A Night on the Town

After three blissful nights in beautiful natural settings, we arrive in Chesapeake City. I can tell already that we are in for a completely different kind of experience. This is an old civil war town with plenty of the sort of charming nineteenth century architecture that attracts tourists, but especially on the waterfront, the town has grown up and modernized along with the canal it lies beside.  The hot spot at the center of things is the Chesapeake Inn, complete with cool-scene deck restaurant and tiki bar. The techno music blasting from the bar has to be loud in order to compete with the revving engines of the boats that are constantly coming and going.

There are boats EVERYWHERE – an astonishing number of them those over-sized speed machines called cigarette boats. The owners, impossibly burly guys in muscle shirts and tatoos, can be seen lovingly cleaning and polishing the decks of these giant toys, but I'm willing to bet they'd never be caught dead cleaning the bathroom at home. The engines on these boats are impossibly loud; certainly the technology exits to muffle the sound, but in fact, I suspect that they have been designed for exactly the opposite effect. 

Of course, there is still room for other types of boats and characters. This has got to be one of the most unusual boats I have ever seen. Check out the tent on top!

Cruisers like us can take a spot at the dock to spend the night, but we decide to anchor a bit away from all of the commotion in hopes of a more peaceful night’s sleep. We’re mostly interested in a shower at this point, so we take the dinghy in with all of our shower paraphernalia. Unfortunately, they don’t allow showers unless you are spending the night at the dock. So, here we are, in all of our grodiness; margaritas are definitely in order! After a couple of burgers we go exploring. When Rick was on his return trip last August he was able to catch a concert in this lovely little park. No such luck this time.

Back on the boat, Rick rigs up the Sun Shower. This is an extremely rustic, “I just HAVE to take a shower!” piece of equipment. Filled with water, it absorbs heat from the sun, and then gravity sends the water down a spigot. Rick hangs it from the boom so that you have a modicum of privacy in the floor of the cockpit. I’m not quite ready to bare all, so I take my shower with my bathing suit on, thank you very much.

After an exhausting afternoon of reading and napping, we don some respectable (clean) clothes and take the dinghy in for dinner. We had made a reservation at the Bayard House Restaurant at which my friend Ivan Stefanovich once told Rick that he’d had the best meal of his life. The meal was indeed wonderful, especially seated as we were on the very edge of the canal, but Ivan clearly hasn’t told enough people – the place was conspicuously empty. While the Chesapeake Inn caters to a fun, TGIF Fridays type of crowd, the Bayard House tries for something more sophisticated.  Once again, subtlety, intelligence and artfulness lose out to crass, obvious, and over-the-top tastelessness.

The night time view from the boat is quite lovely. The tiki bar has wound down for the night, and the lights from the hotel along with the Chesapeake City Bridge and the lights from the anchored boats reflect in the still water, while families of Canadian geese swim quietly by. Our enjoyment of this scene is rather short lived however – close to midnight, one last power boat, filled with young boisterous men and a beer cooler, anchors right next to us! The night is now filled with raucous partying and the inevitable alcohol induced retching of one or more of the revelers. Chesapeake City certainly has its charms, but one night is just enough for me.