Saturday & Sunday Oct 24 & 25th: Oxford to Solomons and into the Potomac

     Right after breakfast I looked out the pilothouse window and there perched on the pulpit was a little bluebird.  Hope it’s an omen for us.  He spent long enuf for us both to see him, and he was off.  And so were we, off to cross the Bay once again, this time heading SW for Solomons Island.  Not much breeze, and a good thing as most of the way it was right on our nose. A chilly day, but still good enuf to be outside.  We had some company on the Bay, but even tho it was Saturday not that many boats. We recognized several South-bounders as they passed us.  Most turned into Solomons with us, where we rafted  up with Bill and Kathi of the  sloop Jarana, folks we had met in June on the St Lawrence River.  We had been playing cat and mouse since then, finally caught them.  We shared a drink and some cheese and crackers and compared notes of our summers’ trips.  At suppertime we broke off and headed up the Back Creek to anchor off the Calvert Maritime Museum.

     Sunday we dinghied ashore to the Calvert Maritime museum dock first thing in a light rain.  The Museum was not open yet so we ventured up the road to West Marine in hopes of finding a propane sniffer, part of our repairing boats in exotic places routine.  No sensor.  We then walked the road to “town” of which there is very little aside from the numerous marinas.  I can’t even begin to count them, or the boats there-in.

     The museum was very well laid out, and besides the ever present screw-pile light-house, the small boat collection, the working “2-sail” oyster sloop and the powered “Buy Boat”, much of the museum was dedicated to the marine life of the bay and the fossils found locally in the  Calvert Cliffs.

Calvert Cliffs

Calvert Marine Museum

     Back at the boat we took advantage of the afternoon to run down the bay 20 miles to the mouth of the Potomac River.  A little choppy at first, but it calmed down as we went.  Fall is definitely in the air, but we saw more pelicans, so feel we are moving in the right direction.

     Very quiet traffic-wise on the bay, altho we were flanked by a tug towing a construction barge and a smaller barge with a tugboat on it.  We also passed a jack-up barge which was servicing a lighthouse.  we saw a tug pushing a two barge load of concrete bridge beams.

    We ended our travel day at Point Look-Out Marina, on an almost deserted pier where we had our pick of slips.  After supper we made a bee-line for the laundry, two washers!, and showers.

Sunset at Point Lookout Marina, Smith Creek