Ken was anxious to sail again. It had been a long time since we had seriously had both the white flappy things deployed. We left early and the tide was pushing us along at over 9 kts. Then when we got out into open water, the wind was 18kts and gusting, the seas were trailing and white-capped…this was not my favoured conditions but a few Ritz crackers and a bottle of water and I was good to go. We decided to forgo Deltaville and instead anchored at Fisher’s Bay in the Piankatank just south of Deltaville.
The next morning, we headed out again in lumpy conditions. Our initial intention had been to make way for Tangier Island but the weather forecast was not good (what’s new?) and it was pretty snotty on Tangier in storms so we headed instead for the protected marina at Crisfield.
Somer’s Cove Marina had a lot of nice features: fuel, free pump out, and (after a little pleading) a floating dock as well as a swimming pool. A walk about town revealed that nearly every second establishment was either for sale or closed. There were several brand new looking condominium complexes that appeared empty. One had a dedicated marina with at least 75 slips and not one boat in sight. We heard that the crab harvest was down substantially from previous years.
We returned to the marina, thoroughly sodden from our trek and decided a refreshing swim was in order. The cool water of the pool was a refreshing relief from the oppressive heat and humidity. Dinner would be at the Blue Crab Café, a bar and diner. When we arrived there was a meeting in the dining room so we took a couple of spots at the bar. The locals chatted us up extolling the virtues of burgers and the ‘loaded fries’ which looked as though they had gathered pretty much everything hanging around in the kitchen and dumped it on a huge plate of crinkle fries. Ken chose crab soup which he deemed very good and a burger which he deemed pretty poor. I had a crab cake sandwich that was fine…not the best but not the worst I’ve had. When we got back to the boat, it was blowing a hoolie and a serious storm was predicted. We were lucky to only catch the edge and fared well with a little rain and more wind. Good to be on the dock in Crisfield.