The back side of St. Michaels - Rocinante's Voyages

St. Michaels, Maryland is a great little town on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay and most people that visit by boat do so from the north via the Miles River. But not us; nope, we choose to approach St. Michaels from the south via San Domingo Creek. Those of you that know us or have been following us for a while are not surprised. While we do enjoy the amenities a modern marina offers, we would much rather deal with the “hardships” associated with avoiding the commonly followed paths. Besides, this particular anchorage came highly recommend by several of our Maryland sailing friends; especially Nick! Actually, he wouldn’t stop raving bout it and now we know why!

And so our story continues from the backside of St. Michaels…
As usual, we do very little the first day/night in a new location beyond setting the anchor.
The following morning, we go through our day 1 routine:

Unpack & Inflated our dink on the foredeck
Set up a hoisting bridle, hoist it over the side and lower it into the water using our Main halyard
Lower the outboard from it’s holding place on the back rail and attach it to the transom
Setup the fuel tank & attach the fuel
Throw in our “dink bag” containing a patch kit, handheld VHF, Nav light for night time, etc.
Throw in our dink anchor
Throw in our PFDs (life vests)

It sounds a bit more complicated than pressing the button on the garage door opener, but in reality, it’s not that bad and we only do it once per new location. Even less often if we’re traveling short distances (less than 24 hrs) in protected waters. In those cases, we simply tow our dink behind Rocinante.

St. Michaels, Maryland is a great little town on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay and most people that visit by boat do so from the north, via the Miles River. But, not us; nope, we choose to approach St. Michaels from the south via San Domingo Creek.

Our dink, dinghy, tender, water taxi!

We packed our stuff; iPads, iPhones, Kindles, etc. into our Ocean Pack (waterproof backpack/tote bag) and hopped aboard ready for a day ashore! Yeah, right! Let’s see, the boat is moving, the dink is moving, Newton’s law says that when you put your foot into the dink, it’s going to push away leaving you with one foot on Rocinante, one in the dink and a growing expanse of water between your legs!

Well, while not exactly graceful, I’m happy to say that we both managed to get aboard and that no one fell in – that’s a win in my book! The next step is to cross our fingers and toes while I yank on the starter rope. What? You thought this thing had an electric start? Nope, good ol’ fashion recoil start! I must say though, that I’ve finally gotten the hang of starting it and it usually kicks over in one pull these days. Anyway, we eased away from Rocinante and headed north towards the town dock. The ride there is actually quite pleasant, passing by some lovely waterfront homes and more than a few osprey nests along the slightly more than 1/2 a nautical mile trip.

The Town Dock

Now, we knew that the waterman used this dock, so we weren’t expecting anything too posh, but what we found truly shocked us! The dock was filthy and had no ladders – we had come in pretty close to low tide and there was no way in hell Maria was going to be able to get up onto the dock from the dink. I circled around looking to see if I could find a place to land, but no luck. We were really disappointed and were ready to head back to Rocinante when I spotted an old broken aluminum ladder behind one of the crab boats. We eased our way over, ducking under an old dock line & dodging spikes sticking out of the water that threatened to puncture our precious dink! No, seriously spikes! I secured the ladder as best I could and Maria managed to climb up onto the dock. I pulled away to leave room for anyone else that might show up, tied up, handed our pack up to Maria & hoisted myself up onto the dock. We were not happy campers!

But, we dusted ourselves off and started the walk into town.

S. Talbot Street

Blue Heron Coffee – St. Michaels, MD

It was a gorgeous day and as we made our way past quaint little homes & gardens, our disappointment with the town dock slowly faded away. A couple of blocks later, we came across Blue Heron Coffee; a great, small batch, coffee roaster with a cafe area where you can hang and have a cup or two of that day’s brew… Nice! We popped in and spoke with one of the owners for a bit and then purchased two different roasts (whole bean) to try back aboard Rocinante.

As we exited the Blue Heron, and turned north, the main street (S. Talbot) came into view – decisions, decisions, do we turn right or left? We opted for left and started to explore the town of St. Michaels. This particular section of town is the main business district and is full of quaint shops, art galleries, inns & restaurants.

SOP

It’s probably best if I quickly discuss our SOP (standard operating procedure) for exploring a new location. What? You didn’t think we would simply “wing it” did you? Nope, while not complicated, we do follow a set process which saves us a lot of leg work and allows us to enjoy each location to it’s fullest!

First order of business is to find the local public library. Now, while we are both avid readers and staunch supporters of our public library system, our reasons are much more selfish! You see, as cruisers, the public library provides us with 3 vital elements; Clean public bathrooms, an airconditioned sitting area & FREE WIFI!! In most we also have access to electrical outlets for charging our phones, iPads & laptop – talk about a high value target!

Once we find the library, our next priority is determined by how long we plan on staying or how long it’s been since we’ve stayed in one place. If we’ll be there more than a few days or it’s been more than a week since our last long stay, we start asking around for a laundromat. For you dirt dwellers, that’s were most of us cruisers wash our clothes when we get the chance.

Once that’s taken care of, we start walking the town and noting key elements to visit later; Grocery stores, Liquor stores, Restaurants, shops, Art galleries, Historical sections, Parks, etc. Around noonish, we start deciding where we’ll have lunch.

View from Foxy’s Harbor Grille

In St. Michaels, we choose Foxy’s Harbor Grille – We sat at a nice table with a great view of the harbor. Our waitress was awesome & the drinks were pretty good, but the food? Not so much! I had a fish taco which simply had way too much “stuff” on/in it, including shredded cheddar cheese! Seriously? Cheddar Cheese with fish? Oh well, win some, lose some!

We left Foxy’s and roamed around for a bit more before calling it a day and heading back to the dink for our trip back to Rocinante.

Once back aboard, we tidied up and simply sat out in the cockpit as we eased into the evening and the ubiquitous Sunset!

St Michaels sunset

We awoke the next day around 4:30 AM to the not so gentle swaying of Rocinante. I jumped out of bed and stuck my head out the companionway just in time to spot a local waterman racing away down the creek and the fading remains of his wake trailing behind him. You really only have a few options open to you at this point; you can get all pissed off and start yelling at them, you can pull up anchor and go somewhere else or you can accept it as part of the experience – yep, I choose the last one! I went below and brewed a pot of coffee and then hung out in the cockpit drinking my coffee and waving at the other waterman as they went by… by the 4th day, all but 2 were slowing down and several were waving back!

Two of them had set out their trotline right along side us – it was interesting to watch them work and gave you a true appreciation for how these guys make their living! In essense, a trotline is a long, baited line with chain on each end to keep it on the bottom (where the crabs are), a float on each end so you can get at it and an anchor on each end to hold it in place. I sat there and watched the waterman position his boat just ahead of the first float grab the line and put it over rollers of some sort attached to the side of his boat. He would then motor slowly towards the other float – the trotline would rise out of the water, over the roller and back down into the water. They have little bags full of razor clams tied to the line every bunch of feet and every now and again, he would reach down with his net and grab a crab that was holding on to the bait bag as the line came up!

One day I noticed he had caught quite a few and so when he left, I got in the dink, followed him back to the dock and asked if he would sell me some. He was quite happy to and thanked me for saving him a 20 mile trip to his wholesaler! Bottom line was that he got paid his regular amount and saved himself the time and money of driving and I got a heck of a bargain on the freshest crabs around – Win! Win!

In the end, we spent almost three weeks anchored in this lovely creek and exploring the great little town of St. Michaels, Maryland – we’ll definitely be back!

Till next time,

Carlos & Maria
SV Rocinante…_/)