St Mike's

Thursday 924-09

Left Cambridge and headed back out the Choptank River.  All along, we heard the Navy on the VHF radio hail various boats that had wandered into an area where they were conducting an exercise using live ammunition.  The Navy would call a vessel they'd seen on radar at a certain longitude and latitude, and order them to change their course to a certain bearing in order to stay out of the live fire area.  As you would expect, there were several................"you talking to me??" responses on the radio.

St Michaels is a beautiful (but expensive area.)  We wanted to go to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, but didn't want to pay the $100.00 docking fee to spend the night at a marina.  So I checked the chart, and found that Broad Creek off the Choptank goes up towards the south side of St Mikes.  San Domingo Creek off Broad Creek goes even closer.  So we motored all the way up to the "back door" of St Mikes, and took our bikes in the dinghy to a dock that some watermen use.  From there, it was a short ride to the museum.

It's a good thing I had installed a bell on my bike.  One long and one short signal, to get the bridge tender to raise the bridge. 

While we were at the museum, I did find out that when crabs mate, the female only mates once, but the male finds as many females as possible.  (whoo hoo !)  The female lays anywhere between 800,000 to 8,000,000 eggs.  Of course not all make it to the dinner table, but I knew there had to be a lot of those things.

Enjoyed the museum.  Saw more model ships.  (Son-in-law Chad wanted to know if there was a lint display at the Naval Museum.  And if so, did I make a contribution.)

While we were at the museum, one of the old dudes in our tour group stumbled going up some steps.  Don't know all the details, but they took him off in an ambulance.

Not sure if they are always here, but today we saw 6 antique Bentleys.  Thought maybe they were visiting up here from Naples, FL.

T