It is HOT today.  We don’t have power at this campground which means no air conditioning so we went swimming after moving the camper to a different campsite within the campground.  It is super competitive to get a campsite here and by the time I knew we would have time to come here, most of the spots were taken.  I wasn’t able to get a spot for 2 nights so I got two different sites, each for one night.  Our first spot was on the ocean side of the island and this spot is on the bay side.  While the breeze isn’t as steady on this side, the biting flies aren’t as bad.

The purple dot is where we camped last night and the red is where we are today. 

When I was checking in for our next spot I asked for some advice on where to swim. While we liked the ocean, the waves were too big and the drop-off too deep to really swim there.  We got some advice to swim on the bay side where it is really shallow with no waves. 

The water is shallow out at least 100 feet so we just sat in the water on the sandy bottom.  Some kids were catching small blue crabs and I got excited!  We want to go crabbing this evening.  The kids let Asa pose with their crab.

While we were sitting in waist-deep water, Nole said “Is that a rock?” but it was actually a horseshoe crab sneaking up on us! I didn’t get a picture but we did take it out of the water to get a closer look at it and see the underside.  Here are some pictures from the internet of both sides of a horseshoe crab.

While we were playing in the water, some kids approached Nova and asked to play with her; Esme joined in too.  Then Asa saw some kids setting up spike-ball and went to ask them if he could play too.

After our refreshing swim, it was time to head back to the campsite for lunch. On our walk, we saw this deer. 

Other people had stopped to watch it too.  It hopped around and didn’t look like any deer I had seen before so I asked them if they knew what kind of deer it was and they confidently answered “white tail deer”.  Well, I’ve seen plenty of those before and it was not a white tail deer so I had to look it up.  They’re called sika deer and they’re native to Japan. 

Here is a video about the history of these deer.  And here is a cute video of one bounding. 

We ate lunch and rested.  It was still hot but it felt much better after swimming. I noticed a mockingbird in the tree and got this video of it running through its repertoire.  They’re known for their exceptional mimicry skills, often imitating the songs of other birds, insects, and even mechanical sounds.

We went to the visitor center to turn in Esme’s Junior Ranger booklet.  On the way we saw many horses grazing along the road.  The horses here are wild but not native.   I was excited about seeing the horses and Asa said “they’re invasive!”.  What a party pooper. 

We arrived just in time for a ranger program about humpback whales.

We checked out the inside of the visitor center too and got the badges.

We also saw a sea robin in their tank (aka tub gurnard).  We have seen these on two other trips as well! At the aquarium in La Rochelle and in Hilton Head. 

On the way back to the campground, we saw the horses and stopped to watch them. There was a baby! 

We got our crabbing supplies and went to Old Ferry Landing to try our luck. Just in case we didn’t catch anything, I bought shrimp to eat for dinner tonight.  After we got the hang of baiting and netting them, we caught a bunch! 

Back in early spring we visited the Yatzecks, and cooked a turkey.  I knew I would be visiting Assateague and wanted to try crabbing so I put the turkey neck in their freezer and told them to bring it to me when they left home back in May.  The neck then stayed in the camper freezer throughout the whole trip and we finally brought it out and defrosted it to bait our crab lines with today!

Only crabs larger than 5″ are keepers so we had to throw a lot back.  In the end, Nova and Asa each caught 2 keepers and Nole caught 1.  I had more luck doing the netting than the baiting.  Esme mostly sat this activity out but did help hold a crab line for a little while.  We gave away our crab fishing supplies to an interested party (we don’t have much need for a 72″ net and the crab lines seem like they’re kind of a “one time use” item).

Back at the campsite, I steamed the crabs. 

Nova was excited to eat HER crab, which she named Jerome.  I made the shrimp too.  In the end, I think Asa and I each ate one whole crab, Nole and Nova ate the claws of one crab each and I ate the claws off the last one.

After dinner, a horse hung around the campground for a while.  We kept our distance – the rules here state to stay at least 40 feet away.  I was surprised how close others got; some other campers were close enough to touch them. 

Tomorrow, we go to Washington DC and meet up with my mom and Ray who are flying in to spend a week with us.