Hello From Annapolis

We left Deltaville, Virginia last Saturday at 7:00a.m. It was a beautiful morning with very light winds. The day turned out to be verrry warm!

We arrived in Solomon’s Island, Maryland at 5:30pm and anchored with three other cruisers. Shelby and Savannah were glad to get off the boat and stretch their legs and sniff some grass!

We moved to another anchorage Sunday morning, for two reasons – 1) we were dragging along with everyone else, and couldn’t get the anchor to set, and 2) the anchorage was small and there was to be a docking contest of the watermen, on Sunday afternoon, which meant non- stop of traffic through the anchorage. We moved to Mill Creek and found a great spot. Easy dinghy access for walking the dogs, as well as exercise for us. By the second night at anchor there we had quite a number of other boats anchored there as well. That evening we dinghied around and spoke to everyone that was out on their boat. Some of the hailing ports were Amsterdam; Naples, Fl.; Annapolis, Md.; Boulder, Co.; and Durham, N.C.

We left Solomon’s Island Tuesday morning and arrived in Annapolis at 4:00pm. We had a south wind which allowed us to sail under spinnaker for about 5 hours up the bay. It was wonderful. We had never flown the spinnaker and of course it was twisted in the bag, and it took some time to figure it out, but it was worth it. I can say that because I really didn’t do much to help. We set it once and never had to adjust it at all!

In any case we finally got anchored in Back Creek about 5:15pm. But it wasn’t pretty – we anchored and re-anchored four, count them, four times. The first three times we were told by other boat owners that they had either anchored in that same spot and were asked to move by the harbormaster, or had watched other boats go through that. Number four seems to be ok so far with the harbormaster. We had to go into town and register with the harbormaster today, tell him where we are anchored, give him copies of our driver’s licenses and boat documentation papers, and jump through three hoops. Only kidding about the hoops. The harbormaster sends someone out once a day to survey Annapolis City Waters for anchored and moored boats. They get a GPS location on each and check to make sure you are not too close to other boats, docks, channels, etc. If you are, so sorry, you must move. We are hopeful that we have made the cut, because the ‘surveyor’ has been around today already and we weren’t asked to leave and there was no note on our boat when we got back from town a little while ago. It is getting crowded here already, and the boat show is a week away. I can hardly wait to watch the show being set up and the show boats moved in. We are seeing a lot of the ‘show’ boats already. It is amazing to see the boat show area now and think of how many boats will be jammed into that space.

Below are some more pictures - a couple of our boat, for those of you who haven't seen our 'mode' of transportation. And a couple of some lighthouses we've seen, although there were more.