TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

We spent a second night in Oxford, but probably should have taken off in the morning, as the winds were 10 knots or less.  However, it’s always good to have a layover day.  The electrical storm last night was long (about 2 hours), but there really wasn’t that much wind or rain.  The storm managed to keep me awake until after 2 a.m., but Bill slept right through it.  Now I’ve had two nights of poor sleep so I’m tired and old-age stiff as a result.  Bill took Christine and evil sister down off the deck so we could ride and explore Oxford.  I managed to do half my exercises in the process and promised to finish up when we returned (which remarkably I did).  We saw some lovely homes here in Oxford, but there is really no town itself.  In contrast to St. Michaels there are no gift shops or a main street to stroll down to window shop.  It’s as if the home owners have decided that they don’t really want the tourist trade in this town.  We did bicycle by the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church and stopped to peek inside.  As we entered, a gentleman came in behind us and asked if we wanted him to turn on the lights.  We said “no,” we were just looking at the lovely stained glass windows.  He explained he was a vestryman at the church and gave us the history of the church which dated back well before the Civil War.  The stained glass windows were done by a well-known artist named Willett.  The church had been established by the family of a Tilghman who was an aide de camp of George Washington.  After chatting with Bill D., we found he had been a Navy corpsman in Vietnam and had transported wounded soldiers from the front lines.  He said, “I wouldn’t give anything for the experience, but I’d never want to have it again.”  After the war, he became a commissioned officer and retired as a Captain in the Navy.  We surmised he must have done something heroic in the Vietnam War to have been recommended to officer school.  He was a career Naval officer and is now retired and a full time resident of Oxford.  He told us there are about 800 residents, most of whom are seasonal, though he is here full time. 

After leaving the church, we finally found a place to have lunch.  The view was lovely and we ate on the deck, but the food was mediocre.  We had stopped at the historic Robert Morris Inn, circa 1770, that was advertised to serve lunch and dinner, but we were told the innkeepers no longer served the public.  It seems that visitors really weren’t welcomed.  Anyway, we pedaled back toward the marina and stopped at Cuttler’s and Case which specializes in wooden boats.  Bill had a guided tour of the facility and enjoyed that.  When we got back to the boat, we made a grocery list, got our Cool Breeze bags and biked back to the only grocery in town.  We got the few supplies we needed and went back to the boat, where we once again headed back to the marina pool. We read our books and got showers.  We were going out to dinner at a restaurant that supposedly would come and pick us up at the marina.  However, when I called they said they had no one who could pick us up.  Man, that really made me mad because the harbourmaster had made such a big deal about what a great deal that was.  Schooner’s was closed on Wednesday, so we ate dinner at the boat.

We left Oxford, Bill concluding that Oxford would prefer not to have any tourists, as there are only a few restaurants, one pitiful grocery, and no shops.  It seems they would rather just keep the town to themselves.  I doubt we’ll return there again.

We were going to anchor in the Little Choptank, but when we got out in The Bay, Bill said it was only 20 more miles to the Patuxant, so we changed plans.  We sailed, rather desultorily because the wind was very light, but it was a pleasant day.  We ended up in Mill Creek where we had anchored before.  This time we put the dinghy down and Bill rowed to the sandy beach.  Bill explored the shore while I floated on a cushion in knee-deep water.  Then I rowed back to the boat.  Bill was rather critical of my rowing style, but I did get us back to the boat.  Then, I continued my cushion floating while Bill got the long-handled brush and worked on the bottom of the boat.  I floated around the boat just to give him a measure of security.  We were harassed by multiple jet skis.  Did you know that you can ski behind a jet ski?  We didn’t until we saw it.  We cooked the rest of the hot dogs for dinner after a lovely boat shower and slept well.

We were vaguely aware of voices coming and going at 6:00 in the morning, but managed to put off rising until 7:30.  Seems as though the “trotline” crabbers get an early start here.  We did talk to a cute young couple who was working a “recreational” trotline.  They had already gotten almost a bushel of crabs, which they said would sell for $150.  Bill asked if they were going to sell them – they said, “No, we’re going to eat them!”  They had gotten up really early and driven an hour and a half pulling their Bass Boat to get an early start.  By 10:00, they were pulling in their line as we pulled in our anchor and headed down the river back to St. Leonard’s Creek.  There was little wind so we motored the whole way and by noon we were anchored in much the same location as before.  Bill got the dinghy down, this time with the outboard on, and motored to a small marina for ice.  When he returned, we both rode the dinghy to a sandy beach – not very pretty with lots of the debris from the water and dead crab parts.  Also, there were tracks and other evidence that cows had been wandering by the shore.  We didn’t stay long and motored down a little creek to look around and then back to Cool Breeze.  We took showers and dinghied back to Vera’s where we dined on Crab Imperial and I had another Raspberry Lemonade.

After anchoring out for two nights and with predicted thunderstorms, we motored back up the Patuxant toward Spring Cover Marina in Solomons.  At one point we put out the head sail, but there wasn’t much wind and for such a short trip we didn’t bother with the main sail.  After a while, the wind dropped to 5 knots and below, so we rolled in the head sail and motored the rest of the way to the marina.  Since it was a Saturday in summer, the boats were out in full force, especially the kamikaze motor boats that seem bent on disturbing any sailboat’s quiet sail.  Fortunately, we didn’t have to endure them for long and were soon safely tucked back into the sheltered Spring Cove Marina.  After getting the laundry started and doing a little much needed inside boat cleaning, we went back to The Naughty Gull for one last crab cake sandwich and homemade potato chips.  We got there just at 2:30, which is the switch-over time between lunch and dinner (they don’t serve the chips for dinner, only fries.)  But we looked so disappointed that the waitress had pity on us and we got our homemade chips after all.  After lunch, Bill went to West Marine for some kind of bilge pump attachment and I folded the laundry.  Then, we got the bikes down and rode to the grocery store to stock up for our next anchorages.  We got back in time to get showers before a tremendous electrical storm hit, but that seems to have passed now.  We’ll have a bowl of soup for dinner due to our late and filling lunch, and I’ll try and get this posted.  Thanks for e-mails and comments.  Wish I could answer them all, but sometimes time and connectivity limits prevent it.