Tuesday, September 24th

 We woke up again to another beautiful sunny day!  It’s cool, 58 degrees, but we can live with that for awhile because it’s supposed to get to 75 degrees!  Yahoo!!  I love it.  Chuck found some restrooms last night that were open and they even have showers…there is a small park on the premises with a pool, so I think this facility belongs to the park.  We both walked over to the building to get a nice hot shower…let me restate that…Chuck got a nice hot shower because the women’s was locked!!!!  Ugh! I had to settle for my shower on the boat.

We pushed off the bulkhead at about 10 am heading for Annapolis.  Before we got out of the harbor, we stopped at North Point Marina to fuel up and fill our water tanks.  The fuel was more expensive here than any other place we stopped.  $4.509 per gallon but when you need it, you pay whatever! The men at this marina were very accommodating and friendly.  You can find out all about the area just by striking up a conversation. 

It was so much easier leaving Rock Hall.  All we had to do was follow our route on our chart plotter in reverse!  What a glorious day on the bay.  We once again can see the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and were hoping to sail under it!  We popped our jib and raised our mainsail.  This is really a shake-down sail for us.  We’ve used our jib a few times previous to this day but not the main.  So we were hoping we rigged everything correctly…..but we were sailing along!  Chuck decided the reef lines didn’t look quite right.  Of course in the midst of trying to follow the lines and make corrections, the wind decides to swing out of the south. Down came the sails….that lasted real long!

Right before the bridge, we passed Sandy Point State Park as well as the Sandy Point Lighthouse off our starboard side.  We tried to visit that park and beach the winter we made so many trips to Annapolis looking at boats.  We drove into the park and then when we saw there was an admittance charge, we turned around and left.  Immediately we were motoring under the Bay Bridge….awesome….it is 186’ high.  When we’ve driven over the bridge in the past, it seemed much higher.  However, now that we’re underneath it with Happy Hour’s 60’air space, it doesn’t seem nearly that high!!!!!!Yikes!

Once we got south of the Bay Bridge, Chuck wanted to play more with the reef lines.  I set the auto pilot while he worked on the sails again.  Before we knew it, we were at the mouth of Spa Creek which leads into Annapolis’mooring field #1 and then the city docks….know as Ego Ally.   We passed small sailboats practicing their racing skills and 4 naval ships  maneuvering around in front of the Naval Academy.  They looked just like the PT 109 ship.

I called the harbormaster on the phone and the he said that the mooring balls are ‘first come, first serve’.  He said any of the white balls would be good but the yellow covered balls were for boats 45’ or over and any covered in red are out of commission.  Chuck motored to the back of the mooring field and I snagged #12.  Shortly, the harbormaster boat came around to collect money.  When we questioned him on prices, we found out that it was cheaper to pay for a month than for 3 weeks.  However, he said that there were certain balls that could not be used starting this weekend because they will be too close to the floating docks that they’re moving in for the power and sailboat shows….about 15 balls will be out of commission.   So, we immediately moved out to  #31.  This is our home for at least 3 weeks.  We paid for the month but here again even if we leave right after the boat show, it will still be cheaper for us!  I can’t believe that we are moored in Annapolis!!  What a view during the day as well as the lights at night.

 

Now because we were staying a month, we had to dinghy in and go up to the harbormaster’s office. We were instructed to take our Documentation Number, our numbers on our dinghy, and the serial number of our motor.  Once there, they also wanted our driver’s license numbers.  I didn’t have mine….oh well, if they want it bad enough they’ll have to come out to the boat to get it  While at the main dinghy dock, we rand into Jack and Sue from Passage.  They got to Annapolis about a week before us. They decided to grab a mooring ball further up the creek.  It’s a little cheaper but you have the lift bridge to contend with….lifts every half hour. I think they told us they are in mooring field #3. 

 After walking the town and eating dinner at Chick & Ruths, we motored back to our boat.  A lady on ‘sv Melinda Kay’ waved us over to her boat.  Barb & Doug are from Bethlehem PA and their boat is a 380 Catalina.  We’ve seen the boat at various stops that we’ve made and her her name hailed on the radio.  They said that they were one of the sailboats that cruised down the east coast with us from Atlantic Highlands to Cape May.  They were leaving the next day to motor down a few creeks to a Seven Seas get together but then they’re coming back to the sailboat show.  Hopefully we’ll talk to them again!