DAY 35 -- OXFORD, MD TO CHESTERTOWN, MD

                                     DAY 35 -- OXFORD, MD TO CHESTERTOWN, MD

            We were underway just at 9:30 headed for lunch at Kent Narrows and then on to Chestertown for the night. It was sunny, but blowing pretty good out of the south, so we had light to moderate chop all day. We retraced our route from yesterday through the Knapp Narrows and then north through the pass between Poplar and Tilghman Islands, then on up Eastern Bay to Kent Narrows. This run was about 31 miles. 

            Knapp Narrows (the first one, not our lunch spot) had an interesting mix of working boats and modest pleasure boats. It reminded me in that way of some of the harbors that we see in Maine. We forgot to take pictures going through yesterday, so here are some from today's passage. The last boat with the big mechanical rig on the side is a clam dredger.





           
            Kent Narrows was more of a pleasure boat area. Lots of waterfront restaurants and marinas. We picked a place with a convenient dock and good ratings and had a very nice lunch. Across the narrows from our restaurant was this old Navy patrol training boat (YP 657).


            We timed our leaving the restaurant to match up with the 1:30 opening of the Kent Narrows bridge. The old lift bridge is for local traffic and the big high-level bridge right behind it is for people just passing through out to Kent Island.


            The ride up the Chester River was very nice. It was 24 miles from Kent Narrows up to Chestertown, and the river got calmer and narrower as we progressed. The shoreline was largely undeveloped, with an occasional farm mixed in with residential houses


            There were also a few pound nets (impoundment nets?) out in the wider areas of the river. We have seen these throughout our travels on the Chesapeake, but I keep forgetting to mention them in our blog. They used to have them on the Canadian side of Lake Erie when I was a kid and I've never seen them anywhere else.


             Chestertown is lovely old town, but our friends had a heck of a time getting Uber service. They had the dock girl's friend give them a ride to their hotel, did get an Uber back to town for dinner, but had to get one of the busboys to give them a ride after dinner. Dinner was a bit of a gourmet affair in an old downtown hotel. And Chestertown is a college town. Hard to reconcile that with no Uber service. Oh well. 

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