Cambridge

Moving on to the next old English named town we sailed up the Choptank River.  Michner based most of his novel, Chesapeake, around this river so it was a must stop for us.  This was the center of quite a few innovative boat designs, the Underground Railroad thanks to native Harriet Tubman, and shipping.  It is also home to the annual Chesapeake Skipjack Races which we managed to miss by a day, Rats!  We walked quite a bit and met several really friendly people, especially Fred who say us walking with all our bags to the grocery store and gave us a ride.  He turned out to be a local sailor who cruises in the winter so he recognized fellow sailors on a reprovisioning trudge.  People waved from their front porches and we happy to share their stories along the river, overall, a nice stop.  Next we head farther south in the bay to the disappearing island of Tangiers.  I'll update again when I next have a good wifi connection.

This was such a unique porch rail design.  I can only think the original
owner was a paddlewheel captain.

The fountain at the courthouse.

This boat was at a restoration yard.  No story on it, just looked like
it probably had an interesting tale.

We saw this striking piece as we entered the town.  It  is called Sailwatch and
the building in the background is the county visitor's center.

The sign says historic drawbridge but doesn't say why it's historic.
We found a lot of only half-information in Cambridge.

A row of skipjacks on the town's seawall.

A beautiful example of a trailboard and carved sprit head.

Another colorful trailboard and this one comes with a story.  As we
were standing on the side admiring the boats, a very excited guy rushed up from the
nearby restaurant.  It turns out his great-grandfather had built this boat
and named it for his grandmother.  It had changed hands since he last saw it
and managed a ride for his grandmother aboard back in the 1980s. He had lost
track of the boat and happened to be eating lunch and saw her name.

All working skipjacks must display their license on the rigging.