Captain's Choice blog: Entering another state

When we left our anchorage on Thursday at Onancock we got up at "o'dark thirty"...or first light to beat the winds on the 65 mile journey to Solomons. I had thought we were finished seeing the dolphins and I was glad I was wrong, we had a pod of 8-10 frolicking around and I was thrilled to see them again. We were traveling from the eastern shore back to the western shore and the seas were actually much calmer than we had anticipated. At one point we had some rollers and then realized it was just as we had learned, when you go past the mouth of the Potomac River depending on tides and winds you can experience a different Chesapeake. This is also where you cross from Virginia to Maryland and we can check off another state completed.
Calvert Marina in Solomons has a couple long floating docks for the "traveling yachtsmen" at a very affordable discounted price ($1.00/ft), so it was no surprise that 9 looper boats were here overnight Thursday. It was nice to catch up with Tranquility III, Anchor Down and Follow That Dream before they took off Friday.
This marina offers a courtesy car and while we are very thankful to get to use it to re-provision it has become the "talk of courtesy cars". It's called the black beauty for good reason, it's a Mercedes with 222k miles, driver side window doesn't work, a/c doesn't work, passenger seat belt doesn't work, the gas pedal is missing, etc...maybe I could just say it runs. We have come to welcome these relics because without them we would have a long hike to the store, especially since it was close to 90 degrees out.
After re-provisioning Friday we took the dinghy to the Calvert Marine Museum. This maritime museum has a small aquarium with knowledgeable volunteers explaining all aspects of marine life, which we thoroughly enjoyed. We learned that the species of rays that we saw when we entered Onancock were cow-nosed rays which migrate back to the Chesapeake in May. They travel all the way to and from South America. It is also home to the Drum Point Lighthouse which was moved to the museum location from its original position a few miles away. We had never seen a lighthouse like this. First, it is built on a screwpile, the pilings were screwed into the seabed to support the lighthouse structure. Secondly, a small house occupies the 3 floors of the lighthouse. Usually you find the lighthouse homes next to the lighthouses but these lighthouses are in the water and the only way to get to them is by a small skiff so they had to build a lighthouse to house the keeper and his family.

With t-storms and rain Friday night we knew we would be staying an extra day at Calvert. Perfect timing for an oil change which kept Mark busy Saturday morning, hopeful that the next one will be back in Buffalo. Then we met up for docktails with Ellis Island, In Deep Ship and Chrysalis Saturday night.

The winds and rains were back in the forecast for Sunday night, which gave us plenty of time to head east over to Cambridge, a 44 mile run across the Chesapeake. It started out a little rolly due to the tide coming in but flattened right out for a very enjoyable ride. Cambridge is located up the Choptank River and with it being a Sunday our hopes were that the free town dock would have room for us. Much to our surprise there wasn't a boat around. The wall is very well protected, located in a little basin by the county building. There isn't any water or electric but they do have picnic tables, free
Wi-Fi and the main street is 2 blocks away. There are shops, restaurants, the Richardson Maritime Museum, Harriet Tubman Museum and a local brewery RAR. The best deal was the happy hour at Rock Lobstah, $1 oysters (which are suppose to be sweeter in the Chesapeake) Mark said they were great, 1 lb. peel and eat shrimp for the price of 1/2 lb and $1.25 PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon).

The rain started around 1:30 a.m. Monday and kept up until mid afternoon. We decided to check out Ocean Odyssey, a restaurant a little further away and get some exercise in while we were at it. They had an unusual sandwich that consisted of fish, soft-shell crab and oysters that Mark said was very good. Monday night is live music night and the band Before Your Time was playing. We enjoyed listening to the music from the 20's - 40's, it reminded us of Mark's mother who use to sing all the time when she was working around the house.

The weather forecast for the next week is pretty gloomy, rain today (Tuesday) and Thursday, scattered showers Friday - Sunday, winds picking up...we decided we would stay put in Cambridge one more night then we will head out on Wednesday to an anchorage near St. Michael's.