The boat show was just 300 yards away- which makes a welcome change from the long days travelling to the London and Southampton shows. We spent a full day at the show, Robbie quizzed all the yanmar, fridgiboat, raritan (toilets) and furuno agents plus others whilst Jen got to see the softer side with Sue Dall (Marwari). The new HR 37 was inspected and scrutinised and it was decided that they should have consulted us before they went into production! Purchases made included charts, a new fog horn (last one nearly worn out in Maine), new gloves (existing ones nearly worn out anchoring) and a pilot book of the Bahamas. The show was good value, plenty of helpful tradesmen but it lacked the entertainment that makes the London and Southampton more "active"

Another day another institution - American football. Vulcan Spirit got tickets for us to the Navy play Mississippi South. The 40,000 seater stadium was full. The show started an hour before the game with the marching on of the Naval officers in training (about 4,000), then came the band. They had a very interesting marching routine with a lot of sides and diagonal quick and slow steps, it was good to watch and must takes hours of practice. The Royal Marines Band better watch out. The cheer leaders lined the pitch with colourful pom poms and some tricky balancing moves chanting GO NAVY. Then on trooped the teams 100 on each team (no exaggeration) although only 11 play on the field at a time. It's a game of 15 minute quarters and we were there until the bitter end 4 hours later! They only played football for an hour and that was generous. The Navy lost 21 - 66, at least we got a free t shirt. Our party decided it was no surprise that the game hadn't caught on with the rest of the world, the players might look the part but the play was too sporadic to hold our attention. However, they really get behind their services sport and everybody joins in, a bit like an Army/Navy game at Twickenham every Saturday. While thinking rugby what a pity for Wales in the semis.

  

Gunkholing - verb- to explore shallow coves, creeks and channels nearly unnavigable in search of seclusion, adventure and wildlife.

The Chesapeake has more than 3,000 miles of shoreline and too many creeks to name (many have no name), so there's no shortage of places to explore depending on wind and weather. We need 6'6" of water which excluded many of the creeks but as our confidence grows we are running close to our limits so as to see what's around the next bend. After the hussle bussle of Annapolis we spent several days exploring creeks and rivers with names like Slaughter, Little Choptank,Crab Alley, Breezy Point,Solomans and Patuxent. In these anchorages we were often on our own with less than a foot of water under the keel.

The next river south is The Potomac with Washington DC at the head, 96 miles away. It'll take us 2 days to get to DC where we hope to get there in time to join Marysue for the rugby world cup final on the 23rd. As we head south so do many others creeks we are not on our own. A lot of yachts like us are making their way to the Bahamas via the ICW (intracoastal waterway) while others are heading for the warmers waters of Florida and to lay up their boats.

Maymio is going well,she likes sailing to windward and that's what we are getting.

Photos

Cheer Leaders

Naval Academy march on

Navy team warming up 

Soloman Island from Calvert bridge, we somewhere in the middle