Baltimore to Annapolis - 2018

Oct 25 thru Oct 28

—Blogpost written by Bob

This is the beginning of our third season going south for the winter. We decided to “go easy” this winter and spend it in Charleston SC. The trip down the ICW is only about half as long as the trip to West Palm Beach where we normally cross the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas but we’re planning on taking about the same total time. We have planned shorter travel days and more stop over days, some in new places.

While it seems to be cooler this year, we’re leaving Baltimore 3 days earlier than last year but we will be spending an additional 3 days in Annapolis attending the first Mid-Atlantic C&C Rendezvous.

Baltimore to Annapolis (Thursday, Oct 25)

We took showers at the marina as the sun was coming up. When we got back to the boat, I fired up our trusty inboard (30 HP) diesel engine so that it would warm up for today’s 5-hour trip. (The outside temperature was a rather chilly 42 degrees F— it got down to 34 degrees F last night.)

As we waited for our dock master, Wayne, to help us off, we pulled our dock steps aboard and stowed them in the quarter berth and then unhooked our shore power cord and stowed it in the quarter berth as well. Next, our fresh water hose was brought aboard and stowed in the port cockpit locker. We left the dock at 8 AM.

As we motored out of the marina and into the Potapsco River, I realized that this was the first time we have motored with our complete cockpit enclosure in place—it kept us nice and warm in the cool early-morning hours.

We came under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge
at about 11 AM.  This is the western
end of the bridge. 

As we were motoring out the Potapsco River I noticed a strange thing happening on my chart plotter--the track showed like we were trailing a large stretched out "Z".  I erased the track and started the track all over again and it was fine.  As we got to the Bay Bridge, the eastern end of Kent Island was cut off where the bridge ended.  I have to figure this out before continuing our trip south.

From about mid-morning until we went into the Severn River we experienced a favorable 1-knot tidal current in the shipping channel. (We stayed in the shipping channel so we didn’t have to be concerned with crab pot floats tangling in our propeller, not that there are many around this time of year.)

We arrived at Annapolis City Dock
at about 12:30 PM.

We stopped by Annapolis City Marina to top up our diesel tanks before docking at the Annapolis City Dock.  After tying up we had lunch at Pip's Hot Dogs, directly across the parking lot from where we were tied up.

This is actually the first time I’ve been docked at the bulkhead of Annapolis City Dock, even though I’ve lived in Annapolis most of my life.  I did use a slip here at the Annapolis City Dock just one night when I initially purchased this boat 32 years ago about this same time of year.  When I purchased this boat it was named Galatea and it had royal blue canvas—it didn’t take me very long to change the name (to Rainy Days) and changeout the canvas to gray.  Many years later, I changed the canvas again to navy blue and now we are now in the midst of changing it again—to toast (which is similar to khaki).

Annapolis City Dock (Friday, Oct 26)

I could tell that it wasn’t as cold last night as it had been lately (by the heater running so infrequently during the night)—it was in the mid 40’s during the night . We saw the sun as it came up early in the morning but shortly afterwards the clouds moved in.  Rain was expected into mid-day tomorrow—not the best weather for the C&C Rendezvous.

We ate a light breakfast at City Dock Coffee, one of our all-time favorite spots downtown.

During mid-morning, I placed our oil-filled radiator in the cockpit and hooked it up using our spare shore power cord. It is amazing how it took the chill out of the air in our cockpit enclosure—I would guess that it brought the temperature into the very comfortable high 60’s or low 70’s!

We had lunch at Dock
Street Bar & Grill.

Because of the impending rain storm, we hosted the afternoon/evening get together on our boat because we had the most room with our cockpit enclosure. The rain storm started at about 4 PM and continued late into the night.  We were able to fit about 10 people in our cockpit and another 2 people below. It was nice and warm and mostly dry. 

In Rainy Days' cockpit were Len, Carmelita, Jim, 
Suzanne and Loretta (from left to right).

Chowing down in Rainy Days' cockpit were Josh, 
Carmelita, Manon, Brian, Len and Suzanne. 
(listed left to right)

The get together ended at about 9:30 when everyone went back to their boats (or hotel in the case of the Len and Suzanne who drove down from Canada). 

Annapolis City Dock (Saturday, Oct 27)

The rain stopped sometime in the early morning hours but the overcast skies and flooding of the nearby streets remained.  Scattered showers threatened throughout the morning.  In fact it started to rain again about 10 AM.

The downtown parking lot was partially flooded
from the high tide.  This has happened
more frequently in recent years.

This boat, s/v Imzadi, came all the way from
North Carolina for the rendezvous--it took
them almost 5 days to get to Annapolis.

Annapolis City Dock (Sunday, Oct 28)

It rained a little during the night—I could tell by the fresh rain drops on our enclosure windows. We went out for a light breakfast at City Dock Coffee.

This morning I noticed the problem of “stretched out z’s” on my chart plotter is still there on my tracks. In addition, groups of waypoints (like here at the dock) are somehow being automatically generated. (There was also a group of about ten automatically-generated waypoints in the middle of the Potapsco River and one track extension all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to just off the African coast!)

C&C sailboats attending the rendezvous
were (listed from left to right) Coquina,
Imzadi, Admiral Maggie, Sea Hawk,
and La Neige. (Rainy Days was
in a different area of the dock.)

Sunday was a beautiful sunny day, at least most of the day.  Today we shopped for a specific bourbon that I tasted on Friday evening at the rendezvous, Angel's Envy--I found one bottle at Mills Spirits!

A partially consumed bottle of Angel's Envy
on Josh and Carmelita's Sea Hawk.

Despite the rain, the rendezvous was a tremendous success, thanks to Josh and Carmelita!
On Sunday afternoon participants began to leave and the rendezvous concluded.

Tomorrow, we are leaving for Galesville and points south...stay tuned!


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