supply stop

The plans for the fall trip up Chesapeake Bay is starting to come together. I think the basic outline I showed on this map will work pretty well. I see this as an extended walkabout, maybe eight or even nine days with lots of exploring coves and bays like I did on the May weekend walkabout.

I'll camp out on the boat each night, no hotels this time, and stop once or twice to resupply in towns or villages along the way. It looks like the northern most point of the trip, and also the half way point, will be Oxford, Md. This is a great little (upscale) town on the Tred Avon River just off of the Choptank River. Bruce and I drove through the town, with Spartina in tow on the trailer, after the Crab House 150. We added it immediately the list of places worth visiting by boat.

This will be the perfect place to resupply with fresh vegetables, water, etc. In fact during our visit their Bruce and I stopped at the Oxford Market on South Morris Street in Oxford and that shop had a great selection of fresh vegetables and groceries plus a very nice deli. Wouldn't it be nice to get some fresh onions, peppers and tomatoes and have a nice sandwich with a cold drink too?

The trick will be finding a place to tie up. This is an upscale town and the waterfront is lined with some very nice marinas. I may have to pass Spartina off as a dinghy for one of the nice boats tied up on Town Creek.

The other food source for the trip will possibly be fishing (don't worry, I'll have plenty of canned food on board in case my usual luck holds). Fall on Chesapeake Bay means that the blue fish and stripers start schooling and chasing bait fish just below the surface of the bay. They can be easily spotted by the birds that come down to feed on the small fish as shown in this photo by Bruce.

We saw a handful of feeding frenzies like this on the Crab House 150 but just fished one of them, catching a nice selection of both stripers and blues. Maybe I'll get lucky again this fall. I'll be sure to have the filet knife packed in with the cook kit.

steve