St Michaels

The Miles River is noted as the passageway to one of the most popular cruising destinations on the Chesapeake Bay, St Michaels.  Although the town was officially chartered in 1804, early accounts of trading here date to 1631.  As St Michaels grew it became an important shipbuilding center especially noted for its "Baltimore Clippers", the fastest sailing vessels of their time.

Coming into the harbor, we passed a traditional Chesapeake Skipjack dredging for oysters.

At the entrance to the harbor is the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum featuring the relocated cottage-style Hooper Strait Lighthouse.

As we tied up at the docks of the St Michaels Marina I could hear shrieks coming from the dockmasters office and thought it was part of their halloween decorations.  It turns out the shrieks were from the boat captains going in to register and learning that, due to a festival this weekend, the dockage rate had been increased to $3.50 per foot.  Ouch.

Anyway, since it was only midafternoon we had some lunch at the Foxy Marina Bar (conveniently located directly behind our boat) and decided to walk downtown.  It is a small but pretty downtown.  They take their fall festival seriously.

Every light pole and store front was decorated.

This was the prettiest by far.

We purchased several shirts (had to boost the local economy) and walked back to the boat in time for the usuals.  Since the dockage was so expensive, we decided to eat in and Katy fixed us some delicious nachos for dinner.