October 3-October 11 (and just like that, I’m all caught up!!!  The following website pages are also updated: “Floatplan” and “Cool Boat Names”.  See where we are headed after Annapolis and make your plans to come visit us!)

“A tourist remains an outsider throughout his visit; but a sailor is part of the local scene from the moment he arrives.” – Ann Davison (first woman to cross the Atlantic single-handed.  She did it in a 23 foot boat. In 1952.)

Ann Davison probably made this statement after pulling into Annapolis during the annual boat show.  It’s no wonder that Annapolis and Newport vie for the title of the “Sailing Capital of the US”.  This boat show is pretty amazing.  We couldn’t walk down a dock or through a tent without bumping into someone we know from the sailing world.  And those we didn’t know, we met, and now we are BFF’s.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.  We left Rock Hall on October 3^rd, still a little shell-shocked from our passage.  The trip to Annapolis, located on the Severn River, was easy and short.  We pulled into the Annapolis City Marina for fuel and water.  Filling 220 gallons of water into four separate tanks takes a bit of time.  When we finished, we would be going under a drawbridge and heading up Spa Creek to look for a spot to anchor.  As I finished filling the last tank, the drawbridge opened.  We still had to pay and leave the dock, but I hailed the bridge operator on the VHF and begged him to keep the bridge open until we got there.  I wasn’t in the mood to hover in front of the bridge for another half hour, which is what we remembered the schedule to be.  We made it and waved frantically to thank the bridge operator as we slid through the bridge.  It felt tight and we realized we haven’t been through a narrow spot like that.  Imagine our embarrassment later that night when we learned that our new friends on a 50’ catamaran had made it through the bridge!  Their beam (width) has to be upwards of 20’ (ours is 14’)!  We’ve been teasing them all week that we are going to hang out by the bridge the day they leave just for the entertainment of seeing them go back through it.

We headed up the creek and the it got narrower and narrower.  No place to anchor.  It also got shallower and shallower.  No place to anchor.  I stood on the bow and tried not to be distracted by the adorable homes on either side of the creek.  We saw an empty spot up ahead and made our way to it.  Just as we got close, Chris announced that the chart ended, which meant that we couldn’t be sure what the depth was.  We decided to throw caution to the mud and carry on.  No problems and we anchored without a hitch.  Well, actually, we anchored with a hitch, which is what you want.

Once settled in, we started contacting our friends on Anything Goes and Full Monty.  We toodled over on our dinghy after getting settled and said hello on our way into town.  We were excited to meet Bill Museler, who is Lana’s friend Lisa’s father-in-law.  You with me?  Because there will be a test later.  Bill extended his hospitality to us while we are in town by signing us in as guests at the Annapolis Yacht Club.  We were able to use their gorgeous showers and the dinghy dock all week.  You have no idea what a bonus this was.  The public dinghy dock for the boat show is a madhouse.  The dinghies are tied up four deep if you can even get a spot.  The dock is also located over on the other side of the harbor from Spa Creek.  Um, did I mention the showers?  I have been one happy woman this week.

As I mentioned, the show was great.  We bought a watermaker!!!!!  We have four fresh water tanks on Patronus, holding a total of 220 gallons of water.  The typical American family uses 300 gallons of water a day.  We have managed so far to make 220 gallons last a week and then we have to find a marina so we can fill them up.  When we get to the Caribbean, the marinas are farther apart, especially if we find a cool, secluded spot and want to chill for awhile.  The water quality can also be a bit sketchy.  With a watermaker, we can make 30 gallons per hour from salt water using the power from the engine or the generator.  This will work very well to tide us over until we can find a source of fresh water.  I can’t wait for it to be installed.  While we will still need to be ultra-conservative with our water usage, we will have a great back-up for emergencies, especially on our long passages.  Yay!!!

We also attended several seminars as well as touring the new boats and cruising the tents for gadgets, electronics, furling equipment, guidebooks, and other sailing goodies.  Chris went to a seminar on weather and we all took one on safety at sea.  The kids and I loved the panel discussion on living aboard with children.  We also attended one on cruising the Caribbean.  Porter asked me today when we were going to our next seminar.  I think the kids just liked the “free” pens and notepads on each seat.

 

We also attended a get-together for the Salty Dawg Rally.  A rally is a group of boats who join up and do a passage more or less “together”.  Oftentimes there are meetings, seminars, and parties at the front end, and lots of parties at the destination.  The Salty Dawg Rally offers some nice perks for passagemakers without being as structured as some of the other popular rallies.  They also don’t charge to take part in it.  Two great features are daily weather forecasts specific to your position and a free mooring at the Bitter End Yacht Club once you make it to Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands.  We attended the party with Craig and Wendy from Anything Goes and we have both registered for the rally.

