August is the Chesapeake Bay’s unexpected month — the time of year when things turn out exactly as you expect until they do not.
My daughter was back in town from Louisville, Kentucky, and she brought seven friends for the big Rotary crab feast held every year at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis.
What do you do when people who’ve never seen the bay come to town in August? Feed them crabs. They’re fatter and cheaper than on Independence Day and have weeks to get better still.
Sailing? Not so much.
August is the month when Maryland bastes under its blanket of humidity. July heat edges off a bit, but the days can still bake you for 12 hours at 100 degrees. Torpid doldrums make nothing seem worth the effort, relieved only by slashing thunderstorms that drown out your afternoon and strand thousands in power-outage darkness.
We left Annapolis on the Woodwind II, one of a matched pair of 74-foot staysail schooners. They charter from April through October, providing year-round jobs and a path toward captains’ licenses for young sailors pursuing the rare life aboard working sailboats.
I was ready for a sleepy two-hour trip under light summer breezes. August is the month that busts your preconceptions.
“August in Maryland is..... (Fill in the blank),” I asked.
“A test for your AC.”
“The mouth of the dog.”
“Take your pick: Hot. Crabby. Beachy. Sweltering. Amazingly wonderful. Only appreciated by Marylanders (whether transplants or native). Great for your complexion.”
“Old Bay and crab heaven.”
“The worst. And yet it still goes by too fast.”
August is the month when crabs are at their fattest, corn is sugar sweet and the taste of a perfectly grown tomato is a revelation once again. A BLT is heaven, a tomato slice slipped between good bread swept with rich mayo divine.
August remembers nectarine juice on your wife’s lips, long after you’ve moved on to November and pumpkin pie.
When the calendar circles back, the eighth month is waiting to remind you that life is lived by the moment, this moment. Perfume of cantaloupes under a hot farmers market tent doesn’t linger, except in your car on the way home.
August is decorated with crepe myrtles in bloom, watermelon-red, cherry-red and pure purple in mute explosions.
You forget them when retreating inside air-conditioned amnesia. You forget everything. Come January, no one remembers how August makes you forget, too.
It weighs you down, leaving you with nothing more than a desire to close your eyes and dream of ice. The only relief is the knowledge that summer is wending its way to an inevitable finish, whether you mark it with return-to-school sales, Labor Day weekend, the equinox or the end of September days.
The Annapolis harbor was crowded Saturday as we prepared to leave the dock. Capt. Andy Barton and crew were talking about life preservers and boat rings, storms in the forecast and beverage service. My daughter’s friends settled onto their seats.
Then the downtown waterfront gave way, the City Dock crowds growing small beyond the stern and soon we were out in the Severn River. Deckhands Michael Pursell and Andrew Wise asked for volunteers to help raise the sails, hauling on a halyard and then turning them tight with a winch-winding clack-clack-clack-clack.
River-green rollers slipped by faster and faster, the domes and spires of Annapolis drifting back to the silhouette skyscape of postcards and prints.
A 20-knot southwest wind was waiting for us on the bay. Woodwind II heeled over as white caps flew past, white flags atop 2- to 3-foot, blue-green swells.
As the deck leaned to 20 degrees and maybe a little more, passengers felt their world move beneath them. A few, judging a calmer ride worth the bargain of sitting next to people regretting their lunch, edged their way from amidships to the cockpit.
Barton reefed the mainsail, making it smaller to cope with the unexpected power of the day. Up front, sudden explosions of cool brine felt glorious. Our shorts and dresses were soaked, our Keds and Sperrys and sandals firmly planted on the bulwark.
When Maryland air hangs heavy enough to bite, a fast sail on a big boat whips it away and leaves adrenaline and oxygen in its place.
And then my cheap straw hat blew off, carried away on a gust and a moment of distraction. It fluttered on the wind like a tattered manilla bird.
“Hat overboard,” Pursell and Wise yelled in unison.
When you work a charter boat out of Annapolis, a hat in the water is a chance to impress the passengers and practice man-overboard drills. It’s August, and one way of getting through unbearable days of soggy air can be to lean into the unexpected.
“Prepare to tack,” Barton shouted. “Prepare to rescue the hat!”
The deckhands stood on the port side, their muscular arms pointers for the captain to steer along an invisible line. My hat, the offending little traitor, rising and falling on the waves in the distance, as visible as a drowning man’s head.
With dipnet and boathook, they swiped for it and missed. As it slipped past into the foaming wake, again the captain shouted.
“Prepare to tack. Prepare to rescue the hat!”
A second time proved true, and Pursell snatched it from the foam and handed it back to me — a dripping reminder of August’s capacity to surprise.
The Woodwind II turned for home, sweeping around toward the east and the Eiffel towers at Greenbury Point, old radio masts long past their glory days of talking to Navy submarines around the globe. Woodwind I was still on its outbound course, white sails full, and the Bay Bridge a hazy silver frame behind it.
Soon enough, we were back in the harbor and headed for the dock. August suddenly feels so late, something else to forget as it steams along its deliberate way.
Beyond the Naval Academy seawall, the football team is on the practice field for its second workout of the day. A “DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP” flag is floating just beyond, a blue and white reminder that civic fights are waiting for August to conclude its voyage.
Tie-up and $20 tips for the crew, then a walk to dinner followed.
The table at McGarvey’s was filled with steamed shrimp and clams, soft-shell crabs and calamari. Ten happy, sweaty people crowded around a rectangle of cool marble.
The thunderclap made us all jump. The storms pushing in toward us all day finally arrived at the swinging wood and glass doors. The captain told us they were coming, and still they caught us unaware.
Thunderstorms happen every five days or so in August, cumulonimbus crowding so high into the sky there’s nothing left for them to do but break into a torrent that drenches and disrupts.
It happens every summer in Maryland. But August is the month when it’s easy to forget. Everything is too hot and too humid to think about much, and even the expected can come as a surprise.
Until washed clean by the passing wind and water, you remember.
