Ahoy Mates!

Welcome to the town of St. Michaels. I joined the crew of Pride II on November 13 and will spend the next four days exploring this historic city. Then we weigh anchor (pull up the anchor) and set sail for Chestertown.

Jesse, the ship's bosun, welcomed me aboard and gave me a quick tour of the ship. The bosun is responsible for all of the rigging (ropes) on the ship. Can you figure out where all of these ropes go? Everything sounds so exciting - especially the part about "man overboard," "fire," and "abandon ship." Those are three expressions I do not want to hear on this voyage! Come with me now and visit St. Michaels.

Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum

My first stop in St. Michaels is at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. Here you will see America's largest collection of Chesapeake Bay boats. In the Small Boat Shed, you will find out why there are so many different kinds of boats. You can stay and watch a video of racing log canoes or continue to the Boat Yard and watch boat builders in action.

You probably have heard stories about how Native Americans made canoes by carving out one huge log. Bugeyes were built in a similar way. Instead of just one log though, as many as nine logs might be put together. The Edna E. Lockwood is an example of a bugeye.

A three-masted schooner named Victory Chimes was docked next to Pride II at the Museum dock. Victory Chimes is the last American-built, three-masted schooner still sailing. She is celebrating her 100th anniversary. How many differences can you spot between Pride II and Victory Chimes?

Another beautiful boat you will see at the Museum is the skipjack, Maryland's state boat. Large trees became hard to find, so ingenious (smart) watermen found a way to build V-bottom boats using wooden planks instead of whole logs.

Have you ever enjoyed a tasty summertime meal of hard shell crabs? Maybe you've even been crabbing in Chesapeake Bay. The Museum is a great place to learn about crabbing and Chesapeake Bay watermen.

The next time I enjoy some spicy hard shell crabs, I'll know to thank Benjamin Lewis. He invented crab pots in 1928 and they are still used to catch crabs today. If you ever get to take a boat ride on the Bay in the summer or fall, you'll see floats marking where there are submerged (below the water) crab pots. You may even spot a waterman in his workboat pulling up each pot to check for crabs.

If you have never had a chance to go crabbing, this is a great place to visit. You can pull up crab pots and eel pots to look for the day's catch or see the soft-shell crabs in a crab shedding tank. Do you know how long it takes before the soft shell crab gets a hard shell again? The watermen work all year long, no matter how hot or cold the weather might be.

Before automobiles and better roads made travel easier, watermen used "arks" as houses. They would tie the arks behind their boats and pull them up the Bay as they fished for shad and rockfish. When they found a good fishing area, they would pull the ark onto land and have an instant home.

Have you heard of the Atlantic Flyway? A flyway is a path that birds take as they migrate south for the winter. The entire state of Maryland is a part of the Atlantic Flyway. A wall size map in the waterfowl building shows the birds that like to stop in Maryland. There are even sound effects for the most common birds. You can learn the history of decoys (wood carved and painted to look like birds) and try your hand at carving. Do you know who uses decoys?

This beautiful lighthouse was moved to St. Michaels in 1966. It was built in 1879 and used to sit in Hooper Strait, 40 miles south of St. Michaels. A lighthouse keeper and an assistant lived here to be sure that the light was burning from sunset to sunrise every day. Only men could be lighthouse keepers and their families could only visit them two weeks out of the year. The keeper got his food from local farmers and watermen. Rainwater was caught as it rolled off the roof and was stored in wooden storage tanks.

There were no sinks or tubs in the lighthouse and the privy (toilet) was on the porch. Can you guess why the lighthouse keeper needed this bowl and pitcher in his bedroom? The lighthouse is three stories high and from the top you can see all of St. Michaels. Do you know the names of two other lighthouses on Chesapeake Bay that look very similar to this one?

Right outside the museum there are three houses built in the mid-1800's. You can also see this figurehead that came off a ship. It is called the "Figurehead of Freedom" and was carved in 1931 for one of the U.S. Naval Academy's schooners.

To learn more about the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, check out their website.

Well, it's home we go, or rather back to the ship, for a chicken pot pie dinner. I don't know how Erin, the cook, makes these fabulous dinners in the galley (kitchen) of the boat.

Go to Part 2 of the November 22, 1999 Log