05/28/2009, Annapolis, MD
After only 4 days of cool, cloudy and rainy weather the sun broke out and it's gotten nicer and nicer everyday! Rob had a moderately successful trip to Maine. Submittal of our building plans to the planning commission for a building permit will have to wait until we arrive there in mid June. He still was able to accomplish a lot of material issues, made some building related contacts and even got to mow the lawn so he was a happy landlubber. Weather is still pretty chilly up there, so personally I'm not in THAT much of a hurry anyway! The activities in Annapolis kept me really busy. I heard about a neat little deli on Main street that I simply had to go and have breakfast. Every morning at 8:05am everyone in the place rises and says the Pledge of Allegiance. They've been doing that for over 25 years...how patriotic!! Our timing in Annapolis was perfect, as Graduation/Commissioning week for the US Naval Academy is happening as well. Many of the week long activities are open to the public so I had a great time. A tour of the Academy grounds was the 1st thing! Awesome architecture and the grounds are beautiful and have a certain air of pride, tradition and patriotism that really touches the soul. There is a tradition with the 1st year "Plebs" (that's what 1st year students at USNA are called...Greek for "lowest form of life") called the Herndon Climb. All 1,000+ students need to work together to climb a 40 ft statue (looks like a mini Washington monument) that has been greased with 100 lbs of lard to retrieve a Pleb cap (a white sailor hat with has a black band that all 1st year students wear) and replace it with a regular student uniform cap. It's quite an event and hundreds of parents and onlookers cheer them on. They did it in 1hr 45 minutes which apparently is only seconds from the all time record. Despite the sore muscles, scratches and bruises the students had fun and marking the official end of their "Pleb is the actual prize! There were a couple of open air concerts and I got to observe the inspection of the Marine graduates wearing their uniforms for the 1st time..they looked so proud as officers checked everything from their highly polished shoes to the alignment of their buttons and belt to the way they stood at attention. We were lucky enough to see 2 afternoons of the Blue Angels at their finest! They flew right over our heads with such precision. We hear that the tight formation they fly in is maintained by mere dots on their windshield lined up with a dot on the next plane! How "High Tech" is that????
Rob was happy to celebrate his birthday here and we had a great dinner with JoAnne and Jerry. We guessed he hasn't celebrated his birthday with his sister since he was 21! Last year we were celebrating in El Salvador with Terri & Lyman, this year Annapolis, next year, Maine...talk about exciting milestones!
We've spent several wonderful days catching up with Jo and Jerry at their lovely home in Crownsville and spending some time with our nephew (Mike who thankfully just returned from Iraq) and his family has just filled our days with joy and made our stay in Annapolis complete. I must admit, sleeping in a true queen bed that doesn't move and spending many evenings soaking in a hot tub and spending time with family has made our time in Annapolis very special as well as pampered.
It's now Memorial Day weekend and everyone is out in the sun enjoying their favorite toy on the water. Sailboats, power boats, canoes, kayaks, dinghys, Jet Skis, tour boats even a huge 200 ft yacht adorn this relatively small harbor. The weather has been perfect and hundreds of people just milling about. We even found our favorite ice cream place with 46 flavors to choose from. All of our repairs are done but we await the return of our windlass so we can continue northward. I guess with all of those ice cream flavors, I guess I don't mind hanging around a couple more days! The weather held out for the holiday, but the clouds and periodic rain has returned, now we hope our windlass will follow suit...SOON...would you believe they had to send it to Illinois to be re-wound!!!
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Comments [2]
05/04/2009, Annapolis, MD
We made it! Safe and sound and FREEZING!!! It's been raining on and off for the past 3 days with temp's in the 50's. We spent a nice overnight at Solomon's Island then traveled to West River and anchored in Galesville. We had a terrific visit with friends, Mark & Evelyn. Mark pointed us to a primo anchor spot despite the cold rainy day, then took us back to their beautiful home where we enjoyed a delicious dinner, fine CA wine and catching up after almost 3 years. Evelyn's dad, Gil, was one of our trusted crew and Spanish translator on the Baja HaHa back in 2007, so it was great to talk with him on the phone, back in Illinois, as well. We are really hoping they will consider joining the cruising life and perhaps head down to Bahamas - BVI's when we go in 2010... Monday morning we slept in til 7:30 and were on the "waves" by 8:30. We arrived in Annapolis only 2 1/2 hours later and despite cold temp's and rain and a little fog, there were many brave sailboats out having a...good time. There will plenty to keep us busy here in Annapolis, a few repairs, seeing JoAnne & Jerry and visiting the Naval Academy are top on our list. Rob will also be flying to Maine for a week to start some of the leg work and lining up some contractors to begin the septic, find the well and other building related contacts before we actually arrive in early June. Stay tuned for some of our activities here and then our final trek to complete our journey of California coast to Maine coast, via Panama Canal dream!
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04/29/2009, Southhall Landing Marina, Hampton, VA
Yea!!! 5 days of simulating a motor boat, we have reached the Chesapeake. The trip has been quite a delightful one. Each day bringing alittle different scenery. Day 2 we saw only 2 bridges but several dolphins, lots of shore birds and more marsh land. Lots of sun but chilly and finally some sailboats out having a great sail right outside the little town of Oriental, S.C. on the rather large Neuse River where we anchored for the night. Day 3 brought us traveling thru more "backwoods beauty", some smaller and more vacation/summer homes with lots of power fishing boats tied to the ends of docks. We anchored in the Alligator River Anchorage with 3 other sailboats and a power boat. Thankfully we saw no Alligators, but did see a few deer! Day 4 took us thru some shallow areas and some very winding narrow passages. Getting in the longest day so far, we travelled 76 statute miles. We actually pulled just outside of the marked channel and dropped anchor. The book said just go down this "channel" to anchor in 7-10 feet of water. Well the channel looked just like a path between marshy grass and there was no way we were going into it! We were just fine and even got passed by a barge traveling the "ditch" that had plenty of room to get past us. Day 5 took us traveling out of the beautiful backroads wilderness and into industrial USA...passing thru a lock (a piece of cake especially with our Panama Canal experience and with NO line handlers) plus 6 bridges, 3 of which were supposed to "usually be open" according to the guides and charts, but with our luck were closing as we approached for railroad traffic. Contending with the busy voice traffic on the bridge VHF channel was confusing at best, not being familar with all the area names and having to ask for specific openings for bridges that had different names than was listed in our chartbook was just too much big city activity for me! Motoring thru the Naval ship yards, however, was pretty awesome and passing between Newport News, Portsmouth and Norfolk was breathtaking to see all the "warships" and even the newly commissioned destroyer...USS Bush... We will definitely make it back here for a couple of days...next trip! Lots of helicopter traffic, coast guard inflatables, tugboats and fishing and pleasure crafts going in all directions...Welcome to the big city! We found our way to the Salt Pond Area about another 15 miles north and tucked into a little private marina where we were told "they just dredged the approach last week, so no problem".... but we saw 0 feet below the keel for a few moments and lots of sand around us, we just held our breath and made it thru to the floating dock. Southhall Landing Marina manager, L.T. and fellow live-aboard were there to catch our lines and once we got settled, even took us to the grocery store, liquor store (we were out of almost everything) and pizza place, then brought us back to the boat, 3 hours later! Very friendly people! After such a beautiful, sunny 5 days, a cold front came thru today (Wednesday) and temps dropped 20 degrees! BRRRRR ... guess we will wait until Friday when the cold NE winds should subside to get alittle further north, hopefully getting to Annapolis by Saturday or Sunday...
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