We had an easy trip to Annapolis and stayed at the lovely Westin Hotel. We borrowed their free bikes and biked to Annapolis to sight see while we waited for the arrival of our boat to the Bert Jabins Marina. The Naval Training Base was impressive - we especially enjoyed the Tomb of John Paul Jones and the Naval Museum. It reminded us how rich in history this area is. We saw George Washington's shoe buckles, comb, dishes, etc. in the musuem and were reminded that this was for a brief period the capital of our government. It is also where George Washington surrendered his commission as general - a shock to many - giving up the absolute power that Congress had given him. The tribute to African American slaves by Alex Hailey the author of Roots is in downtown Annappolis. This is where Kunte Kinte was brought by ship from Africa. We dined in a building, formerly a tavern, built in 1747 where George Washington had been and enjoyed some crab. We barely scratched the surface of all that Annapolis has to offer and are hoping to do more touring when our boat is ready.
We arrived at the marina just as our boat came in on its truck. It was amazing to see our friends boat, Kathy and John Noland's boat Aurora, along with ours on one transport. We began the challenge of preparing the boat once again to continue our trip.
We soon discovered that while our boom, mast, and dinghy did not float on down the Hudson during the Irene Hurricane - it was FILLED with mud! We spent a full day hosing the mud out of the mast and boom. We had the mast tipped at an angle to let the mud roll out and left it over night to hopefully complete the job. Yardsmen said that it would "preserve" the boat. Trying to keep a sense of humor I said I thought that maybe I should put some mud on me since I too needed preserving - they offered to help me out!
Of course, a cloud of rain continues to follow us so it rained, rained, and rained.
We finally were able to have the mast put up and out came more mud. Every line we run through the mast is covered in mud. We have hosed down every line over and over. Every time we raise the main we will need to keep a bucket of water to douse the main sheet line. After reattaching everything, we discovered that our anchor light is not working. Also, in addition to spending time cleaning out mud Merry had the great experience of going up the mast to grab the jib halyard which was on the wrong side of the spreaders at the top of the mast. Lucky Wiley was the "winch man" and he got the great opportunity to winch his wife up the mast. it was no easy feat, and we had to do it twice because the first time Merry was tangled in an extra safety line. The view from up the mast was fantastic - when you looked out over the harbor - however looking down definitely made Merry think about totally trusting Wiley's skills as the "winch man". However, even though he had his opportunity to finish off his wife (and he had reason to - Merry was not a joy to be around as we cleaned off mud and dealt with all of the rain) he returned Merry safely to the boat. We worked all day on preparing the boat. Our friends Kathy and John, those without mud, set off to anchor in Annapolis and think about next steps. Our hope is to provision the boat today, have the anchor light fixed on Monday, and finally begin the next step of the trip. Please PRAY for no more rain for us - we would appreciate it!!