Annapolis Maryland

We stayed in historic Annapolis for six days as our third stop in year two of the boat trip. 

As we made our way here from our last destination, Rock Hall, MD, we called the marina. We told them our vessel length was 47 feet.  They could not accommodate us, but recommended we go to the marina right across from them. Yacht Basin Company.  As luck would have it, we learned it was the best marina in Annapolis.

On our way to Annapolis

There was plenty of depth under the keel when we got there, but navigating to our slip was very tricky. There were tight turns.  Thankfully, there was no current or high winds! 

Our neighbors were impressive.  Each was over 130 ft long.  The bow of the closest mega yacht to us was almost over our boat!

Picture of the three mega yachts.

It was hard to overlook an old sailing boat as we arrived in Annapolis.  It's name was Lynx.  We didn't know this, but that boat has a cannon which they fire twice a week.  When it went off, it sounded like thunder - actually, way louder than thunder - because this was an explosion.  It made my dad jumpy for quite a while after that.  We learned from the crew later on that it was only a 6 pound cannon.  Some cannons on ships fired cannonballs as big as 18 pounds!  After hearing this, my dad and I can't imagine how loud an actual naval cannon battle must have been.  

We found this demonstration of how much force a cannonball has and what it does to a ship.  And its crew.  This one is a 9 pound ball.  

The first thing we did when we secured the boat was to visit a famous deli in Annapolis, famous for its crab cakes.  

Here is the deli.

We split one.  My dad and I agreed it was a little too sweet to us.

In the deli - a sucker solution

We were sorry to learn that the two most famous sights in Annapolis -- the Unites States Naval Academy, and the State Capital -- were both closed due to Covid 19.  

But we did look at many images online.  Hopefully we will get back to Annapolis next year when things should be reopened.  Here is an online image of John Paul Jones' famous sarcophagus.  What an honor to have it in the Naval Academy.  John Paul Jones founded our Navy.  Among his Revolutionary War battle victories, he is famous for once yelling over to the British:  "I have not yet begun to fight!"  That's one tough guy!

Here is one picture of the naval Academy that we took.  It's the gate.

The next day we learned that filmmakers were shooting a clip for a movie near us.  We also learned a car was going to jump over a canal.  Many turned out to watch.  We were lucky to watch it from our dock.  Here is the video clip we took.

And here's another video clip a fellow boater sent us. 

They jumped the car three times before getting it timed right with the race boat.  It's not easy to do that with the world's fastest offshore powerboat - a boat that has 3,300 horsepower and goes 190 miles per hour.  We learned the driver of the car - a Subaru rally car - was Ken Block, a famous rally driver and stunt driver.

This is the boat in the stunt.

Over the next three days, we explored historic Annapolis the best way.  Walking.  And, by Hoverboard.  More about that later...

The city is very old and beautiful.  My dad took hundreds of photos and must have told me 56 times how much he loved the unusual colors.  Here are some of those photos.

 

Boot Scraper

Door Knocker

Impression of older building on old building

After a few days at the marina we went to the nearby mooring field.  We had never picked up a mooring ball before, but had been told how to by our training captain last year.  This is the way you pick up a mooring ball.  Someone positions the boat and someone uses a boat hook to reach down and grab the mooring line attached to the ball.  That line is pulled up and two lines are looped through its eye.  Those lines are attached to the boat making a bridle.  It's easy when weather is good like it was for us.  But we think difficult in waves, current, and wind.  

In the mooring at night

Every day we would go out on our tender to a dinghy dock and visit the park that was closest to us.  It was right on the water. I would ride my Hoverboard and we would play ping-pong.  It was really fun and our weather was great.  I got a lot better over a few days of playing.  We even played at night.  This is a video clip of us playing ping-pong.

Normal ping-pong

Night ping-pong

When it got dark, some skateboarders would show up and do flips on their skateboards.   Ok, I liked to wheel around the old fashioned skateboarders on my Hoverboard with its headlights and show off.

We also took a long ride in our tender to Eastport.  It and Annapolis are considered the sailing capitals of the world.  I've never seen so many sailboats of all kinds.  

I actually like that boat a lot.  Go figure.

Each day, we'd visit the cool stores in Annapolis, including a tea store with a bunch of exotic teas.  There was also a Chipotle.  (I really like Chipotle.)  There was also a great barbecue place called Mission Barbecue with a giant army truck outside.

Mission barbecue (The ribs are so good.)

Don't be upsetti, eat some spaghetti!

The streets of historic Annapolis were also beautiful.  Many were brick, hundreds of years old, though I noticed some of those had been paved over.

Halloween is coming up.  We saw decorations.  Here's one example.  The candy slides down the tube so trick or treaters can get their candy from a distance.  

On our last day in Annapolis, the weather had turned colder and rainy.  We took one last long walk. Everything was still beautiful in spite of the rain.

We had walked by a coffee shop / bookstore the day before, but it was closing.  Today, we got there in time.  It was special. 

 

We found a small harp at the bookstore.  When I played it, it made a soft melancholy sound to me.  We looked it up online to learn what it was a called.  Some call it a travel harp.  Others call it a lyre harp.  Others call it an Irish harp.

Here I am playing piano at the bookstore.

Outside the bookstore and coffee shop, a knight

And a beautiful garden with chairs

Trust me I...  I don't know how this happened.

A little doll house all lit up inside the counter at the bookstore.

Here are more photos of the things we saw and did.

Our Halloween decorations on the boat

Me on my Hoverboard at sunset

The pumpkins we find in Annapolis were just getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

(I looked it up.  The biggest one ever in the world weighed over 2500 pounds.)

The city allowed the restaurants to put tables outside so that they would not go out of business in 

Covid-19.

I don't know how the city did this but it's really cool, and very real.

It's the skeleton of a mermaid.

A beautiful boat we saw in the marina

The red arrow shows where we were in the marina.  The yellow arrow shows where we moored for our first time.  We had a great time here!

__________

I learned and saw lots in Annapolis.  Even though Covid-19 ruined our chances to see the Naval Academy of the United States, and the famous State Capital, we found our own way to make things better.  And even though things might get frustrating sometimes (I can't tell you how many times we had to come back to the boat because we forgot to bring masks), you have to keep finding ways to to fix problems.  Keep finding the ladder to climb the wall.  All these photos, is everything we did despite Covid.  It's a lot in one week.

- Salter

P.S.  I wonder if the owners found out yet?