Solomons Island is strategically located near the midpoint of the Chesapeake Bay, 40 miles south of Annapolis and 40 miles north of Deltaville, a good day’s run for boats going north and south. For snowbirds, Solomons is an easy-in, easy-out rest stop for boats transiting the Chesapeake. Consequently this town sees a lot of transient boaters. Add to that its proximity to Washington, DC, and you can understand why this has become a cruising Mecca here on the Chesapeake.
Inhabited since colonial days, the island grew into a major boat-building and seafood fishing harbor. It was a remote backwater village until World War II. In 1942 the U.S. Navy established a base for training Marines in amphibious assault. Overnight, the town grew. There were 2000 men stationed there in 1942, and by the end of the war, the base housed 10,000. Men who passed through the amphibious training base saw action all over the world, particularly in France on D Day and also in the Solomons Islands of the Pacific.
After the war, the town drifted back into obscurity. Until the bridge over the Patuxent River was constructed in 1977, Solomons had been “the end of the road.” With the completion of the bridge, Solomons took on new life. The seafood and boat building core businesses remained strong, and tourism and recreational boating expanded. As the seafood industry dwindled, the boat builders converted to yacht yards, and Solomons’ place in Chesapeake boating was firmly established. Today there are six boatyards and at least 10 marinas, 16 restaurants, including eight dock n’ dine facilities located on Back Creek. In addition to good boat repairs, good food, and good drinks, there are several other interesting facilities for you to explore while you are in town.
University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
The first interesting site to your right as you enter the harbor, is the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory. The long pier extending out from the shore has an interesting story of its own. As you enter the harbor, you may see Rachael Carson, the flagship research vessel of the Marine Biological Laboratory. Commissioned in 2009, she was specifically designed and built to provide a platform for marine biologists to study the Bay. To access the shore here, you can land your dinghy at the waterman’s landing right next to the Biologic Laboratory docks.
The facility was founded by Reginald Truitt in 1925 as the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory at Solomons. Dr. Truitt’s research established a scientific backing for the need to monitor and manage the gathering of the Bay’s seafood, including oysters, fish, and crabs. His laboratory later was incorporated into the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES). UMCES approaches the scientific inquiry into the Bay’s health using the entire watershed. Nothing that happens in the Appalachians can run to the sea without affecting the Bay. With labs from Western Maryland to Solomons, UMCES has a holistic view of the biology, chemistry, and geology of the nation’s largest estuary and is recognized nationally and internationally.
Tours of the campus are available at the small white house overlooking the long dock out into the Patuxent. On this dock, Dr. Truitt began his daily count of sea nettles in 1925. Scientists have walked the dock and counted sea nettles for 90 years and have built a census of the population an its fluctuations. Correlating the number of sea nettles to water temperature and salinity has led to a sea nettle forecast system. Sea nettle populations thrive in waters over 70 degrees Fahrenheit with salinity between 10 to 16 ppt (parts per thousand). The ocean at 35 ppt is too salty to support the nettles, and fresh water at 0 ppt cannot support these critters. But in between these two limits, whether you are in the main stem of the Bay or one of its tributaries, the water has just the correct salinity to support the sea nettles. Building on this research NOAA has developed a sea nettle predictive program (
nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/csdl/seanettle.html).
Annmarie Sculpture Garden
Relatively unknown but no less impressive is the Annmarie Sculpture Garden and Art Center. From the Dowell Road side of the creek, it is easy to get to the park on foot or by bicycle. From the island side of the creek, you will want a bicycle or a car to reach the museum grounds. Francis and Ann Marie Koenig donated this 30-acre park to Calvert County (it is operated by the private Koenig Foundation). Its mission is to connect people to art and nature through exhibits, programs, classes, and public projects.
As you enter the grounds, a bronze statue of a tonging waterman will greet you. The Koenigs commissioned this striking work of art as the central focus of the art center to honor the hard-working oyster watermen. The park itself is anchored by the museum and welcome center, a striking architectural masterpiece built in 2009. The museum building houses art studios and both permanent and rotating displays. The park’s grounds feature a variety of paths through the nearly 30 acres of woods and fields, and along the paths are a variety of sculptures on display including nearly 30 on loan from the Smithsonian Museum. Annmarie Sculpture Garden features art courses and festivals throughout the year.
Calvert Marine Museum
The most famous tourist attraction in Solomons is the Calvert Marine Museum, which is accessible on foot or by bicycle from any of the nearby marinas. There is a dinghy dock if you wish to arrive by sea. This museum is a gem and a must-see experience for anyone interested in the history of the Chesapeake. Sea otters in the most popular exhibit have been entertaining museum visitors for many years.
The marine museum looks at the Bay from its geological and biological prehistoric record through the indigenous people who lived along these shores before Europeans arrived. It explores the changes brought about by the European invasion and the historical development of Chesapeake Bay working craft, as well as the more recent development of recreational boating. A new Estuarine Biology Gallery, opened in October 2014, attracts crowds of visitors and explores the distinct Bay habitats: the salty waters at the Chesapeake Bridge-Tunnel at the mouth of the Bay, sheltering shallows of marshes and oyster beds, and tidal tributaries which feed the fresh water to this immense estuary.
The museum’s “Boats of the Chesapeake” exhibit holds a very good collection of Bay boats from the
Alfred Tennyson log-built oyster buy boat, to the Poquoson three-log canoe and the 17-foot Jennings Creek crab scrape. These vessels offer an excellent overview of the working boats which evolved to serve the Bay’s seafood industry and are good examples of the types of craft for which Solomons’ boat builders were famous.
From the Tiki Bar opening through the year
The unofficial start of the Solomons boating season is the opening day of the Tiki Bar in mid-April, an event that draws thousands of visitors to the town. From opening day through the winter holidays, there is always something different and exciting going on in Solomons.
Visit
solomonsmaryland.com and
proptalk.com/calendar for Solomons events throughout the year.
by Tom Hale