We left Hampton and were finally in the Chesapeake Bay! We have talked about being here in this bay for years now and we’d finally made it! It was a beautiful day, winds were low and the water was calm. We passed several sea turtles during the day which was a first for me from our boat. We also had thousands of flies which for some reason, only like to bite our feet – go figure! So long pants and shoes it was! We found a wonderful stopover at Ingram Bay Marina. We weaved our way back into a narrow entrance and found ourselves in a beautiful little bay where the marina was. We borrowed the truck and drove into the neat town of Kilmarnock to provision.
From there, we went to Solomons Island and stayed at Zahniser’s Yachting Center, a very nice marina where lots of sailboats live. We rode our bikes into town to visit the Calvert Marine Museum but it was closed due to high tides – really??? We rode around the quaint town and visited a few of the gift shops – it was yet another beautiful place.
I’ve had fun in the Chesapeake Bay taking pictures of the lighthouses that we pass and finding online a bit of information about each. You’ll see this in my pictures – some are very small in the pictures as we were not that close to them. One, in particular, I’ve had the pleasure of passing twice now – the Thomas Point Lighthouse. The first time I was on a business trip attending the ARINC User’s Group about 4 years ago and we took a cruise past it – as I went by, I wondered if I would ever see this lighthouse again with David on our own boat as part of the Great Loop. That was a neat moment when I did see it for the second time.
Next was Annapolis… as we entered the harbor, we heard over the radio - a trawler was hailing the coast guard – he was taking on water rapidly. You could hear the nervousness in his voice. David knew he had just seen a trawler leaving and when he looked back, he saw the trawler heading back in and it was not far behind us. Soon after, we saw the Coast Guard response boat headed towards us as they thought we were the boat in trouble. David waved them past us and they took off. What’s bad is you hear these issues on the radio but you never know the outcome. We did actually see this trawler and the Coast Guard boat later in the day from our slip and all seemed to be well.
We stayed at Watergate Pointe Marina which is actually slips available to people who rent from the associated apartment complex. The dockmaster was very helpful and this marina ended up being a quiet spot for us to return to after walking the mile into the bustling town of Annapolis. There is no question that Annapolis is the sailboating capital of the world. The first night we ate at Boatyard Bar and Grill which was very good – best crab cake I’ve had in my life! We walked into town and got a taste of what Annapolis is all about – a really neat place that we both fell in love with.
We took a tour of the Naval Academy while there – WOW – really nice campus! The most impressive thing to me was that each year, they have to pass a different swimming test. Junior year is the toughest – they must swim a ½ mile in 14 minutes with their uniform on – no shoes – that’s impressive! Out of 17,000 applicants a year, 1200 are accepted and all must be active in some sort of physical sport. There is no tuition fee although uniforms must be bought by individuals. Five years of service after graduation is required. We toured on a Saturday afternoon during commencement week and they were holding their Ring Dance that night. I was going to explain this event but found this really great blog explaining it so am including the link to this blog if you’d like to read about it – it’s really cool. It was fun to see all the uniforms and beautiful young ladies in their evening gowns being photographed before the dance on the steps of these elegant campus buildings. Youth… sigh…
Also while there, we rented a car and drove 50 miles over to St. Michaels which was definitely worth it. It was a really nice, quaint town with a lot going on. As Enterprise messed up our timing, we didn’t get to visit the Maritime Museum while there but we’ve heard that it is the best one around. We enjoyed a wonderful meal at Awful Arthur’s and browsed the gift shops We enjoyed walking the back streets looking at the historical homes as well as some very eclectic ones. The yards and gardens were beautiful!
Sorry – this got long but it’s been a while. Weather is once again going to impact us as we plan to leave a day early to begin our adventure maneuvering the Delaware Bay to head for our next big stop – New York Harbor.
You are really getting to see things that only one can see from a boat!! Hope those yankees don't whjp up on you southerners !
ReplyDeleteI trotted around Annapolis by myself because Rob was doing maintenance on the boat. Lovely place and you have done it up proud with all the detail you tell about the area. Lovely weather, seeing new sites still doesn't make me want to leave my home for my boat.
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