After we left Annapolis, Maryland, we spent two days making our way down the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Both nights we anchored in a “Mill Creek” – the first night off the Patuxent River, Maryland, and the second off the Great Wicomico River, Virginia.

This video summarizes our Chesapeake Bay crabbin’ experience with the new trap. Note: not sure if it’ll be the same for you, but for some reason, I have to re-load this page for the video to show up…

As recommended by locals, we steamed it alive in a can of beer and some Old Bay seasoning.

The whole steaming it alive part sucked some of the fun out of it for me, so I wasn’t so inspired to catch any more of them. Phill caught two more – one of them even had two claws! – but he threw them back. Between you & me, I don’t think he loved steaming Mr. Crab alive either.

Here’s what we were up to between Annapolis, Maryland and Hampton, Virginia

Annapolis to Mill Creek, Patuxent River, Maryland (27-Sep-2012)

We left Annapolis mid-morning – we saw The Pride of Baltimore anchored in the habour as we made our way back out into the bay.

There was no wind, and it was cloudy most of the day, so this didn’t rank high in our list of favourite passages, but there were still plenty of interesting things to see.

As we approached the Patuxent River, we noticed some major military activity – lots of planes and helicopters coming and going.

We didn’t take photos of every lighthouse we passed – we were kind of camera-weary actually.

After Mr. Crab’s demise, we ate dinner and called it a night.

Mill Creek, Patuxent River, MD to Mill Creek, Great Wicomico River, VA (28-Sep-2012)

We checked the crab trap before leaving – nothing – then made our way south to another “Mill Creek” in Virginia.

It was shortly after leaving the Patuxent River that we saw our first pelican.

It wasn’t just the pelicans – we got the general feeling that we were entering The South.

I took a picture of this lighthouse because it looked to me like it might have an outhouse – see the telephone booth sized appendage?

We had a nice, quiet night in the Great Wicomico…

Mill Creek, Great Wicomico to Hampton River, Virginia (29-Sept-2012)

Phill caught and released those other two crabs I told you about, then we started our last leg of the Chesapeake Bay. We had a nice sail and more importantly, discovered the Autohelm! Neither of us has ever experienced Autohelm while sailing (or motoring, or anytime), so we didn’t know what we were missing.

When we got the boat, we noticed that it was part of the inventory, but it looked a bit confusing, so we just stuffed it in a fishing tackle bag and forgot about it. It was a long day on the Chesapeake, so Phill decided to bust it out. Now we know why people rave about them, and we also know that we will become highly autohelm-dependent over the next few months. It made a nice sail from the Great Wicomico to Hampton even nicer. The person at the helm could do other things while maintaining control of the boat – like read, or play the guitar, or download pictures from the camera, etc, etc. Aunt Cathy & Uncle Ed named their Autohelm “Herr Otto“; we love ours so much we want to give it a name too – we’re open to suggestions.

Hampton, Virginia (30-Sep-2012)

We were kind of tired after a couple of long days of moving, so we decided to stay a second night in the tight anchorage in the Hampton River. We toured the town a bit, did some groceries, and had a Chinese take-out picnic under a tree in a park

Some of what we saw in Hampton…

We didn’t take a spin on the Hampton Carousel, but we watched some other people try it…

We’ve already talked about all the kind & generous people we’ve encountered on this trip, but it seems like everyone in Hampton is nice. And friendly. You pass someone on the street, and he or she will look you in the eye and ask you how you are – as though they actually care to know the answer. People just have a pleasant way of interacting with each other here – taking the time to say hello and exchange a few pleasantries. I guess it’s that Southern Hospitality we’ve heard so much about.

We left the next day and passed Norfolk, Virginia on our way to the Great Dismal Swamp Canal, but Norfolk deserves a post of its own, so I’ll sign off for now.