After two weeks at Solomon's Island, it was time to move the adventure on. Jacob, Caleb and Brian worked on cleaning the anchor chain, anchor and dinghy bottom. Anchor was up around 9:20. Quick stop for fuel and we were on our way back into the Bay.
Our original plan was to sail to Deale, MD. Upon arriving we could find no suitable place to anchor, so that was a quick duck in, duck out visit. We moved onto Annapolis.
We arrived in Spa Creek and hooked onto a mooring ball at 8pm.
Monday, July 20
The next morning we were greeted at 6am by a recorded bugle and all of the Navy midshipmen doing their morning exercises in the football field nearby. We decided to move over to the next creek called Weems Creek. We were able to snag a Navy mooring ball, which are free when not needed by the Navy. They only use them if a hurricane or major storm is coming.
Once settled on the new mooring, we had breakfast and got ready to see the lay of the land. First thing was to find a landing place. We found one about a ten minute dinghy ride up the creek. It was a public dock leading up to a small park in a neighborhood. With GPS in hand, we set off to find the visitors center.
Once at the visitors center, we got a local map and directions to Bacon Marine, a large marine and consignment shop someone had told Brian about.
Along the way we started encountering chicken statues. For whatever reason, Annapolis does Chickens, like New Bern does Bears. Here are a couple of the more interesting ones.
We found the marine store, and the library. After a picnic lunch and time checking out the library, we went back to the boat for a bit then took the dinghy around to the downtown docks.
We crossed the Spa Creek bridge and went into the neighborhood of Eastport. Wandering around and looking at all the sailboats took up a good portion of time.
Tuesday, July 21
This day was cloudy and very humid. Brian did a trash run and we did not do much of anything until that evening, when we went to the library.
Wednesday, July 22
Time to play tourist day!
First stop was the State House.
Next stop was the Navy Academy Museum and campus.
The neighborhood streets in historic Annapolis are very narrow and still have brick and cobblestone sidewalks.
Thursday, July 23
Baking and cleaning around the boat day. Went to the library after dinner.
Friday, July 24
We took the dinghy Eastport. Toured the Annapolis Maritime Museum and toured multiple boats most of the day. Brian is playing around with the idea that we need a larger boat. But nothing we look at compares with our Grace.
Saturday, July 25
Library day. Earlier in the week we had seen a notice about a showing of the Lego Movie at the library on Saturday and Nathan had been looking forward to seeing it again. Brian was researching boats, a favorite passtime, and came across of 50 ft. Beneteau. So we left the boys at the library and dinghied over to Eastport and took a look at it. It was huge and would meet our space needs, but the mast was too tall and the draft was too deep. We would not be able to go under ICW bridges or get back to New Bern very easily. While we were in the area, we looked at more boats, some for the second or third time. But again, nothing can compare to what we already have. We met the boys back at the dock, sent them on to the boat and had a date night.
Sunday, July 26
Spent the day on the boat. We listened to Shine FM out of Baltimore and heard two sermons. Jacob cleaned the bottom of the dinghy again with Luke and Caleb helping hold the boat in place. There is a ton of boat traffic on the weekends. As we were just past the mouth of the creek, we caught most of the power boaters wakes, causing our boat to rock quite a bit.
Monday, July 27
Library day again. The boys love the libraries for the free wifi. I love the opportunity to just sit and read. Maryland libraies do not issue cards to people out of state, so everything has to be read on site. I was able to finish a book on Martha Washington over the several hours spent there.
We rented the movie Unbroken from Redbox to watch that evening.
Tuesday, July28
We had decided to move the boat to Back Creek, closer to Eastport. The long dinghy rides in all the boat traffic were getting a little old. We anchored near Jabin Boat Yard because it is closest to a dinghy dock with access to a main road. We got situated,then dinghied over and walked around Eastport more, looking at boats. We walked the mile or so up the road and found the grocery store. We ended up having dinner at a small Latin type restaurant. Orders of beans and tortillas really hit the spot.
Going back to the boat, we saw that someone had anchored too close to us. His boat was actually touching ours. There was plenty of room surrounding to anchor, we could not figure out why he was so close. No one was on board, so Brian took in some of his line so the boats would not hit. They guy came back to his boat, and Brian explained what he did and why. The guy went off for at least twenty minutes. I was frantically looking up the Harbor masters number in case we needed it. Brian just let him rant. He truly put into practice Proverbs 26: 4, " Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou be like unto him." We had anchored first, this guy was clearly in the wrong. He finally simmered down.
We all swam off the back of the boat and then went to bed.
Wednesday, July 29
Brian saw the guy leave very early in the morning. Thank God!
Near where we dinghy to is a nature trail.
We followed it around. It was maybe 1/2 -1 mile looping back to the beginning. Then we walked to the Eastport library to check it out. On the way we stopped at Dollar General and picked up things for a picnic lunch. While at the library it started lightly raining. We didn't think much of it, but after awhile we decided we had better go check on the boat. We had left most of the hatches open and even though Brian had put tarps up, if the wind picked up it could still blow rain in. There was some water on the table and some clothes stacked up got wet, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. When the rain stopped, we hung everything out to dry.
After dinner, Brian and I decided to go back to Dollar General and get a few provisions that would cost less than the big grocery store. We got more than we planned, but they were have a great sale on canned goods. So we got our weight training workout in pack muling the 1.5 miles back to the boat.
Thursday, July 30
Today finds us back at the library. The boys were invited to a free lunch here today. After that we will get more provisions at the Giant grocery store and head back to the boat. Brian is scheduled to look at another boat with a broker this afternoon. We are planning to stay through the weekend and then head to our next stop of Baltimore.
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