is claimed by many people as the most beautiful river on the Bay.  I suppose the reason behind that is the high "cliff-like" banks on either side and the many beautiful homes that sit on top of them.  During our stay there (Georgetown) was the "super moon" which occurred late in June.

From the Sassafras we decided to turn back south.  Our next destination was Rock Hall, MD, which is also on the Eastern Shore.  Another place we've read about in C. Bay Magazine for years because their marinas, restaurants, etc. are always voted "Best of the Bay".  Now we know why!  We really enjoyed the time spent there - if only the weather had been nicer!  Unfortunately, we've experienced lots of rainy, stormy weather during the past few weeks, which doesn't make for nice sailing or anchoring!  Hopefully, that will improve soon!