Escape from Oxford at Last!

Sailing away from Oxford

Yesterday (May 30), we finally cast off the docklines, stopped at the fuel dock at Safe Harbor Marina and then motored away from Oxford. We had good wind and were able to sail most of the afternoon, finding a place to anchor on the eastern side of Poplar Island at the mouth of Eastern Bay. The island is almost entirely man-made now, but it was a large island when English colonists settled there in the 1630's. By the late 1800's, it had split into three pieces due to erosion. At that time, the largest piece was home to about 100 residents, and there was a post office, a school, a church, a general store and a sawmill. Deforestation to supply the sawmill may have contributed to the island's changes, as the tree roots held in place the sandy soil. 

The one town had been abandoned during the the 1920's and it became a hunting retreat for the wealthy and influential, including Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. However, by the 1990's, the landmass consisted of about 5 acres compared to the 1140 acres surveyed in 1847. 

The Federal and State governments selected Poplar Island as a dumping site for dredged materials from the shipping channels approaching Baltimore. Because Baltimore Harbor's soil is contaminated, it is not used to recreate the island. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began reconstruction with clean material in 1998. We could see the cranes and barges from our boat. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been making part of the island into an uplands and wetlands wildlife sanctuary. The island is home to about 175 bird species, and more than 1000 diamondback terrapins are hatched each year on the island as a result of the species spontaneously choosing to lay eggs each year soon after the restoration project began. The hatchlings have a 99 percent survival rate because there are no foxes or raccoons on Poplar Island.

It was so pleasant to be anchored in a quiet spot with stars scattered across the inky blackness. The orange sunset lit the western sky around 8:15 p.m., but it was not truly dark until over an hour later. 

After breakfast, we pulled up anchor and began traveling again. The wind was negligible so we had to motor for about four hours to reach our next anchorage spot up the Magothy River on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Settled in behind Dobbins Island with a couple other boats, we ate a very late lunch. We are running out of fresh food, but I managed to make a sub sandwich for Peter, complemented by the last of the vegetable soup, and I had peanut butter and jelly on English muffins. There will be major provisioning in Baltimore. Luckily, Safeway supermarket is just across the street from Anchorage Marina.

We put the dinghy in the water and hauled the outboard engine out of the forepeak; we needed to check that everything is working. (We already know that the dinghy has a slow-leaking patch that needs to be replaced, but we need to get materials in Baltimore.) The engine was uncooperative for a minute or two, but then it roared to life and settled in to its rhythm. We went to shore on the island, which is privately owned. In the State of Maryland, owners cannot claim beaches below the high tide level, and the owners of this island has ringed the island at the high tide mark with large pilings spaced about eight feet apart. There used to be chain between them. There were a few powerboats and jetskis on the shore, having brought in high school and college students on vacation. The sun has now set and they are departing with the music and the party voices as darkness settles in.

Peter on the dinghy