chesapeake bay maritime museum

Recently I took a vacation in Maryland. I had a great time and saw a ton of historical sites. There is so much history there, you cannot wrap your head around it in just one trip. I played the tourist and went everywhere, it was a blast.

One day we took a drive up to St. Michaels , a recommendation from ‘1001 places to see before you die’ book, out by Chesapeake Bay. We visited the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, it was really cool. It’s on the Bay and is steeped in rich history about fishing, hunting, sailing, boats, and the fisherman culture.

I snapped a few pics, actually a lot of pics, but these made the cut today.

chesapeake bay maritime museum sign

chesapeake bay maritime museum skipjack — Beautiful skipjack at the entrance

skipkack restoration shop — A machine shop for boats

Pretty interesting to see how other people work their trade. This is a restoration shop for boats, where they fix and rebuild all the exterior elements.

skipjack restoration shop — different tools used for restoration

All the hard work is paying off, this skipjack looks beautiful, it’s almost done. You can walk up to it an see the workmanship. What a difference, the wood looks amazing.

hooper strait lighthouse — Hooper Strait Lighthouse

The original lighthouse was located out in the straight, in 1966 they moved it to the museum for preservation. It looks like an actual house from the outside, but inside it is all about function. These men must have froze out there during the winter. Judging by the skinny stairwell, you had to be pretty thin to work here.

When the lighthouse was moved to the museum, they renamed it the Screwpile Lighthouse.

screwpile lighthouse name change — How the name change came about

gigantic screw — Screws used to anchor lighthouse

These are the biggest screws I’ve ever seen. Nothing like this in our machine shop, I don’t think Dorman even makes anything this big.

chesapeake bay lighthouse view — view from the lighthouse

We like engines, so I couldn’t resist snapping shots of this diesel tugboat engine. Look at the size of those gears and rods.

diesel boat engine — diesel tugboat engine

tugboat diesel engine — huge mechanical parts

diesel tugboat engine — gigantic chain and sprocket

A trip to the bay wouldn’t be complete without some hunting guns, decoys, and a duck blind, right??
They had so many decoys on display, ducks and geese, the migratory pattern, and various guns.

waterfowler firemarms — waterfowler firearms

The end of the tour has models of all sorts of skipjack boats. The store was closed or I would have my very own model. This was a great day, I felt immersed in the culture of Chesapeake Bay. It is tough work being a fisherman, long days of physical labor in tough conditions. Boat restoration is no picnic either.

I give the museum a big thumbs up for providing so much diversity of the Chesapeake Bay area. I recommend you stop by if you are in the area.

3 Comments

Renate
November 7, 20123:35 am -
Great read. I’m looking forward to cheking out more comments later.
Tracey Munson
October 22, 20121:24 pm -
Thank you for your visit to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum and for posting about your visit. We have changing exhibits to look forward to, time and again, including a new War of 1812 exhibit launching next spring. You can also keep up with our boat restoration and more
Carina
October 21, 20122:13 am -
Some truly quality content on this site, saved to favorites .