Another beautiful morning at Solomons, but we manage to force ourselves to break away from the spell we've fallen under at this great marina (Zahnisers) and take action to get underway. Each time we try to shorten the amount of time it takes to actually accomplish that! We stow gear, raise the dinghy motor, raise the dinghy into the davits (the contraption in the rear that holds the dinghy out of the water), fill up the water tanks, hose off the boat, get the weather forecast, plot our route on the chartplotter, drive over to the fuel dock to fill up on diesel and pump out the holding tank ... about 1.5 hrs later, we are chugging out towards the bay.
Note the captain's long, sleeve sun-proof shirt everyone from 3MB!
Two maps, GPS, and guidebook. We're ready to go!
We had a couple of destinations in mind, depending on the wind. We could cross the bay and return to the delighful anchorage at Baby Owl Cove (we figured after a return visit, we could call it our "perennial favorite" just like s/v Surprise!) ... or we could make as much headway north as possible towards Annapolis along the western shoree. In the end, there was no wind to factor into our plans, so we headed towards Rhodes River.
I don't know about all boaters, but a good number of us pay attention to the chatter on the VHS radio -- you never know when a Coast Guard alert could be issued! It's a lot like the days of having a party line on the home phone. You hear bits and pieces of boater's conversations making arrangements with friends, negotiating with marinas, and it's inevitable that you'll want to continue listening (ok - eavesdrop) on some calls when the call moves to a working channel (and off of the general, all-call channel). Today, we overheard someone talking about the SSCA (Seven Seas Cruising Assn), and even though our membership has expired, we were flying the SSCA burgee/flag, so we felt (somewhat) invited to listen in. Much to our surprise, we learned that the SSCA annual 'gam' was being held in the Rhodes River this year! When we arrived at the anchorage at about 6pm, there were already 20 boats (on a Tuesday!). We heard that over 70 boats showed up last year. Gorgeous spot for a gathering of like-minded boaters.
So the delimna of the evening was whether we should attend the 'gam' (which is basically a festival of sorts where you meet lots of other cruisers, see vendors, attend seminars) and postpone our plans for Annapolis and Baltimore until next week. It took Captain Dan until the next morning to decide that it was more important to invest in our current friends than potential new ones! So, Ann, Lynn, Greg, Janice, Tom ... here we come!
Wednesday - Sept 22
So giving up our sweet spot in the anchorage, we headed off to Annapolis, leaving early in order to get a mooring ball in the city harbor. There are 40 of them, $30/nite, and they fill fast. It's going to be a short, 2-hr day on the water.
Leaving from anchor requires cleaning off all the muck from the bottom of the bay.
It was a beautiful day on the water! The temps were in the low 80s, clear sky and a light breeze. We could have used more wind, but we put up the sails anyway, since we are a sailboat! We motored all the way to Annapolis as we are eager to meet this city. Reaching Annapolis has been one of our major goals for the summer. We know people here! Several friends from Brunswick live in this area, and we've been in touch via email over the past month, speculating on when we'd arrive. Greg and Janice, s/v Glenice (our buddy boat from the ICW) are here as well as Ann and Lynn, s/v Sea Tramp (famous for teaching us the game of "chicken foot").
Naval Academy
Training boats for the academy
Annapolis Harbor
Maja on a mooring
What a great little harbor town -- that doubles as the state capitol! This has got to be one of our favorite stops! A helpful harbor master met us as we entered the mooring field to give us helpful advice on a storm expected overnight, and a helpful water taxi took us into the town dock! This town has the two things every harbor town should have -- a well-equipped hardware store on the same block as an ice cream parlor! The 3rd, of course, is a grocery store. While there isn't one we can walk to, we do have friends in town who have access to a car ... what more could you want?! Thanks to Greg and Janice, we not only got a ton of grocery shopping done, but we also took advantage of a huge liquor sale. Thank goodness for the water taxi! Our dinghy could never have handled this much beer!
The other attraction we were excited to see was a Pussers Restaurant ... something we haven't seen since our time in the British Virgin Islands. After dropping off all our shopping, we took the dinghy back into town, with our mind on some Pussers Rum! As luck would have, we also met up with Ann and Lynn who had motored over to welcome us to town. These two workaholics spend every summer in Annapolis working for the boat show, but they had never been to the Pussers ... and we were glad to put an end to that! Men had Painkillers and ladies had Bushwackers, and we probably would have stayed there til late in the night if Ann hadn't noticed the lighening starting to dance all around the sky (they had a long dinghy ride back to their R/V and were lucky enough to arrive just before the deluge of rain hit!).
Thursday, Sept 23
No remenants of last night's storm. The day is clear and blue and warm. Perfect for sight-seeing and shopping for postcards.
Lots of history, every where you turn.
The town dinghy dock
Dan zooming around in the family car (check out the size of that boat!)
For dinner, we took the dinghy over to the creek where Greg and Janice have their boat (s/v Glenice) at a private slip, and we joined Ann and Lynn (who are staying in their motor home this summer close by) for dinner and a rum-fueled game of Chicken Foot dominos. Ahh, it's been a long time! This is definitely a hard town to leave, but we'll be back after spending the weekend in Baltimore. There's just nothing like meeting up with people you have travelled a distance by boat to see.
That's Maja with the white hull, blue stripe.
The moorings are crowded for a Thursday night.
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