Position           38:47.44N 076:12.79W

Date                2359 – Thursday 2 June 2011 (UTC -4)

Yesterday we anchored and rafted up with Alice who also had an anchor down.  We should of course split up after the party and anchored separately, but we did not.  During the night a wind shift of 180 degrees meant that we had crossed anchor chains.  We had both buoyed our anchors which gave a clue as to what had happened on the sea bed.  Having realised that our anchor buoy line was trapped by Alice’s anchor chain and with some help from Bob Dall from Mawari we freed our buoy line and were able to drop astern whilst Alice took her anchor up without further problem.  Relief!, especially under the scrutiny of the other yachts.

A short, brisk sail took us to the very attractive town of St Michaels and an anchorage outside the harbour.  St Michaels is one of the major sailing centres on the east coast of the Chesapeake and the home to the largest marine museum on the Chesapeake.  In the afternoon we had a guided tour of the museum.  The focal point is this preserved fog bell tower and lighthouse.

Preservation of Chesapeake Skipjacks, formerly used for crab and oyster dredging as been a major objective.  It is difficult to imagine this ruin:

Being reconstructed into this:

But they do achieve it.

In the evening we gathered in the St Michaels Crab and Steak House for a Rally dinner.

Elizabeth had her first tasting of Chesapeake soft crab.  I at last managed to get my first American steak.  It was another excellent evening in good company.