Exploring More of the Chesapeake

While we loved our time in Annapolis hanging on the Navy mooring ball in Weems Creek, eventually it was time to move on. Several people had told us that St. Michaels was a cute little town which we should visit if we had the chance, so it was there that we headed after taking care of some boat chores, which included filling our diesel and water tanks and pumping out our waste.

St. Michaels is indeed a quaint little town, and we spent several hours exploring it with Ron and Jackie. We walked all through town, checked out a couple of gift shops and thought about going through the maritime museum, but at $15 per person for a self-guided walking tour, it was a bit too pricey for us! Besides, there is also a distillery, a brewery and a winery all right next to each other. Priorities, right?!? The distillery wasn’t open on Sundays, much to Ron’s chagrin, and the winery looked a wee bit too hoity toity for us boat bums, but the brewery was a perfect fit! Imagine that!

Jim and I shared one of their samplers, which included one each of their five current beers on tap. Surprise, surprise…our favorite was the IPA and the Belgian tripel was a close second! Oh yeah…we had one more favorite. His name was Barley and he was a huge St. Bernard puppy belonging to the brewmaster. Beautiful dog and he was joined by a total of about five other dogs all hanging out at the brewery with their owners. Gotta love puppy friendly breweries!

Next stop, after a very chilly seven hour motor from St. Michaels (it was 37.8 degrees outside and 46.9 degrees inside when we woke up that morning!), was Solomons Island. We spent three nights anchored here while we explored the island and visited with friends who live nearby. This is also where we sadly said good-bye to the Hullabaloo crew as they continued their southbound trek while we took a hiatus from our boat travels to vacation in Jamaica for a week (I know..life is rough when you’re us!).

Before bidding adieu to Ron and Jackie, we spent one last day hanging out together. We hopped in our dinghies and headed to the Calvert Maritime Museum. If you’re ever in the area, I highly recommend checking it out, if for no other reason that to see the very cool Drum Point Lighthouse, a screwpile type light which is one of three still remaining of the many that used to be found in the Chesapeake.

We spent a couple of hours in the museum, and it must have made us hungry, because we ended up at the The Lighthouse Restaurant just in time for happy hour with half off appetizers…and we ended up sharing six appetizers amongst the four of us! My favorites were the crab dip pizza and crab dip stuffed potato skins. So yummy!!! It was a nice little “see ya later!” party as we parted ways with Skelton Crew, but we miss them like crazy and are really looking forward to a reunion party!