Yesterday poolside, we were chatting with a local about town and our need for propane was revealed. The only spot to get it was Puff’s (a gas station out of town on the highway). He told Ken he’d be happy to drive him, just come knock on his hull when he was ready to go. What a relief. Both tanks needed filling. Now, we were good to go.
Since we had missed Tangier Island, we decided to take the tour boat out of Crisfield to the island for the afternoon. Tangier is made up of small islands divided by marshes and small tidal streams, one mile wide and three miles long with about 800 residents. It has a strong tradition of crabbing and oystering. You can only get there by boat or plane. Our tour boat left Crisfield at 12:30pm and returned at 5:15pm. The trip took over an hour each way and we didn’t think two hours on the island was much time…boy, were we wrong! We ate an early lunch, not wanting to waste our valuable tourist time cooped up in a restaurant. The boat ride over was pleasant. We sat under the covered portion of the top deck and it was breezy. When we arrived, we took a guided golf cart tour of the island with one of the locals. It was a disappointing rote recitation of:”Here is the school. This is the oldest home. Here is the post office. Here is the Church. It is pretty you should go in…” I asked a question about if there was somewhere to collect oyster shells and really threw her off her game. We had hoped for some history and perhaps a story or two but there were none to be had. Even a request for a recommendation of which ice cream shop would be best was met with a response of “They’re both the same.”
We would have liked to explore the beach but it was too far so we walked around, poked in the gift shops and got an ice cream and then found the marina where we would have stayed...it left a lot to be desired plus they recommend that you arrive at slack tide to facilitate docking which is virtually impossible to coordinate on a typical cruising day. It was divine intervention that we ended up at Crisfield. We were back in our seats on the tour boat well before our two hours were up having seen everything in town.
The forecast was for more strong winds and a thunderstorm advisory for the night. We were getting blown off the aft deck of Allure so we headed to nearby Chesapeake Restaurant and Tiki Hut for dinner, opting for an inside table. Shortly after we arrived, the couples on two of the boats docked near us arrived. I joked about why they were eating inside on such a lovely evening. They too had had enough of the wind. We had a nice down home fried chicken dinner with a fresh green salad and returned to the boat.
Most of the rain missed us but it continued to blow all evening.