Annapolis
Scott-Free’s blog
Steve & Chris
Thu 28 Jul 2011 17:24
38:58.64N
76:28.44W
Thursday 28th July
2011
Distance run: 240
nmiles
The passage from
Atlantic Highlands back to the Chesapeake was uneventful. A mixture of
motoring, sailing and motorsailing, we arrived at Cape May in thick fog.
It is not good to be able to hear the engine of a fishing boat getting nearer
and nearer and see the blob on the radar coming closer, but not be able to see
the vessel itself or indeed to know if it knows you are there! For some
time we could not even see Nimue and she was within a few hundred feet
(on the basis that two boats make a bigger radar target than one!)
Eventually the fog
cleared and we had a good trip up the Delaware Bay with the tide and into the
anchorage at Reedy Island where Steve repeated his ferry glide manoevre through
the gap in the dyke.
Storms were again
forecast, but in the end we mainly had rain and just a short burst of thunder
and lightening, and so after a peaceful night's sleep we set off again and were
shortlyin the C&D canal, where we had decided we definitely were not going
to stop for diesel! By late afternoon on Tuesday we had arrived in
Annapolis, and were anchored in the harbour,opposite the Naval Academy.
We spent the next
couple of days looking around the city that calls itself the US centre of
sailing. It has a huge Naval Academy here which turns out hundreds of
young officers for the Navy and Marine Corps every year. We took a tour of the
grounds and watched this year's new intake, called Plebes, assemble on the
parade ground before lunch, and a raggedy old lot they looked
too!
Local yachts
race every Wednesday
evening.
Plebes marching in for their lunch at the Naval
Academy.
Both Steve &
Michael decided they needed new hats, and were worse than women trying to make
up their minds what to get. Typically, they both ended up with exactly the same
Tilley hat in exactly the same colour- luckily their heads are different sizes
so there shouldn't be a problem!
New hats-
eventually!
We took a ride on a
new circulator bus - it was so new the driver didn't even know what he was
doing! He wanted to sell us a $3 ticket for all buses and we just wanted a
50c ride on his bus! In the end we showed him the flyer that said rides
were 50c and he was happy. Annapolis is a pleasant place - we expect it
will be much busier when we come back in October for the boat
show!
Different types
of houses side by
side
Alex Haley, author of 'Roots' statue on the City dock.