Life in the Slow Lane (The Pearl): Sept. 10

Day 176 – Eagle Sightings

San Domingo Creek - Anchorage

We woke to a nice day with just a slight fog rising off the water. We passed quite a few crabbers as we left this morning; I guess we should have put our crab trap in the water last night. We had our first bald eagle sighting this morning...in fact we saw three. They make the osprey look small and they are truly beautiful. It made my day.

We could have gotten to the main harbor of St. Michaels fairly quickly from our anchorage. The town of St. Michael sits on a piece of land with the Miles River on one side and San Domingo Creek on the other. We decided to go around Tilghman Island to San Domingo Creek, which would give us a better protected anchorage. We are now very close to both Oxford and Cambridge, so we have very little cruising left until we move the boat south for winter storage.

St. Michaels is a beautiful little town with lots of old homes from the eighteenth and nineteenth century, with lots of interesting history. St. Michaels is known as the town that fooled the British: On the morning of August 10, 1813, the British planned an attack on St. Michaels. Forewarned of the attack, the residents of the town raised lanterns to the masts of their ships and the tops of trees, tricking the British into thinking that these were lights in the town buildings. The British cannon fire overshot the town and most buildings went unharmed. Only one house, now known as the "Cannonball House," was hit. A cannonball went through the roof of that house and rolled down the stairs as Mrs. Merchant carried her infant daughter downstairs. The house still exists as a private residence.

We took the dinghy to the town dock and spent the afternoon doing a little exploring. We rode our bikes through the quaint streets to the main waterfront on the Miles River. They have a nice Maritime Museum, which we may visit later in the week. Today we just wandered through a few shops on Talbot Street, sat at Foxy's Restaurant watching boats come into the harbor and ate dinner at an Italian restaurant called Ava's Pizzeria.

One of the eagles we saw