Annapolis Adventure

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Since we are moored, with no engine running and no shore power, we are relying solely on our solar panels to charge our batteries. We are very curious to see if they will do the job, so we've been checking our battery monitor frequently. So far, so good!  They seem to be keeping up just fine (as long as we have sun). Yahoo!  If it's overcast, we always have the option of running the engine for awhile, but we prefer not to use up our diesel.

Today, we had a pancake breakfast and just puttered around doing odd jobs on the boat. Strange how that list of odd jobs never gets smaller.  In the afternoon, we dinghied in to pick up a few things. I was hoping the Rite Aid store would have some food items, but they only had a limited selection, so I was only able to get a couple things on my list.  We did buy some Super Glue to try to fix the Isokinetics dinghy pump.  We'll try that tomorrow. .

The Jays played their sudden death Wild Card game against the Orioles at 8:00, so I put it on my iPhone so Carey could listen to it.  Oh, happy days, they won!  (But it was a late night--midnight by the time they had finished.). Their next game is on Thursday.


Wednesday, October 5, 2016

We slept in a bit since we had a late night with the Jays.  I figured out a way to toast bread on our stove. Just take the rack from the oven, place it over the burners, and we can toast two slices at a time. Works great, so we had toasted tomato sandwiches for lunch.  (Toast is an important food group for us!)

In the morning, we saw the DNR Pumpout Boat puttering around the anchorage.  It has a big sign on it that says you can call him on VHF 17, so we did. He came right over, tied off to our side with lots of his fenders out to cushion us, and pumped us out for five bucks.  Easy-peasy.  We asked if he would take our trash, too, and he did!  What a great service!

Later, we tried to Super Glue the dinghy pump, but it didn't work. As a last resort, I called the 1-888 number on the side of the pump to see if there was a warranty period.  Luckily, I found the Amazon order number on my phone and the Customer Service person was able to call up our order. She said there was a one-year warranty and she would send us out a new one. Wow, great service!  The only downside is that she can only send it to our home. Hmmmmm, doesn't do us a whole lot of good here, but we'll figure something out.

We would love for our boat to be self-reliable as much as possible--in other words, we don't want to have to go to a marina for anything.  Our constraining factors are: fresh water, fuel, holding tank capacity, and electric power.  Plus, food, of course.  We are working on all of these factors to reduce our reliance on them as much as possible, while still having a comfortable lifestyle (and full bellies).


Thursday, October 6, 2016

It was nice to be in Weem's Creek for a few days as we got lots of little jobs done. We lifted anchor around 10:30 today to move over to Port Annapolis Marina. When we entered Back Creek to go to the marina, no one answered channels 16 or 72, so I called on the cell phone. Unfortunately, Colin, the Harbor aster, wasn't answering. Finally, someone answered, but when we saw where they wanted to put us, we tried to squeeze down the channel and aborted quickly before we got in too far. Then, they assigned us another one.  It was really hard to decipher exactly where we were supposed to go and everything seemed too small, plus the wind was grabbing our bow and giving us the feeling of no control.

Finally, Colin suggested they bring their tow boat out, grab onto us and slide us backwards down the channel and into our slip.  This means easy out for us when we leave.  Whew!  Like stress-free valet parking for boats.  Love it.

Once we got in and settled, we realized that the Port Annapolis Marina is quite nice.  We had lunch at their cafe, and did our laundry in their onsite laundromat. They also have bikes to borrow, a free shuttle to go to the Boat Show, nice, clean (and air conditioned) washrooms and showers, and very helpful staff.

At 4:00, we caught an Uber cab to take us to the Annapolis Smokehouse where we watched the Blue Jays smoke the Texas Rangers, 10-1!  Good game, but we couldn't cheer too loudly since the Jays had just beaten the Baltimore Orioles out of the wild card spot (and we are very close to Baltimore right now).


Friday, October 7, 2016

As part of our World Cruising Club participation, we were offered a free rigging inspection, so we scheduled the guys to come over this morning.  Dan and Mike inspected everything.  Dan went up the mast to tighten the upper diagonal stay wires and even reconnected our TV antenna while he was up there.  Mike crawled down into our anchor locker and tightened our push pit bolts, adjusted the back stays, and checked the lifelines.  Of course, the inspection was free, but we were charged for the time they worked at making adjustments to our rigging.  We agreed to that because it's really important for us to have our rigging in good shape before going offshore.

Finally, we could go to the Boat Show.  Dennis, a crusty old sailor, shuttled us over, and we started our search for the many things on our list. We met up with Shawn and Steve, the guys from NavyPoint in Port Credit who had sold us our boat.  Shawn said, "You guys are living the dream!  You're doing what we want to be doing."

We spent the whole afternoon wandering around, talking to vendors, and buying things.  However, we didn't check many things off of our list.

Dennis picked us up at 4:30 (crustier than ever), and took us back to the marina.  At 6:00, we walked to a nearby sailmaker's loft for a social evening with the World Cruising Club group.  It was fun to meet some new people (Barrie and Kath from the UK) as well as talk to some people we had met in Annapolis in March.


Saturday, October 8, 2016

We are Uberites!  We have discovered the simple transportation method of Uber cabs.  So easy and inexpensive, and we can even track them on a map on my iPhone so we know when they are close.

