materializes at the flashing red “4” to Dennis Point, past private docks and comfortable cottages, and finally turning back as the creek shallowed out beyond Walnut Point.
Now it was simply a matter of keeping the three green markers (two locals and flashing green “1”) to our right and then resisting the urge to make our turn into St. George Creek before we had reached red “A”. You can get away with the shortcut if you know what you’re doing, but we did not. So we played it by the numbers and split the difference between “A” and flashing green “1”.
St. George Creek feels nice and roomy for much of its four and a half nautical miles, as it separates first St. George Island and then Piney Point from the Maryland mainland. It’s a busy working waterway, too. As we slowed down just before reaching green “1” to try to catch a glimpse of Camp Merryelande at the southern tip of St. George Island, workboats and fishing boats bustled around us and kept us bobbing and binocular bruised. Merryelande, now a private facility with brightly colored rental cabins with varying degrees of civilization and tents, a sandy beach and a fishing dock, was for many years a girls’ summer camp operated by Roman Catholic nuns. (The Jesuits were St. George Island’s first European inhabitants. They kept herds of Elsies and Elmers on the island because of its abundance of tasty grasses.)
The dominant feature on St. George Creek is the Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education and Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship. This training complex can be seen from either side of St. George Island and, on a clear day, from well out on the Potomac. The school, which trains merchant seamen for employment on U.S.