From the Captain.


I don't know why it is that all of us are committed to the sea, except I think it is because in addition to the fact that the sea changes and the light changes, and ships change, it is because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins the exact same percentage of saline in our blood that exists in the ocean, and therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in ours tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it we are going back from whence we came.

 President John F. Kennedy addressing the America's Cup in 1962

On to St. Michaels

10/3/13. Annapolis Harbor.

I have realized what it is about Georgetown, about the marinas on Worton Creek, and about Annapolis. To a kid who ogles boats, these places are candy stores. And Annapolis is the mother of all candy stores. There are boats everywhere you look.

Count me in among the kids who ogle boats. I love looking at sailboats, and even a well-proportioned power boat grabs my fancy.  Out on the water, there are boats to look at, but not nearly the over-the-top concentration of nautical eye candy as in the sailing ports. If I were an art lover, this would be like waking every morning in the Louvre.

I am not alone in these feelings. Of the aforementioned President Kennedy, Brad and Kim Hampton had this to say in  Boating and Sailing News in 2010:  "Imagine what it might be like to fall in love as a teenager, and to carry that love with you for your lifetime… Something that is so ingrained in you as to become a part of you, and to remain at the very forefront of your thoughts… President John F. Kennedy had such a love, and her name was not Jacqueline, nor was it Marilyn. Her name was, and still is, Victura." This so-called love of his life was the 26-foot sloop her sailed as a younger man. But whether he was sailing Victura, or sailing on Manitou, the 62-foot Sparkman and Stephens presidential yawl he acquired while in office, the iconic pictures of him on the waters around Martha's Vineyard, hair blown back by the wind and eyes fixed on the distant sea, show a man deeply connected to his sailboat.

In Annapolis, boats are everywhere.

I don't think I am quite that smitten, but I look at the curves of hulls, how they sit in the water, the rake and height of the masts, the rigging, the cabin tops and arrangement of port lights, the cockpits, the shape of the bow, the angle of the transom, the length and beam. I go over the wood trim and the general fit and finish of each boat. I even check out the canvas coverings over the cockpits.

Luna has a small canvas dodger covering the companionway hatch and a larger bimini cover shading the helm station. Other boats have clear vinyl awnings covering every square inch of the space in between. This effectively encloses the occupants of the cockpit in a bubble and shields them from sun, wind, and spray. But to my mind, feeling the wind on your face to see its strength and direction, tasting the spray when it hits your lips, getting some good vitamin D-producing sunlight on your skin, and being ever so close to the weather at hand is an integral part of the sailing experience. On the other hand, had you asked the commander and me during our cold night sail down the New Jersey coast whether we would have preferred a better shelter, we'd probably have answered, "You betcha."

Sage advice from the US Naval Academy

Carol's cousin, Jim Hanley, works at the Naval Academy and gave us a tour, which included commentary on much of the history and traditions of the Academy and even a walk around the crypt of John Paul Jones. He got us to the dining hall just at noon where every day, the 4,400 midshipmen (26% are women now) line up on the parade ground in uniform and march into the dining hall. There is a band that provides a drum beat in march time, and as the formations turn for the dining hall, they play Anchors Aweigh.

Considering the psychology of the event, the commander noted, "Poor kids, every time they hear that song, they're going to get hungry."

Carol and Jim Hanley with 4000 hungry midshepmen

Annapolis is busy. From our mooring in the main harbor, we take the dinghy into the public dinghy dock which is partially blocked by large floats to accommodate the boat show. We shoe-horn the dinghy among a dozen others. We enter the town through a narrow walkway constricted  by the administrative boat show trailers. The harbormaster's office with the showers and bathrooms is on the harbor as well and is hidden by ticket booths. As is Phillips Crab House, where we have dinner with some new friends, Bob and Annie, sailing their Catalina 34, Spindrift. We met them in Cape May and have been in email contact since. They are from the Boston area, and the accent brings us back to New England. When we left Annapolis, we gave them our city mooring. By then, moorings were in high demand because of the boat show traffic. We coordinated our coming and going so they picked up the mooring pennant seconds after we dropped it.

Before leaving Annapolis, we met up with an old high school friend of mine who found me on Facebook. She brought us the mail we had forwarded to her, and we went for lunch. She suggested one of her favorite places: The Boatyard. She told us it is rated as one of the ten best sailor bars in the world. It certainly rates high in our book, and we were thrilled to have a second meal there.

After lunch, she directed us to a fish market, and we bought some freshly-caught rock fish (striped bass, the common local catch on the bay) to grill at night, then back to Luna for an afternoon departure to Weems Creek up the Severn River.

Annapolis was busy, and, overstimulated by all the action and all the boats and all the comings and goings, we were happy to motor around to the quiet creek up the Severn that I remembered from earlier days. We had a swim and found the water a little saltier than up north: we're getting closer to the ocean.

10/5/13. Weems Creek to Leeds Creek (St. Michael's, MD) 21.5nm.

We awoke expecting another swim only to find that the incoming tide brought an oil slick that partially covered Weems Creek. After breakfast, we took the dinghy into the nearby public landing and walked a few blocks in West Annapolis to the Great Harvest Bread Company, Naval Bagels, and Graul's supermarket for some provisions. Ahead of me in the grocery line was a man with a Navy shirt buying 6 bottles of bloody mary mix and 12 bags of ice cubes. Today is the Navy vs. Air Force football game, and he is getting ready for the tail gate party. I raise my fist and say, "Go Navy." He nods.

In Annapolis "Go Navy" signs are posted on many of the stores, but I think I saw more references to the boat show. It seems clear to those in Annapolis where the money is. As one plaque for sale in a gift shop noted, "Annapolis is a drinking town with a sailing problem."

Motoring past the Thomas Point Light House

Time to move on. The day was another hot, muggy, windless one. We haven't had a really decent sailing day since the Atlantic run more than a week ago. We motored across the bay, past the classic lighthouse at Thomas Point, the less well known light that marks Bloody Point, and up the Miles River toward St. Michaels. This is another popular sailing town and usually quite busy on weekends, so our goal was a quiet creek across the river. We anchored in a small cove on Leeds Creek. The air temperature was more than 90 degrees, and we were anxious for a swim. However, we soon discovered the scourge of Chesapeake Bay swimmers had beat us to the cove. Sea nettles, those white jelly fish with long tentacles that hover just beneath the surface and issue a painful sting on contact, were there. These are the first we've seen since entering the Chesapeake, and perhaps this will be the end of swimming for a while. Or maybe we can find other creeks where the water is more brackish and the nettles don't penetrate.

We're having an electrical problem with Luna. When the motor is idling, the voltage swings and the GPS goes off. Luna's two house batteries don't seem to supply the power to run the instruments. Leeds Creek is shallow in places, and we rely on the Garmin for accurate depth readings. It goes out just as we enter a shallow cove, but we manage to stay in the channel and set the anchor in 8 to 10 feet of water, which is fine. We will spend the next two days at a marina in St. Michaels. Our friends Phil and Nancy, now about 25 miles away in Rock Hall, will meet us there. I'm sure Phil will help me sort this out, and if not, the staff at the marina is available on Monday morning.

Annapolis Harbor at sunrise: like a painting