This morning we took an Uber cab to O'Callaghan's Hotel for a World Cruising Club seminar on ocean sailing.  It was very interesting and informative. They gave us a free Boat Show ticket, which was great and saved us $36 U.S.  Awesome!  More money to spend at the show.

It rained all day as we wended our way from tent to tent and stall to stall, and tried to avoid puddles.  We bought lots of stuff on our list and made some decisions about our next big purchases.  By 5:00, we were soaked, chilled, and tired, so we went inside to Pussers Restaurant to have dinner and warm up.  Later, we called an Uber cab to take us back to the boat where we changed into our thick socks and warm clothes.


Sunday, October 9, 2016

It rained and howled all night, but we were nice and cozy in our boat. In the morning, we had breakfast onboard and did some odd jobs while we waited for the rain to quit.  We are going back to the Boat Show again today to buy a few more things.  The Mantus anchor lady gave us free passes for today, so we are going back to talk to them, as well as a few more vendors.

We have had no Thanksgiving turkey yet, so that may be our quest for today.

No luck.  We ordered pizza and listened to the Jays game.

Woohoo, the Blue Jays won and clinched the ALDS (American League Division Series) over the Texas Rangers.  Now they move onto the ALCS (American League Championship Series) and will play the Cleveland Indians on Friday. (Yes, we are still avid Blue Jays fans, even from here.)



Monday, October 10, 2016

Oh, my, we've had a busy day again today. The canvas guy came at 8:30 to measure for our weather guards (i.e., sun skirts, side shields, etc.). Then, we did the laundry, paid our marina and rigging bills, biked to Fawcett's for nuts and bolts for the new anchor, then biked to McDonald's and the grocery store for provisions, and back to the marina.

The marina bikes were quite a treat. The chains fell off at least twice for each of us, there was a rubbing on mine that made it twice as hard to pedal, and Carey's only had first gear.  Quite an energy sapper when you're going up and down the hills to Baybridge Road.  Needless to say, we needed to take showers before we left the marina.  Sue, in the marina office, invited us back next year when they'd have a brand new fleet of bikes.  Hmmm, only a year too late for us.

At about 3:30, we motored back over to Weem's Creek and anchored.  On the way, we had to go under a bridge that looked way too low for us. (See the video at https://youtu.be/2ozXMNpmTos ). Yikes!  In reality, we had about 7 feet to spare. Doesn't look it!

Later, while Dave and Nicki were visiting they pointed out a sailboat that was very low in the water.  As we watched, it seemed to be sinking lower all the time.  They had seen the Harbourmaster and the Police in the anchorage earlier that day and they seemed to be checking it out, so we assumed someone was going to take care of it before it sank.  Fingers crossed!

Still no turkey, unless you can count the turkey meatballs I put in the spaghetti.


Tuesday, October 11, 2016

OMG!  Do you see anything a little strange about this picture?

Look to the left of Carey and Dave in the dinghy.  Yup, that's a mast sticking out of the water.  No boat visible.  The sinking boat from yesterday had totally sunk and was sitting on the bottom.  Terrible.  I guess the officials weren't able to find the owners to get permission to break in to run the bilge pump or to tow it to safety.  Without permission they were probably worried about liability issues.  I called the Coast Guard to report it, and they asked a lot of questions (e.g., a description of the boat--well, it looks like an aluminum stick at the moment).  Now, it is definitely a danger to mariners. Imagine going into that anchorage at night and running into a mast!  Yikes!  We did hear the Coast Guard announce a "Securite" about the submerged sailboat later that morning.  (Note: When a Coast Guard announcement begins with "Securite" it usually means it is important safety information.)

At 9:15, Carey and Dave went to meet Greg, the Mantus dealer, at the boat ramp to pick up our new Mantus anchor.  Greg, very kindly, agreed to deliver it to us, since we didn't have a car.  When they returned, Carey took it all apart and had to stow it.  It's 55 pounds, so it could do a lot of damage if we left it loose while we were sailing.  We will install it on our bow when we get to Portsmouth.

At 11:30, we decided to lift anchor.  Unfortunately, our anchor had other ideas.  We think it must have been hooked on an underwater cable or an old chain.  Whatever it was, it wasn't letting go.  We tried several tactics--going forward, reversing, pulling up, letting more chain out--to no avail.  Finally, we let out all of our chain that is connected to the anchor (150 feet) and some of our rope so that we could turn right around to the other side of the anchor without the chain rubbing against the boat.  This time when we pulled it up, it pulled free. Yea!   By now it was 12:15!  Phew!  I did not want to go diving, and I knew for sure that Carey would never go in that water.

We left Weem's Creek and followed the Severn River to the Chesapeake Bay.  Today, our destination is Oxford, a historic town and one of Maryland's oldest.  It was a colonial port of entry and home to several heroes of the American Revolution.  The guidebooks say it's a charming town to wander through.

Here we are at anchor in Oxford, Maryland. Yup, that's RC Wings.  So beautiful.

 Here's a map to show exactly where we are. See the little boat on the east shore of the Chesapeake about a third of the way down?  That's us.

Last night, we celebrated our thousand nautical mile mark. We have now traveled 1,029 nautical miles from home over 33 days. Woohoo!  We are toasting reaching  our milestone with the wine that Kathy and Alex gave us when we left our home dock. 

(Photo credit: Nicki Ackerman)