It is interesting how different the presence of sea birds is this morning. Maybe it is because we are docked next to a 40 ft low-slung sail boat with a navy blue hull – that is a sail boat with not one, not two, but three large owl mannequins hung in its rigging. Owls are bird predators and a common way of decreasing the bird population. We even had owl statutes mounted on the IBM building when I worked on Six Forks Road in Raleigh. Anyway, contrasting that to being tied up next to the fish factory in Reedville is a pretty significant contrast! So there are no birds this morning and it is raining, but hey, we had breakfast overlooking the yacht basin on Solomons Island (by the way, apparently the name is Solomons – not possessive so there is no apostrophe!)

It was very grey on the Bay today. Crossing the water, we discovered a huge refinery port rising out of the mists. Oil ships could unloaded in the Bay, and the fuel pumped through tunnels to storage tanks on the shore. We made it up the Miles River to St Michaels by early afternoon and the sun and the Hooper Strait Lighthouse greeted us there. This charming little port was founded in 1677. Across the waterfront, there are flags from all the ACC Schools – I am not sure why, but they were a happy welcome. We spent the afternoon walking around the town and visiting the Chesapeake Bay Maritime museum. It gave information about the log canoe sail boats that are unique to the Bay area as well as discussion about all the contention over the Bay. There are continuing squabbles between commercial fishing and pleasure boats, but also between oyster watermen who drag a dredge versus those who use tongs to manually harvest, between Maryland and Virgina, and between sail boats and motor boats. There was lots of focus on sharing the bay for the best of all. It was fun that there was an exhibit showing how watermen would put the “peeler” crabs into a trough to save them until they “molted” so they could have the soft shelled crab to sell. Fun because we saw the real thing when we were on Tangier Island at Mr. Park’s Marina. It was a beautiful walk back to the marina. We found St Luke’s Methodist church where we will go to worship in the morning and the Tarr House built in 1667. Dinner was at the Crab and Steak House – excellent food.