Old Boats...Kent Island Harbor..Heralding Spring!

Sunday I made my way to the beach for the first time since closing up the beach house in November last year. It was a beautiful, sunny spring day. There were many motorcyclists on the road, people hauling their pleasure boats out of storage and fairly heavy traffic. It was a day full of visual confirmation...spring rituals in the first week of April. Stopping by the work boat harbor on Kent Island, Maryland, provided even more signs...as I watched the working crab men load their empty crab pots onto their work boats to drop in the bay for the first time this year.

As I walked the circumference of harbor I found yet another sure sign...to my amazement in a plastic dish washing pan set out by the dock was a down and reed nest filled with Mallard Duck eggs.

I have always loved the sight of the classic work boats that ply the Chesapeake Bay for oysters, crabs and rock fish.

I also love the simplicity of the smaller boats, many hand made from plywood, filled with lines and old wood crates left in place from the last trip out on the bay.

There are also details to be captured in the harbor, such as oxidized cleats with lines tied...and so another season begins...and soon the bay will be filled with pleasure boaters, work boats, cruise ships, container ships, and fuzzy ducklings! It's a great ritual I look forward to every year! Here's to spring on the Chesapeake Bay, "The land of pleasant living!"