What we did in Annapolis…

Well, sometime tomorrow or the next day we will finally leave the Annapolis area after having first arrived here on Labor Day.  It was unbearably hot and very busy then but now fall has set in and it’s time to move south.  Although Annapolis has been very good to us,  it will certainly feel good to be on the move once again

We have eaten numerous crab cakes and sipped several Painkllers (the signature drink of Pusser’s Rum); dodged racing sailboats and crab pots in the bay (amazed with the amount of boat traffic); had a few chuckles over the argumentative radio chatter here in the east (with the increased boating traffic comes increased close encounters and hot tempers); traveled around town by foot, bike, dinghy, bus, friend’s car and rental car; had a rigging survey where it was reported that our rigging looked like it was a brand new boat but, not to worry, the salt environment would soon make it’s mark.

We installed an inner forestay for handling high wind conditions when necessary (thanks to Mike Meers at Port Annapolis Marina); had a new storm sail made (thanks to Justin and Charlie of Quantum.)  BTW, Justin, Charlie and Jeff are left handed and there was such interesting conversation about left handed people as they were on the bow measuring and planning the sail;  joined Seven Seas Cruising Association and attended our first GAM which was a great resource for us!  (GAM is a old seafaring term for a friendly gathering of sailors or fishermen); took advantage of a few webinars hosted by SSCA to learn about cruising the Exhumas in the Bahamas, provisioning for journeying to remote areas, and cool products to make life aboard easier/safer/more convenient.

We also attended the Annapolis Boat Show and made several necessary and unnecessary purchases; longingly explored new sailboats and picked up a few ideas for improvements on Echo.

Jefferson Beach Marina crew

We had great fun (and a PainKiller or two) with Eric and Dana, friends and neighbors from Jefferson Beach Marina along with Ed and Chris also from JBM.  Ed and Chris left last year to become cruisers on their boat Freedom.  We touched base with Bob Reed the broker who sold Echo to us and was a tremendous resource to us as we prepared to set out on our journey.

We each acquired new Crowns – dental that is.   Purchased and installed a Single Side Band Radio which will provide communication while off shore,  Jeff also obtained his Ham Radio License while here, this allows him to communicate on said radio – congratulations Jeff!  He has already had a few conversations with his brother Kurt in Michigan just to test things out.  Of course when they ran into problems with the radios, they did communicate over cell phone…radio communication will be much more impressive when we are in some remote location.

Other purchases include a Lectra San system which allows us to treat our waste water.  The system was purchased at a Flee Market at the Gam for a fraction of the cost of new and works well so far.  We purchased and installed 4 solar panels which will provide as much as 90% of our daily power needs – provided the sun is shining of course.  We also have ordered a water making system from Electromax which will desalinate sea water for use on board, just have to find an address to ship it to now that we’re leaving here.

Jeff has also made numerous and significant improvements on board to store things.  He changed two large hanging lockers to shelves with bins, this new set up allows us to use every inch of space inside the locker.  With more space in the locker we were able to move clothing that had been stored in bins elsewhere into the lockers.  We also moved our dive tanks to the bilge which freed up space in the garage where Jeff made a “pantry” with several small bins for storage.  Jeff donned his dive gear and ventured in the dark murky water in hopes to retrieve something that had fallen overboard and check on the status of our “zincs”.  It was too dark to find anything but using  flash light he was able to see the zincs are still in good shape.   In salt water in order to protect the various important metals under the water line you attach a “sacrificial” metal to be consumed rather than those more important metal boat parts such as props and thru-hull fittings, etc.  So it is very important to check the status of the sacrificial zinc periodically.  He did have a little scare in the water when he reached in the bow thruster tunnel and found that a crab had taken up residence, luckily the crab didn’t get his hand!  We evicted the crab by starting up the thruster.   We both had gotten our diving certification in June before leaving home, we bought 2 sets of equipment which we hadn’t gotten the chance to try out yet.  Glad to know all of Jeff’s gear is in working order.

We also had some fun times with our cousin, Katie O’Connell who lives in Alexandria Virginia.  She sailed with us one beautiful Saturday in September when the bay was filled with races and freighters.  She also spent a night at anchor with us and experienced a little late night excitement when a weather front passed at about 2:30 am.

Last Saturday we spent the day with her as our tour guide in DC where we visited the Pentagon Memorial, the Library of Congress, the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, saw the White House, the Iwo Jima Memorial and had 2 great meals.  The memorial is so well done and the library so impressive, there is so much to see and do in that city – wish we had more time time to explore!

We have also met so many great people here, including Ginny and JW aboard Over Budget who introduced us to SSCA and Karen and Earl aboard Getaway.  We connected with the Conway family who Jeff has been emailing with for some time and is traveling aboard their Beneteau 473 for the next year.  We met up with them at the boat show then visited their boat where we all compared notes about improvements, storage and travels.  We were amazed with how neat their boat was in comparison to ours – we seem to have loads more stuff on board.  During our visit the kids quietly occupied themselves with  miniature cars on a city they had drawn on several papers   and could rearrange how ever they liked.  With no TV and very little stuff kids can be very creative!  Although they are heading directly to the Caribbean  we hope to meet up with them again along the way.  You can follow their story at conwaysailors.com.

We have continued to vacillate a bit on where to head for the winter, the  Caribbean or the Bahamas.  Either destination will be amazing and each has it’s pros and cons with regard to the journey there.  At this point we believe the Bahamas is the best choice for us.  We expect to head out of  Chesapeake Bay toward Virginia Beach, then start making our way south either via the Inter Coastal Waterway or off shore sailing.  It’s likely there will be a bit of both as we continue toward Florida.  At some point we will head east from the coast toward Bimini in the Bahamas.  Just remember – life is fluid…

Oh yes, and Jeff shaved his mustache.

Here’s Mary down in a locker acting as Jeff’s “able assistant” yanking wires for the solar panel installation.

Guess travel is our muse and we’re back on the move so it shouldn’t be too long before you hear from us again.