St. Mary's River

August 18, 2013

We were able to sail across the Potomac yesterday, about a 3 hour trip, to an anchorage at St. Mary's City. The term “city” is used rather loosely here as there is not much there except a replica of the site of the first settlement in Maryland. After anchoring off the coast from St. Mary's College, we took the dinghy in and walked around the small, very pretty campus and then over to the site of the first state house and other buildings associated with the settlement.

The Dove as seen from the water

As we walked out to peer over the high bank overlooking our anchorage, a fellow walking his dog came up and introduced himself. We talked for a while about the area and he offered to take us on a tour of the Dove, a replica of one of the two ships that sailed into this river in 1634 bringing the first settlers to what later became the state of Maryland. What a treat that was. It is a beautiful wooden ship built in the 1970's by Jim Richardson and maintained by a group of volunteers.

It began to rain later that day and continued all through the night and most of the day today. We needed to have the holding tanks pumped out, so when the rain ended we headed back down the river to Smith Creek where we plan to stay for the night before heading to Solomon's Island tomorrow if the weather will allow.

Now anchored in Jutland Creek in a beautiful little cove with herons and ospreys as neighbors.  New joker valves installed in the heads after the pump out, making their function so much better.