Tilghman Island News

For Marylanders looking for summer adventures on land or water, the lighthouses of the Eastern Shore are appealing daytrip destinations.

LEWES - About 18,000 electric customers lost power as a powerful storm moved across Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland this afternoon, and the front wall of a furniture store collapsed near Lewes.

The weather is beautiful on the Chesapeake Bay, but things are downright ugly at fuel docks around the Chesapeake.

TODAY Jazz concert The Jazz Update will perform at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. at 49 West Coffeehouse, Winebar and Gallery, 49 West St., Annapolis.

“They're not being allowed to build in a big safety factor here.”

Maryland natural resources officials proposed new crabbing rules yesterday that were not as strict as watermen had feared, but will disproportionately hurt crabbers on the Lower Eastern Shore. via The Baltimore Sun

“If you can jack up the abundance of spawning females, you will maximize your odds of getting a good influx of crabs into the bay.”

Hoping to revive a signature species of the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland natural resources officials say they will impose rules to reduce the harvest of female blue crabs by 20 percent to 40 percent -- a cut some watermen say would put them out of business.

The Department of Natural Resources outlined several options yesterday for achieving the reduction. One proposal would limit the catch of female crabs to seven bushels a day per boat during six months of the season.

'Seven bushels? You've got to be kidding me,' said Greg Wilson, a longtime waterman who crabs from Tilghman Island. Under those limits, he said, he won't recoup the money he spends on bait, fuel and labor. 'As a trotliner, I'm out of business.' Read more

The Coast Guard says higher fuel prices have brought an increase in the number of boats illegally carrying passengers on charter fishing trips. via The Daily Times - Salisbury, Md.

Dignity Players will perform "Antigone" at 8 p.m. tomorrow through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 333 Dubois Road in Annapolis. via The Capital

“This is a great opportunity to participate in a program dedicated to helping the charter boat operator deal with current and anticipated challenges in small business management”

'Rise of China' focus of March 5, 19 lectures Spring workshops for home gardeners Guest violist Choong-Jin Chang to perform March 4 5K for Save the Children honors AFROTC alum Magazine writer, essayist to speak ... via Childhood Education

“This inadequate amount of rest contributed to the attention failures on the part of the pilot. We conclude that this lack of attentiveness caused him to miss the prescribed turn.”

The Chesapeake Bay pilot who was guiding a coal carrier that ran aground last year failed to communicate properly with his crew and was not paying attention when the vessel became stuck in shallow waters near Tilghman Island, according to a Coast Guard report released yesterday.

The report did not identify the pilot, who is one of 70 elite mariners charged with leading ships safely down a 150-mile stretch of water that is filled with wrecks, unmarked shoals and unforgiving shallow spots.

It blamed the pilot for taking on the assignment of steering a large vessel that he had never worked on when he had gotten only three hours of sleep the night before the MV Montrose ran aground. Read more

It is said doing the same thing day after day gets boring, it takes the fun out life. via Hometown Annapolis

“Christmas is not a big holiday in Colonial or even 19th-century America, because it's English, and we don't really like them”

The kitchen at Mount Clare, the Colonial mansion of Charles Carroll the Barrister in Southwest Baltimore, was, on the one hand, a modern foodie's dream - airy, spacious and chock-full of locally grown, organic, hormone-free meat, fish, eggs and vegetables.

But there were some down sides. Those vegetables, this time of year, would be limited to carrots, onions and other roots waiting to be exhumed from the dirt floor of the cellar. And the meat, larded for as long as three years in casks of salt, would look about as succulent as a piece of petrified wood. Read more

“It's meaningful to people who know the bay I've had cases when people identify an exact spot, such as on Tilghman Island.”

Artist Steve Rogers' ship is in. In fact, a whole fleet dropped anchor last week at Gallery 1683 on Main Street. via The Capital

Stop and Shop at Oxford on Tred Avon, Latitude: 38.69; Longitude: 76.17 Ah, my cruising friends, fall has fallen, there are fewer boats about, yet some days it feels like summer. via Bay Weekly

“I can't guarantee they're going to be able to walk across their backs, like John Smith observed”

President Bush traversed the Chesapeake Bay on an invigorating fall morning yesterday, announcing conservation measures for migratory birds while on the west side of the waterway and for striped bass on the east before getting in some fishing himself.

At the national Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, the president promoted policies he said would protect habitat for 800 bird species that need resting places as they fly south for the winter and return when warm weather returns.

After a helicopter ride to St. Michaels, Bush unveiled an initiative to make red drum and striped bass, known locally as rockfish, more available to sport fishermen but less accessible as a commercial catch. Chesapeake watermen, who rely on the fish for income, are cool to the proposal. Read more

ANNAPOLIS, Md. Over the objections of several Tilghman Island residents, Wednesday the Board of Public Works approved a wetlands license for dredging. via WJZ Baltimore, Maryland News Weather