Lisa LOVES Annapolis!!!! US Navy Issues "Cougar Alert".

After a quiet night in Still Pond Creek, we left for Annapolis, Maryland under grey skies. Running with the outgoing tide, we averaged 6.5kts and did the 30miles run in a little over 5 hours.

We decided just to grab a mooring ball off the US Naval Academy rather than anchoring out.

Annapolis is a sailing town, everything is geared towards providing services that help rather than hinder visiting boats (some waterfront towns make it tough to land a dinghy, get water, etc... even though boaters are spending money in their communities). The mooring balls are $30./night and are right off the downtown. The Harbour Master comes out to you and you can pay with cash or CC. For $5.00 you can have a boat come out to you and get your holding tank pumped out. There are dinghy docks scattered allover, and we noticed that few, if any people bothered to lock them up.

The main dinghy dock we used was right next to a small seating area devoted as a memorial to Alex Haley, the author of "Roots". It is the Kunta-Kinte Memorial, apparently the slave ship he was on made landfall in Annapolis.

Here the kids are sitting next to part of a statue at the memorial. What you can't see is a bronze statues of Alex Haley reading from a book to the kids (you can just see his foot, bottom left of pic).

Apart from sailing, Annapolis is home to the US Naval Academy. This means lots of young sailors! Lisa REALLY enjoyed Annapolis.

We walked around the Academy grounds and toured the visitors center. We even managed a family pic with "Chalotte-Ann" moored in the background (look closely, she is there).

We played tourist for a couple of days, really enjoying the town. We dinghied around the area and found a great little spot for lunch (Davis' Pub). In the fall Annapolis hosts a huge Boat Show. Lisa and I have already made plans to come to the show after this trip is done, but without kids!

The only downside to Annapolis is that Delaney and Mitchell have both developed a catamaran- specific strain of "two-foot-itis". Mitchell really liked the 42' Fountaine-Pagot with the SCUBA locker on the transom , Delaney liked the Jaguar 35 with the huge cockpit. I'm still partial to the Lagoon 44 (Lisa seemed to like it as well).

Yesterday we did a short trip to Harness Creek on the Southern River. We shared the well-protected anchorage with another Gemini (Lilly Pad). We just woke up after a great nights sleep.

I'll add some pics on the next entry, right now our Internet connection keeps dropping out, I'm losing my mind.

Later,

Crew of the "The Buzzing Sound from the Inverter Can't be Good"