14th.June.2019 A little drama

Calvert Cliffs

Sailing north from the Solomons, the Calvert Cliffs are a striking feature - steep red faced cliffs extending for miles. Apparently they are a fossil hunters haven, yielding evidence of life from the Miocene times (10 to 25 million years ago). Gil & I had visited the Calvert Marine Museum while in the Solomons, and saw many of these fossil finds, including an impressive megalodon skeleton replica (giant prehistoric shark).

Wind and wave conditions this day were rougher than forecast. Waves were close together and our going was 'bumpy' … so much so that one of our dinghy's supporting cables broke, causing it to ride vertically vs. horizontally on its' davit system. Every wave slapped against the lower hanging dinghy tube. We feared further damage might result, or at the very least we'd lose our dinghy's contents. There wasn't much we could do, however, but hope that it would hold out until we reached calmer water.

yikes … dinghy isn't suppose to hang like that!

We continued on to the Little Choptank River on the Chesapeake's eastern shore, and anchored inside Casson Point, where the water was calm and still. Surprisingly, nothing was lost overboard from the dinghy... oars, anchor, the small but very important plug for allowing water to drain out, even the cardboard box that the crabs we had purchased were put in ... nothing fell out. How lucky was that?

sunset at Casson Point, Little Choptank River

We doubled up on our safe arrival beers that afternoon.

sunrise at Casson Point

Several watermen were working these waters the following morning. Here, rather than using crab pots, the watermen were using trot lines (I think state regulations dictate the method chosen).

trot lining for blue crabs

Gil dinghied over to ask if we might buy some crabs, but was told that they were challenged this year to catch enough to fill their orders. We had heard similar stories from the watermen on Smith and Tangier Islands. It was explained to us that heavy rainfall upstream was lowering the salinity of the water and effectively causing the crabs to migrate downstream. Come to think about it, the folks downstream in Deltaville were telling us that they were having a record year for crabs!