CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN: CALVERT MARINA, SOLOMONS, MARYLAND

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN: CALVERT MARINA, SOLOMONS, MARYLAND

How many readers thought we would stay another night at Harbor Island with the cackling diner? A show of hands, please. You’re right, we left as soon as we found another marina just across the creek. Our savior, Calvert Marina – we moved there August 24, not a minute too soon. The “Hogs” were arriving (on their motorcycles) at Harbor Island within the hour to raise money for the SPCA and then to raise Cain the rest of the day and night. We barely averted the “Hogs for Dogs” extravaganza. No such activities at Calvert Marina – only a Labradoodle in the office lying down, too tired to jump up and greet us. According to Matt, her owner, she had run wild that morning through many neighborhoods and was now paying the price. Calvert Marina has 3 bath houses and a swimming pool, a floating dock, crabs right next to the boat (more, later) – and get this, it’s not as expensive as the “Hogs” place.

Okay, it’s “later”. Here’s the crab story to date. The Admiral got a serious crab trap at West Marine, stocked it with chicken necks as bait, put a line on it and dropped it off the stern of Slow Motion. Hours later, when he pulled up the crab trap, it contained three crabs, all male. Before getting into this endeavor, the Admiral got a crabbing license. Now we have licenses to fish and/or crab in three states, maybe four. We were law-abiding boat owners before the Brunswick County, NC sheriffs boarded us, and we are certainly sticking with our law-abiding ways since their board and search operation. At any rate, three crabs. We had read the rules. You can only keep crabs at this time of year if they measure more than 5 and ¼ inches across. So I ran to get a ruler. The Admiral measured. Two were clearly too small. They were released, carefully, since each of them put up quite a fight and one of them drew blood with one of its fierce claws. They apparently wanted to stay in the trap to finish off the chicken necks. The third one looked legal, but alas, the measurement was 5 and 1/8 inches. Since there is no such thing as “nearly legal”, he too was released. We had steak for dinner that night.

The next day the Admiral checked the trap and found that feisty vampirish he-crab back in the trap, all by himself, pigging out on the chicken necks. Who knows? Maybe in another month, he’ll grow big enough to keep. But back into the Bay he went again. The trap was held out of the water for a few hours to discourage the little piggy from jumping right back in. Then the Admiral lowered the trap. Hours later, “Little Piggy” was back with the other small crab, and they were both feasting on the bait like they were storing up for winter. By this time, the Admiral had a pair of tongs to remove them from the crab trap and place them back in their natural habitat – Plink! Plunk! Stay away, you undersized crustaceans, y’hear? Once again the trap was kept out of the water for a spell to try to encourage the illegals to find chicken necks elsewhere. Okay, so we’re at our third day of crabbing. It’s Labor Day, and the Admiral checks the trap – three crabs! Yes, the illegals are back, but the third one – grab the ruler – OMG, it’s 5 and ¾ inches across. LEGAL! It’s a male! LEGAL! From trap to table – ten to fifteen minutes at most. Not exactly a crab feast, but a good start. The meat is very sweet and tender. Guess he didn’t have much time to ruin himself with the ingestion of chicken necks. By the way, chicken necks on the third day? Whooeee! The sight, the smell, the oozy consistency – not for the weak of stomach. But the Admiral says the raunchier the bait, the crazier the crabs are for it. Now that’s counter-intuitive, and how does it explain how sweet the crab meat tastes?

Crabbing is not a time intensive endeavor. So while we were waiting for the legal sized crabs to find the rotting chicken necks in our trap, we hopped in the rental car and headed north to Annapolis. I had only seen Annapolis in Harrison Ford’s movie “Patriot Game” – lots of narrow streets, tons of brick, and menacing Irish radicals in pursuit of Jack Ryan. The narrow streets and tons of brick are still in Annapolis, no sign of Irish radicals. We arrived at a side entrance to the Naval Academy as all good midshipmen were in chapel with their families. So we had the campus to ourselves. It was overcast, a lovely day to tour the museum full of the exploits of Naval Academy graduates. It was interactive, and I could press a button to choose my battle, then watch every movement of every ship (American vs British, French vs British, American vs Spanish) engaged in a major naval engagement, starting with the Revolutionary war. Every shibboleth of every American victory at sea was on display: “Don’t give up the ship!” “Fire when ready, Gridley!” “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” There is a prize for anyone who can identify the speaker, the naval battle, the year and the location (and who won) – for each of these famous battle cries. A really good prize, so send in your answers.

Here is an oddity: John Wilkes Booth was apparently wearing spurs on April 14, 1865 when he assassinated President Lincoln at the theater. I know this, because one of his putative spurs is on display at the Naval Academy museum. It looks like the wish bone of a chicken. The spur purportedly got caught in the bunting draped along the front of the presidential box, as Booth made is escape. Then spur fell to the stage, where a guy picked it up, and his heirs gave it to the Naval Academy to display. The Naval Academy is circumspect about this gift, stating that the spur “is believed to have been worn by Booth.”  Fact, fiction or faction, nevertheless, the spur is on display. Hey, has anyone heard of DNA testing?

