Chesapeake Bay

Chesapeake Bay Lighthouse

Today, we took the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the eastern side of Chesapeake Bay and the Maritime Museum in St. Michaels. At first, we were somewhat disappointed in the museum, they were reconstructing a few typical Chesapeake boats, and there were a few light houses and a display about playing on the water (the rise of the Yacht set in the 1920’s). The lighthouse we saw was different than the typical tall circular building, this was actually a hexagon shape, and apparently there over 20 of these style light houses in the Bay. Then we noticed that the museum went along the shoreline and there were large displays explaining about crabbing in the bay. Did you know that a soft shell crab, is actually a crab that just molted its old shell and hasn’t hardened his new shell? There was also an oyster factory and an oyster boat with all their equipment. Actually, the museum did a good job of understanding how important the Bay was to the economy of Maryland. But, of course, the current problem is the decline in crabs and oysters over the years. Yet even today, there enough oysters to completely filter the bay twice a week. The temporary exhibit was on the war of 1812, the forgotten war. The three items the majority of people remember about the war are: the White House was burned, the Star Spangled Banner was written from the moment when the American flag was still flying over Fort McHenry after the British bombardment, and that Jackson won the battle of New Orleans after the war was over. The exhibit filled in some of the details especially the battles up and down Chesapeake Bay. It also pointed out that the treaty pretty much left things as they were before the war, except that the British agreed not to impress Americans into the King’s Navy. We had lunch at a Bistro in the town and then continued down the peninsula until we had water on all three sides of us.



Crabbing Boats