We’re finally north of Cape Hatteras for Hurricane Season.  However, much of the shoreline and many of the museums describe how hurricanes have effected the people and places along this coast over the years.  I’m not going to think about that right now, maybe later.  We selected this anchorage because Active Captain, our online cruising guide said, first of all, anchoring was possible here, and also that there is a West Marine available.  We were also interested in the Assateague National Park/National Seashore which is a 37 mile long barrier island along this part of the Eastern Shore.

Eastern Shore actually refers to the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake, which is basically the Delmarva penninsula, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia.

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We are anchored just inside the Ocean City inlet between West Ocean City and Assateague Island. To the north is Ocean City it’s boardwalk, amusements, and miles of beach resorts, and to the south is Assateague Island’s undeveloped natural beauty.

My mom drove over 500 miles from Buffalo, NY to meet us here.  The wind was biting cold, we had several days of dark and raining skies, but there were still a few sunny days. The beach season officially opens Memorial Day weekend on the boardwalk, but we went a few days early to avoid the crowds.

A few years ago we visited the Harrison family in New Jersey and had an afternoon at The Shore, which was very similar to Ocean City’s boardwalk.  I’m assuming this is a common East Coast beach attraction.  The boardwalk had a long beautiful white beach on the eastern side and shops and restaurants along the western side.  At the end of the boardwalk by the inlet is an amusement park and this little Life-Saving Station museum.  At first I was just looking for a place to wash our hands after ice cream, but in the end touring this museum really explained the history of Ocean City.

The downstairs has an aquarium room with marine life unique to this area like the Lined Seahorse, Horseshoe Maryland Blue Crabs, Maryland Sheepshead, and shark exhibits.  The Ocean City circa 1940 exhibit pictured people in bathing costumes and showed that this has always been a fishing community.

The Life-Saving exhibit explained how the surfmen who manned this station would rescue people from shipwrecks off the coast.  The girls also answered questions from the museum’s clipboard along the way, earning a shark tooth prize.

Upstairs there are exhibits about the boardwalk, surfing and local veterans.

The rain continued and Eric stayed home with Topaz so he could get some work done in peace.  My mom took us to the Assateague Visitors Center in Maryland.  The National Parks visitors centers do a great job educating us about the park.  On this cold rainy day no one wanted to get out of the car, but a quick picture with the ponies was in order.

Assateague is one of the few places where horses are completely wild.  On the northern Maryland end, only a small part of the island has roads and the rest is untouched for the horses to live by their natural instincts.   They live in bands with a stallion, a few mares and their young.  The horses are wild, like the bears in Yellowstone, and the rangers educate visitors to reduce habituation by not feeding or approaching the animals. The herd size is  controlled with a contraceptive vaccine administered with a dart gun.  This protects the land from over grazing and the mares live a longer life by only having one foal in their prime.

In Virginia, on the southern end of the island the horses are taken care of by the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department.  Here the horses are rounded up at the end of July, the swim to Chincoteague Island 1/4 mile away and collect foals to auction off.  This not only keeps the herd under 150 animals, but also helps pay for any care provided to the ponies.

Now how can we do all this touring without a good lunch.  Hmm, when in a Maryland fishing town what should we eat.  How about crab?  This was our first experience with such a meal.  The dinner for two came with hush puppies, corn, shrimp, and a couple dozen crabs.  The waitress gave us a bit of instruction on eating these steamed crustaceans covered in Old Bay seasoning.  Then we got to work with the hammer.

It didn’t take long to realize we needed a doggie bag to save the rest for tomorrows lunch.

Back at the boat we finished them up.

The cold wind and rain kept us inside when we were at the boat.  Anywhere we went outside made us shiver to the bone.  Another new experience for us here is the tidal currents.  Makai changes the direction we rest at anchor with the tides and not the wind.  So when the tide is coming in, we face 180 degrees to the wind and now it blows straight into the cockpit and if the door is open we freeze inside the boat.  Cuddling with a blanket and movie, a little popcorn and hot chocolate helps.
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All day long the fishermen would zip back and forth in their foul weather gear.  Some would drift with the wind or current past us.  I saw plenty of fishing but not so much catching although I’m sure they must have been catching something to attract so many people out on this cold day.  We gave it a try without much luck.

Saturday Eric put his work aside, the sun came out, mom stayed home with Topaz and we went touring.

Our first stop was Furnace Town near Snow Hill about 40 minutes down the Delmarva peninsula. The furnace operated for about 20 years in the first half of the 1800s.  To make iron for Philadelphia and Baltimore, they collected ore out of a nearby bog, and dumped it in the furnace along with oyster shells (which forced the impurities to coagulate) and charcoal.

 

The melted iron was poured off into pigs made in sand molds.  The museum also had several historical buildings that were moved here to represent buildings that originally supported the company town.

The first is the church, and then the broom maker.

The weaver’s building was actually a polling house from a neighboring community.

The grounds were the edge of a beautiful wooded park, Roy’s keen critter eye spotted this huge fuzzy caterpillar.

The flowers were starting to bloom everywhere as well.

another half hour down the road was the NASA Wallops flight facility visitor’s center.  The displays and movies were very informative.  We also learned that as a young Naval Officer George HW Bush was stationed here.

A few miles more and we came to Chincoteague Island and the Virginia side of Assateague.

The girls did two Jr. Ranger programs, we did an easy walk out to a pony viewing area.

We learned about habitats and the animals found in the Chincoteague wildlife refuge.

And then got home very late.  What a great day, we never could have seen all of this without my mom’s car.  Between the rental car in Fort Lauderdale, and my mom’s car here in Maryland, we’ve really come to appreciate how nice it is to have a car.  So many things would be out of our reach without it.