Chesapeake Bay, Maryland 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Nautical Chart
How the Water Becomes Wood
A chart is a stack of flat sheets until the water's real soundings tell it what shape to take.
- SurveyReal bathymetric sounding data sets every contour line before a single cut is made.
- CutEach depth band is laser-cut from its own sheet of Baltic birch, up to nine layers deep.
- StainWater layers are stained by hand, reading darker the deeper the water runs.
- StackThe sheets are registered and stacked in sequence, and the bed's true shape rises out of the wood.
- EtchDepths and place names are burned into the grain itself, never printed on it.
- FrameA solid Baltic birch frame and acrylic glass finish the piece, ready to hang.
Chesapeake Bay in stacked Baltic birch, 24.5 by 31 inches: the country's greatest estuary carved one depth contour per layer, from the Susquehanna's mouth to the Virginia capes.
The Bay is a drowned river valley, the ancient Susquehanna's channel flooded by rising seas, and the carving makes that origin visible: the old river's course still winds down the middle of the birch as the Bay's deep spine, with the broad shallows spreading away on either side. Those shallows built the culture, the skipjack fleet that still dredges oysters under sail, the last of its kind in North America, the crab houses on every creek, and the island communities of Tangier and Smith holding onto their centuries-old water lives as the Bay rises around them. Thomas Point's screwpile lighthouse stands over the middle grounds like the Bay's own signature.
Each contour is a separate laser-cut sheet, stacked by hand and engraved, behind acrylic glass in a solid Baltic birch frame in Dark, Light, or White.
Every creek has its regulars and every regular has opinions about the next creek over. The chart holds all jurisdictions.
The engraving spans the Susquehanna Flats to the capes, the Bay Bridge, Annapolis, the Choptank and Potomac mouths, and the island country. The printed, touchable version is the Chesapeake Bay UV map.
- 24.5 × 31 in
- Solid Baltic birch frame in Dark, Light, or White
- Acrylic glass front, ready to hang
- Free next-business-day shipping on orders placed by 2 PM EST
- 14-day returns
Live from the water