The Captain

My first experience with the water was crabbing with Grandpop Joe in Weems Creek, a small cove off the Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis. A few years later my father started getting into boats and we spent summers on the Barnegat Bay in his wooden cabin cruiser. At 18 years old I enlisted in the Navy and that experience took me into the waters of the Caribbean, Across the Atlantic a few times, the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, months in the Indian Ocean, the fjords of Norway and the North Sea.

Boats got smaller after the Navy. I spent summers as a sea kayak and canoe guide in the Adirondacks, Lake Champlain and Boston Harbor. Sails replaced paddles, and the coast of Maine became my new cruising grounds. Boats got bigger and the Chesapeake called me back to the waters my grandfather plied. After a few years as first mate aboard a local tour boat, I earned my 50-ton captain’s license, bought M/V Sharps Island, and now greatly enjoy taking folks out to see the remote lighthouses of the Chesapeake Bay.