The lovely La Trappe anchorage was down to just three boats as we departed for our next stop. A couple of things made us decide to go to Slaughter’s Creek — definitely not the name:-) It had a funky, barge restaurant that served a terrific, inexpensive soft-shell crab dinner. There was a large swimming pool. A loaner car was on offer to take us into the nearest town (Cambridge), and more importantly, down the road five miles to Emily’s market stand, where, in addition to fresh veggies, all sorts of prepared foods AND Scottish Highland’s ice cream can be found. Another lure was to see how much progress the new general manager who we met last year has made on his marina improvement plans.
Nearly everyone is gone! 
Departure day — no wind!
Happy to see that the visitors to the beach left it trash free!
Breakfast of champions…..cold champagne plus something sweet. In this case a pastry that declared “no artificial flavorings” and touted some sort of “natural ingredients.” But, it was five days old and in “perfect” condition. I can only imagine what sort of preservatives (all natural!) were involved. The champagne, on the other hand, was aged to perfection.
Optimist! No wind. 
View from our mooring. 
Marina is pretty empty. 
Good dock help! 
Comfortably moored.
The funky barge is still there, though the price of the soft-shell crab dinner has crept up a bit. Pool was delicious and we had it to ourselves! Emily’s was as bountiful as we remembered. The new general manager, alas, is history and his plans for fixing up things around the marina apparently abandoned. The ship store (such as it is) was better organized and they could find the keys to the loaner car (they couldn’t last year), so maybe he orchestrated these changes.
So many rules!! 
No progress on main building. 
Barge restaurant still afloat.
At any rate, we’ll probably skip Slaughter’s next year. However, I did learn some interesting things about Cambridge. Up until the late 1950’s, Cambridge was a prosperous town that supported three department stores, many restaurants and a wide variety of other businesses — all fueled by a single company, The Perkins Canning Company. Improvements in refrigerated transportation of fruits and vegetables were the doom of Perkins and eventually the town. Things are looking up these days, though. Hyatt opened a big resort (on the grounds of a former psychiatric hospital) and there are more and more chef-driven restaurants in town. Maybe we’ll drive next time!
