Chestertown

Just so you know (and recent experience tells me that if you live around here you probably don’t) there is a unique and easily accessible island not too far from Chestertown. I’ve told lots of people about my 2007 visit to Smith Island, and their replies were 100% consistent: “I’ve never been there.”

I was thinking about Smith Island today because I was out and about and noticed a few flies and mosquitoes here and there. And that reminded me that now is the perfect time to head over to Smith Island, before the insects (which in summer form large torture posses I am told) hit their population high.

Last year I took a roughly two-hour drive to Crisfield, a small town in Somerset County. There I caught a ferry to the Smith Island town of Tylerton. A sign posted on the boat warned that my bag and my person were fair game for searches by the captain, who was so good natured that I imagine you really have to be a headcase to make him suspect that you’re carrying contraband, such as liquor. But more on the liquor ban later.

Even though the Jason II is pretty basic, I found the ride extremely relaxing and pleasurable-likely because I would be far away and unreachable from the dreaded office for a couple days.

Our captain blasted an AM talk radio show, and he steered with the ease of somebody so experienced he could do this job in his sleep. In addition to ferrying people, it’s the captain’s job to be a courier, transporting canned and fresh fruit and vegetables, cases of soda cans and sundry goods. Lots of stuff has to be shipped in, but the seafood doesn’t, of course. Humble Smith Island has never been the site of wealth or extravagance, but folks have long had the good fortune to dine plentifully on the poshest seafood, catches so fresh and yummy that they cost big bucks in large metropolitan areas.

Near our destination, the captain slowed a bit to navigate the waterways between small flat islands of low marshy grass, which in spring, are bright green and loaded with birds. For the first time I saw an eagle’s nest up close, and it was impressively large. The boat journey through the grey-blue that is the sky and water of the Chesapeake was over in less than an hour.

{End of Part I}