Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum January 12, 2020
Located in St. Michaels, Maryland the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum‘s mission is dedicated to preserving and exploring the history, environment, and culture of the entire Chesapeake Bay region, and making this resource available to all.
Founded in 1965 at its current location on Navy Point their 18 acre waterfront campus was once the site of a busy complex of seafood packing houses, docks, and workboats. The Hooper Strait Lighthouse made its way here the following year.
I have visited this museum a handful of times over the years and always found this place to be fascinating. I’d been meaning to make a return for some time but what caused me to make this visit was finding out that the new Maryland Dove
The current Maryland Dove resides at St. Mary’s City and was launched in 1978. The new one will have similar dimensions but is intended to be a more historically accurate representation based on new information discovered about the Dove. See this Spinsheet article for more info.
The Dove which these two ships are intended to be replicas of accompanied the Ark in 1633 bringing 140 colonists and supplies from England. The 400 ton Ark returned to England after the colonists were in place and the 40 ton Dove remained with the colonists as a trading vessel. See more info by clicking here.
The construction is taking place at the museum’s shipyard with sections being worked on in the shipyard building and on the ground outside. This Maryland Dove website has more info on the past, present, and future of this ship and the replicas.
Overall the museum has an impressive number of exhibits in various buildings around their campus (check out this map) which includes the Hooper Strait Lighthouse mentioned above.
The museum has many boats in its floating fleet including the buy boat Winnie Estelle located next to the Hooper Strait Lighthouse. She can be rented!
Historic small boats
and a re-created crab picking plant are in a long shed next to the water.
A Waterman’s Wharf provides an opportunity to catch blue crabs, tong for oysters, and pull up an eel pot.
The Oystering on the Chesapeake building has a real skipjack inside you can climb aboard and learn about working the bay on one of these special boats.
This museum is an amazing place and you can easily spend hours here and still not see everything. There are many things here I did not see on this visit but I plan to visit this place in the future to watch the progress on the Maryland Dove and also take a deeper dive into the history of the Chesapeake Bay and more of the features of this museum. Click this link to see more photos I took on this visit.
Through March 31st, 2020 they have special $5 one day admissions to the museum which is a steal, be sure to check this place out!