Galesville to Baltimore

July 26 thru July 28

—Blogpost written by Bob

Thursday, July 26

We left Hartge’s Yacht Yard in Galesville MD at 8 AM on our way to Annapolis. We got familiar with our new autopilot along the way since we never performed a sea trial because of the heavy rain.  However, during the trip we couldn’t figure out how to scroll up and down for the various screen selections. (Shortly after we got to Annapolis, we figured this out—there are little up and down arrows on the buttons at the bottom of the display.) 

Thomas Point Light on
the morning of July 26.

The boat performed perfectly with its freshly painted bottom, cleaned and coated prop, and the new autopilot.  It was a beautiful morning and it felt great to be out on the water again! We arrived in Annapolis at 10 AM and picked up a mooring buoy (#40) in the harbor.  We rode the dinghy into town for lunch at Pip's, a gourmet hot dog restaurant.  We walked around at bit after lunch at had some ice cream at Storm Brothers before coming back to the boat.  It was nice to just relax on the boat and read all afternoon.

I recently finished reading The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World by A.J. Baime and I am now reading a book about the year I was born, 1947: Where Now Begins by Elisabeth Asbrink--I will add a review of this book to this blog when I finish reading it.

Friday, July 27

Waking up in Annapolis harbor is very special. The harbor is very quiet early in the morning except for the midshipman doing their morning exercises—their cadence is reminiscent of my active duty time in the Army Reserve, not that I’m all that fond of my active duty time but the cadence was memorable.

Eastport Yacht Club at
sunrise on July 27

Our dinghy sits patiently
in Annapolis harbor.

Lola came out into the cockpit this morning for
20 minutes or so.  She is such a cover girl!

After sitting in the cockpit appreciating the quiet early morning we motored the dinghy into town for a light breakfast at City Dock Cafe and showers in the Harbormaster’s building.

In the afternoon, young sailors were training near our mooring buoy in Annapolis harbor.

Opti's are small sailing dinghies
crewed by young children.

Three sunfish sailboats train
in Annapolis harbor.

This is a 420 sailboat crewed by bigger
kids, most likely teenagers.

Based on the weather forecast for the next couple days, we will be leaving Annapolis for Baltimore tomorrow morning since we have fair weather all day.

Saturday, July 28

After a light breakfast at City Dock Cafe in Annapolis, we departed from our mooring buoy at 8:30 AM.  It was a pleasant motoring trip (the wind was against us) to Baltimore.  It was really nice having Otto (our autopilot) back after his brain transplant (computer replacement) and his facelift (new control head).  Come to think of it, his legs (linear drive) were rebuilt too.

We encountered a lot of wooden debris from the recent thunderstorms as we approached Baltimore—some pieces of wood were as big as telephone poles. We arrived at our slip in Anchorage Marina at 1:30 PM—it was a 5-hour trip from Annapolis.

We got tied up in our slip, hooked up shore power, started the air conditioning, and had lunch (pizza warmed up in the oven).

Stay tuned for some interesting boat projects next week...

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