Inn at Perry Cabin Holds Bay’s Most Luxurious Blessing of the Fleet

By: Meg Walburn Viviano 

The Blessing of the Fleet, usually held at the start of a new season on the water, is a tradition that goes back centuries, to Catholic fishing villages on Europe’s Mediterranean coast. Catholic immigrants eventually brought it to the United States, and it has been a practice in water communities ever since, from the bayou to Cape Cod and here on the Chesapeake Bay.

Typically a Blessing of the Fleet entails a local clergyperson giving a blessing to the working watermen that will venture out on their boats, asking God to protect them from harm and praying for a bountiful season. On the Chesapeake Bay, it often marks the arrival of spring. The Blessing of the Fleet is usually held between March and May in Bay towns where people earn their livelihoods on the water: Tangier, Smith Island, Chincoteague, Cape Charles, Reedville, Rock Hall, Kent Island… you get the idea. St. Mary’s County, Maryland, holds its own Blessing of the Fleet event in October, at the start of oyster season.

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