We were looking forward to going to St. Michaels as we were unable to visit this charming town on our cruise north earlier this year.
Delaware City was very cold on Monday morning, Oct. 19. It was in the thirties! Stephanie had stayed overnight with us on the boat and she left at 6 a.m. to go to work. Her favorite feature on her new car is her ability to turn the car on and warm it up before she leaves the house (or the boat in this case). The docks were so icy that walking was treacherous. Lynn slipped off the swim platform requiring her to change her pants, shoes and socks because one leg got soaked!
As we left the marina, the difference in the air and water temperatures caused fog to hover over the water.
But although it was cold, the winds were calm and so were the seas. We were able to get underway without any problems. The day warmed up slightly as we traversed the 15 mile long Delaware & Chesapeake Canal and entered the Chesapeake Bay. Like the Delaware Bay, this one is huge so it can be very pleasant to cruise or it can be quite rough. We were lucky because the waters were amazingly calm. The trees lining the banks were ablaze in fall colors.
We had a long cruise – 70 miles – and beautiful weather. Although there was little boat traffic, we did pass this particularly large barge.
In order to get to St. Michaels from the north, you have to enter a very shallow and narrow waterway known as the Kent Narrows. This area is very popular with boaters and it was lined with marinas filled with mostly powerboats. Because we are out of season, there continued to be little traffic and crossing the hairpin turns of the Narrows was uneventful.
We decided to stay at a marina in St. Michaels so we could go into town and explore. Also, our dinghy is folded up on deck so it wouldn’t be convenient for us to moor anywhere and dinghy into town. We found the most cost effective marina in this high rent boating town and tied up at their relatively empty docks. By this time it was 6 p.m. (we had left that morning at 7:30 – long day!) and we had dinner reservations for 7. We quickly changed and walked into town before heading over to the restaurant.
St. Michaels is a perfectly charming Chesapeake Bay town. We were lucky to be here off season because it can get very crowded. However, on this Monday evening most of the stores were already closed and the streets were very quiet.
We made our way to Bistro St. Michael on the main drag. This was an absolutely perfect little restaurant. It was cozy and warm inside (the weather had turned chilly again) and we had a most delicious meal in a quaint and intimate setting. It was a perfect Monday night date night experience and we were very happy!
Afterwards, we strolled around town a little more. There were some interesting Halloween decorations! The town was almost eerily quiet on a Monday night. It’s often much nicer to be in a popular town during its off season.
We had a quiet evening aboard treating ourselves to yet another episode of Mad Men and going to bed early. We had had a long and quite enjoyable day!
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