Day 248: Friday, May 10, 2013
Port to Port: Solomon’s to Annapolis, Maryland
Underway: 5:56 am Motor Off: 4:15 pm Miles Traveled: 53/45 Stayed At: Marina
Mile 97 to Mile 53: Time for some R&R – the last of our long days has gotten us safely to our interim destination – Annapolis, Maryland. Our last travel day was the best of the three – we awoke to calm seas, a beautiful sunrise and another boat parade this morning. Even at 6 am, an interesting mix of cruisers, sailboats and fishing boats all were leaving the harbor for their respective destinations. As usual, by midmorning, we were the last in a long line of boats heading north but we were happy to be out on the Chesapeake on such a beautiful day. Our only “problem” was it got pretty warm without a breeze and a few flies decided to rest on our boat.
Cindy had the honor of manning the tiller most of the day – I worked on other projects since it was so calm and quiet out. Our only excitement was when Boris revved up for a few seconds and quit. Oh-oh? Now what? Well, I had gotten gas when we arrived in the Solomon’s and hadn’t topped off the main tank right after we anchored. We probably only had 2+ gallons when we started out so, thankfully, an easy fill of gas solved that problem and we were off again. It’s always a good reminder of why we have a daily routine – we avoid a lot of potential problems that way. This time we just wallowed for a few minutes on a dead calm bay before we were up and cruising again.
After a long, productive day, we entered the harbor outside Annapolis. I don’t know if you ever get used to this but coming into a new port always has a surprise or two waiting. Reading a chart only gives you a tiny bit of information about what is around the next corner. It looks simple on the chart – just go up the channel, turn left for a little ways, turn right into the harbor and slide into the appropriate slip. What the chart doesn’t tell you is that there are lots of buildings and people along the shoreline; there are 20+ boats swinging at anchor just to your port side; a steady stream of boats of all shapes and sizes are heading out or coming up from behind; you can not see the slip number until you are right in front of it (if you are lucky); the wind is going to pick up just as you enter the trickiest part of the channel; the harbor is only wide enough for two boats to pass right next to each other; the current is working hard to keep you from turning into the slip; there are lots of people watching from the bordering restaurants waiting for you to screw up; and on and on and on….
But we made it safely into our slip, got tied up and were thankful to be done. We finished our normal boat tasks – signed in for a couple of days, filled up the gas tank, scrubbed the decks and cockpit, organized the cabin and took long awaited hot showers. Only after all our projects were done did we get to wander around the historic old downtown. We had amazing nachos and rice at Moe’s – a small Mexican restaurant – stopped in a few shops to look around and avoided buying ice cream, strawberry smoothies, fudge and many other treats we drooled over on our short walkabout. There were lots of people wandering around the waterfront – in fact, it took us almost an hour before we got to head downtown because we kept chatting with random people wandering by – some tourists and others on boats nearby. It looks like Annapolis is going to be a very interesting place to explore. We can’t wait.