We stopped by the Maryland State House, er, that is, Art pulled into a loading zone, and I jumped out and ran like hell to get a photo of the State House. I started to run past some statues, then noticed “Justice for All” and “Thurgood Marshall”, and there he was, my hero, Thurgood Marshall, standing above me looking like the attorney in Brown vs. Board of Education. So, snap, snap of Thurgood, then a few snaps of the State House, and run back to the loading zone before the ticketer arrives, or before Art heads back to Solomons alone. Thurgood Marshall – here’s a little known fact. He took time every day to watch his (and my) favorite soap opera, Days of Our Lives. A friend of mine who lived in Alabama for a lot of years told me that men and women alike in the South used to take time out from whatever they were doing to watch the soaps. I used to watch Days of our Lives and Another World with my friend Dominique at her Branford, Connecticut cottage on the Sound. She had a radio news anchor job that went from three to eleven, and I was the Executive Director of a public interest law firm, who worked until midnight most days. So a break in the middle of the day was good for both of us.

It was only after reading about Thurgood Marshall’s soap watching habit that I was empowered to “come out” with my own history of soap watching. As some of you may know, the soaps were the first TV shows to tackle controversial subjects like rape, abortion, interracial marriage, same sex marriage and teen pregnancy. These subjects should not be controversial, but with idiots like that Akin guy from Missouri saying that “legitimately” raped women do not get pregnant, the controversy rages anew. Let me break the news here: THERE ARE NO LEGITIMATE RAPES! THEY ARE ALL VIOLENT, UNLAWFUL AND SCARRING FOR LIFE. Yes, Virginia, a rape of an unconscious woman or a highly intoxicated woman is a violent act. You may not see the bruises, but they’re there. Look at what you did, Justice Marshall, you led me straight to the “soap” box – thanks for making this a more just world for all of us.

As we left the downtown area of Annapolis – don’t ever get caught in the traffic on Main Street – we heading to the docks to check out the marinas. The Annapolis City Docks are right in the middle of town, probably a little too much activity to get a good night’s sleep. So we headed for the hinterlands, London Towne and Edgewater. They had marinas, all right, but wow, they started to make Dudley’s and Harbor Island look bearable. One marina had a dock master that was the spitting image of Boris Karloff, only scarier, with a young Asian boy playing some sort of electronic game sitting next to him. Weird vibes. Another marina offered Coconut Joe’s and lots of loud, live musical acts. A third marina seemed sort of okay, once you set aside the fact that you had to drive through extremely rundown neighborhoods to get there. But there was no 50 amp electricity. We struck out on marinas near Annapolis. So we continued to head south to Solomons, and Art had this brainstorm to check out North Beach and Chesapeake Beach. Lo and behold, Chesapeake Beach has a marina, hotel and Spaahh. Except for the thousands of seagulls, which you have to dodge while walking on the docks, this place is really pretty. It became a possibility for our cruise from Chestertown post-reunion, heading south to Key West. And North Beach has a boardwalk, no ski-ball, but sno cones (no banana, Art’s favorite). We saw the postage stamp sized beaches at both towns, filled with Labor Day celebrants. A wedding was going on at the Chesapeake Beach hotel. As the bride walked out on the pier, with her photographer running backwards to capture her beauty, someone from the bayside restaurant shouted: “Push her in!” Can you get a meaner drunk than that?

So here we are at Calvert Marina on Labor Day, contemplating a tour of the Calvert Maritime Museum. I have already toured the AnneMarie Sculpture Garden up the road. Sabina was here last weekend, and we went despite threatening skies. This little gem in the forest has sculptures on loan from the Hirschhorn and the National Gallery. Most of them are outside, and they’re pretty spectacular. The skies held up the rain as we walked along the paths from a mini-Stonehenge to the Walk of Women. All along the paths tree stumps and tree limbs had partial drawings of famous artists’ masterpieces, like Warhol’s Marilyn, Dali’s melted clocks and Van Gogh’s Starry, Starry Night and a couple Vermeers. Very cool. The indoors exhibits were neat too. There is a special exhibit of photos and paintings of the Chesapeake Bay Watermen at work. Also, there is an exhibit of sculptures all made from newspaper and/or other recyclable materials. The woman who sold us tickets to enter ($3) said that this Museum is run completely by women. The whole staff is comprised of women, except the gardeners. I asked her why the gardeners were not women, and she paused, “Well, I guess there are women gardeners.” Hello! Thank you, Sabina, for pointing out the Warhol and Dali to me. A word to AnneMarie: Cut out the fairies, gnomes and trolls – all the plastic dolls and glitter – not cute. After the rain soaked them, not cute at all.

 Don’t expect a lot of boat travel tales in September. We’re very happy at Calvert Marina, and while we may cross the Chesapeake to visit a few places, we will keep our “home base” at Calvert. I have a reunion at Chestertown on the eastern shore, but may drive there. I may visit my brother and sister in law at their new mountain aerie – by car. At the beginning of October, my sister and brother in law celebrate their 50^th anniversary, since they eloped. Is that a wedding anniversary, or a marriage anniversary? It’s a looong time, whatever you call it, and I’m so happy for them. After that party, the Admiral and I start heading south as fast as we can, “weather permitting”. We have a space reserved in Key West starting November 20. We are not allowed to re-enter Florida, according to our boat insurance policy, until November 1, so we plan to enter Florida as soon as we can, then hightail it to Key West. The action on the high seas and the Intracoastal Waterway will be non-stop once we start heading south. In the meantime, I’ll keep you posted on our land meanderings – and on my progress with navigation skills and knot tying skills. Yes, there is definitely a lot of room for improvement. Damn those clove hitches – they look so easy to tie, but I tie them wrong so many different ways that the Admiral finally says: “Tie them the only way you haven’t tried. There, you got it!” Not much of a ringing endorsement. And who’s going to remember the “wrong” way? Don’t worry, when I get it right, you’ll read about it on this Blog.