Oxford

10/16/07

Today we motored the 34 miles from St. Michael’s to Oxford. No wind for sailing. You could have water skied on the flat surface.

The saga of malfunctioning electronics continues. The rewiring Bob did to correct the boat’s position on the GPS and have Furuno recognize AIS signals created new issues. Now our autopilot will not track to waypoints and the heading information coming into Furuno is inaccurate. I am grateful Bob is a patient man and has the skills necessary to trouble shoot these problems.

Wa-la! There must be an invisible genie onboard – about an hour into the trip the autopilot began functioning properly! No luck with the heading info, but we’ll take one genie fix a day!!

As we motored along I remembered some interesting facts from our museum tour yesterday. St. Michael’s was a British Colony. They grew tobacco, used slaves to harvest it, and traded the tobacco for English goods. British costs of goods were often higher than the price tobacco brought. That, coupled with bad crop years, eventually bankrupted the tobacco plantations. England was at war with France and Spain at the time and ships were needed, so… St. Michael’s residents turned to ship building. After the Revolutionary War fishing became the primary source of income for St. Michael’s. They still fish year round for oysters, crab, eel (which is sent to Asian markets), and rockfish.

There were a number of exhibits on oysters at the museum. One oyster purifies 50 gallons of bay water a day! Hard to imagine! Think about that the next time you eat an oyster! The oyster population has been depleted over the years and the bay has become increasingly polluted. Oysters are male until they are three years old, then they become female. All sorts of interesting hypotheses could be formulated around that fact! They grow about an inch a year and would live to be about 20 years old, save the fishermen.

Bob talked with his “new friend”, Chris, the technician at Furuno. Chris has a solution to our problem – rewire our entire system and get rid of the multiplexer!

We docked at Oxford about 2PM. Our Maine friends told us about a wonderful ice cream store here – The Scottish Highland Creamery. We were disappointed to find the owner has taken a much needed two week vacation. We had a delicious dinner at Latitude 38 Bistro. Their crab cakes, sautéed spinach, and sweet potato gnocchi were outstanding. The restaurant also provides transportation to and from your marina.

We walked through the village which appears to be early in the process of restoration. A poor country cousin compared to St. Michael’s.