More highlights included taking a tour of the United States Naval Academy, eating crepes at Suzi’s Crepes (three times), finding a great bar and grill, called Armadillo’s (where we helped a newlywed couple celebrate their wedding), ice cream at Annapolis Ice Cream, purchasing new flip flops for Reese, and doing massive amounts of laundry from our passage (everything gets pretty gross after 2 ½ days at sea.  I can’t wait to see what 10 days will look like).  We also got to see the McMillan Cup at the Inter-Collegiate Hall of Fame.  Chris competed in this regatta in college and his team won it.  It was a big deal for Cornell back in 1992, so it was fun to visit it and tell the kids all about our Glory Days.  They were very proud of Chris but really wanted to know how much prize money he got!

It was great seeing our old sailing friends Mark Plough, Bill Lockwood, and Jeff Ewinson.    We also saw Jim Villone, our boat broker, which is always fun.  We finally got to meet Jeff and Mary Pernick, fellow Beneteau 473 owners.  Chris and Jeff have “known” each other through the Beneteau 473 owner’s forum online for awhile.  We both moved aboard about the same time.  It was great to compare stories about how we managed to outfit our boats for full-time living aboard.

The best story by far was getting off the dinghy at the Annapolis Yacht Club for the first time, walking less than fifty feet through the parking lot and seeing a woman waving her arms at us.  She was wearing a construction vest and a “STAFF” hat for the boat show.  I thought she was telling us we couldn’t come into the boat show yet, which we knew since it was the day before it started.  But it was Julie from s/v Rachael, the boat we hooked up with up in Somes Harbor, on Mt. Desert Island (Acadia Nat’l Park), Maine.  She recognized us from across the parking lot!  It was great to see her and her husband Mark, who are working the boat show to add funds to their cruising kitty!

We spent some fun days and evenings with the families from Full Monty and Anything Goes.  The kids all played wonderfully and we traded stories, compared boat projects that have to be done before our crossings, and started to make some headway on just exactly how we were each going to head south.  We went to town together, played at the park together, and spent time on each other’s boats.  It was getting really chilly as the week went on, so on the last night we ended up huddled all together inside our boat.

As friends old and new left Annapolis, we found ourselves alone again.  We had work to do on Patronus and decided to get it done while we had access to hardware and marine stores.  Chris replaced the jib halyard, cleaned out the aft starboard lazarette, took measurements to decide where to install our new watermaker, prepared the Safety Locker for our upcoming passage, installed a new barometer, dealt with an exploding holding tank, replaced all the hoses in the aft port head, fixed the generator when it wouldn’t start one morning, and more.

I continued on with homeschooling, cleaned the dinghy, and started a few projects that will help us on our long passage.  I rearranged our food cabinets and took stock of what we have so I can provision the boat before we leave the states.  We also made a last minute list of things to have sent to us from home.  Among the items we would like to add are: our dictionary, kite, craft supplies, our Thule cables and locks to use for our dinghy, and Reese’ journal, which I forgot to pack.

On Thursday, I took the kids to the Annapolis Maritime Museum to see the Oyster exhibit.  It was small but well done and thorough.  We learned that oyster fishermen are called “watermen”.  They use long tongs to scoop up the oysters.  Due to overharvesting, they are limited to collecting 15 bushels per day.  The industry has changed drastically since the 1950’s, when it was a huge part of the economy down here.  We watched a video of a master shucker.  It looks really hard and dangerous to shuck oysters.  The kids enjoyed the aquarium, which was filled with oysters and other fish.  They also got to climb on some old oyster boats to see what it might be like to be a waterman.

Well, we leave Annapolis tomorrow.  It has been a great week soaking up the full-force, undiluted sailing culture.  Sailing is in our blood and we have been surrounded by those who have it in theirs as well.  It truly feels like family here.  We felt part of the local scene from the moment we arrived and are reluctant to leave.  The head is still a work in progress, but the dinghy is clean and Baltimore awaits.  Cowboys-Ravens this Sunday.  Chris has been looking forward to going to this game with his Raven-fan friend Mark for months.  I’m looking forward to spending the day with my friend Christina, who will visit from Vienna, Virginia!  And now for the traditional litany of photos I couldn’t fit in the post….