We decided to go to St. Michaels with two other Ranger tugs, LONE STAR RANGER and SHARED DREAMS, for Oyster Fest and the launching of ROSIE PARKS (Chesapeake Bay dredger originally built in the 50's and just restored). The weather on Friday postponed our departure until Saturday morning. We left the West River at 7 AM and did a fast convoy at 14 knots across the Bay.
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| SHARED DREAMS at head, LONE STAR RANGER in the middle and NUDGE bringing up the rear. |
This was the first flying of the Chesapeake Bay Ranger Fleet burgee, soon to be a collectors' item.
St. Michaels was crowded with oyster revelers. From our berth right off Navy Point at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, we watched a Chesapeake Bay Retriever demonstration. Chelsea Seadog watched as well, but she wasn't as impressed as we were. We had dinner with our group at Ava's but we kept a weather eye on a rapidly approaching cold front. We decided that we'd better get back across the Bay first thing on Sunday morning.
Sunday morning, we woke up to NE winds at 15-18 knots. We knew it would be a blustery transit back home. And it was. We couldn't really get good pictures because we were bouncing rather dramatically (we're going to install seatbelts). Seas were close together and steep with lots of white caps made blindingly brilliant by the sun. There were occasional groups of three 5' tall waves and so close together that when we went over the first one, we dropped to the bottom of the next, plowed through and got totally covered with water.
Valentine and Chelsea were not amused. We put them in our stateroom and closed them in to keep them from bouncing all over the cabin. They didn't whimper or cry (or barf) but it was clear that they were concocting a scheme to find a new home with owners who were not crazy.
And video!
