In the summer when I was younger, my brother and I would go with my grandparents to their place near the Chesapeak Bay, Indian Acres. 

There wasn’t anything really “indian-like” about it. It was basically a trailer park that most people used as a summer recreation place. Still, my grandfather - akaGramps - owned a 20’ Chaparrel that he called “The O & P” and we would take it out into the bay to look around or to fish.  We often wnet crabbing and brought back enough crabs to have a whole dinner.

I remember the first time I went crabbing. It never really occurred to me why we were catching the crabs. I was very reluctant to cook and eat them after we brought them all back.

Our second boat was a rowboat fitted with a motor. I recall going out in the bay with it many times. On one particular occasion we went out pretty far into the bay. Oil tankers were not too far away, and boy are they big close up, especially in the water where there’s not much else around to compare the size to.

Anyway, we were out pretty far and the storm clouds started to roll in. The rain started pouring and the water got really rough. The waves were taller than our boat was long. We flew up the crest of one wave, launched over the next and landed in the trough beyond it. The boat was thrashed horribly, and we weren’t making much headway since the engine was often unable to propel us.

We eventually made it to a close shore, having taken on surprisingly only a little water.  The bay calmed down and we returned to our port unscathed but thankful to be home.

I miss the bay these days, since Gramps died and we sold the place and The O & P. I still have our rowboat in my garage, and someday I’ll take my kids out in the bay to catch some crabs and avoid the really big waves.