Saint Michaels, Cambridge, Buffalo & Home!

Saint Michael's turned out to be the cute town everyone promised.  We dinghied into the town dock and as we were tying up a couple from another boat in the anchorage arrived and offered to show us the way into town.  As we walked they pointed out a couple of their favorite shops and restaurants, since we wanted to go out for lunch.  It turned out that they are members of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum and offered to get each of us a guest pass into the museum! So we walked to the museum, got our passes, thanked them and went back into town for lunch.

After lunch we noticed a waterman replacing what appeared to be bait in little pouches made of orange netting tied to a line on his boat. Karen had noticed a boat passing through our anchorage pulling up a line with orange pouches in the morning, so we stopped to inquire.  He told us that razorback clams are used in the netting for bait, but that they only last one day. The line and pouches sit on the bottom where crabs hopefully latch on to the bait. Then they motor slowly down the line, running it over a roller on the boat and pick the crabs off. It's not hard to understand why crab cakes are so expensive!

We did a very abbreviated tour of the museum.  First we spoke to a shipwright apprentice working on the restoration of the 1889 log-hull bugeye ship Edna E. Lockwood. Apparently they took a laser scan of  the original hull to determine the required shape and are now using traditional tools to actually build the hull. 

Edna E. Lockwood 

Then we took a tour of the Hooper Straight lighthouse,

Hooper Straight Lighthouse 

and a permanent exhibit describing recreation on the bay including log canoe racing. This crazy racing includes groups of people hanging out on boards to act as ballast to keep the boats upright, as they have a ridiculous amount of sail.

Log Canoe

We also saw Elf. Built in 1888 she is the oldest active racing yacht in America!

Elf

Thursday, under jib alone in 15 - 20 knot winds we sailed down to the Yacht Maintenance Company marina in Cambridge, MD.  While we had a nice sail, when we started the engine, we discovered that the domestic battery bank was not charging.  Friday, with the help of Eric, an electrician at Yacht Maintenance Co, we discovered that the Voltage Sensitive Relay was not enabling the domestic bank to charge.  I spoke to Sterling, the manufacturer in England, and read the manual and couldn't identify the cause.  I did however install an emergency override to force the VSR to enable charging the domestic bank if it happens again. Friday we were basically stuck on the boat because of very high tides that caused flooding in the marina and resulting in our dock being under water until 1600. Then we got picked up by Enterprise to go get our rental car.  

Yacht Maintenance Co. dock at high tide

We then drove into historic Cambridge and had a beer at the local RAR brewery, then a very enjoyable dinner at a cute restaurant, "Stoked".

Saturday we were up bright and early and had a lovely drive to Buffalo, where we met our daughter Alyssa.  We stayed at the Westin Hotel and had a night on the town!  We had drinks in the lobby bar, then dinner at "Tempo" which was very nice,  and finally a nightcap at "Local", a bar close to the hotel.

Sunday we had brunch at Betty's, an obvious hometown favorite, as we had to wait 30 minutes for a table. And then made our way home!

It's crazy ... it doesn't even seem like we have been away ....