The eastern seaboard had gotten heavy rains the day before our Washington departure. When we got up in the morning, we could see that the water was high, the breakwall at the park across from the marina was flooded. We were lucky we got out when we did, we had a really strong push from the current, and were underway early enough that there was not yet a lot of debris in the water. Coming under the Woodrow Wilson bridge, we started to encounter floating logs and other crap, but we had seen much worse in the Mississippi, so we were not concerned, the stuff was easy to avoid. Stulie had to wait to get fuel, so we were alone on our trip back to the boathouse. It was a long day, but we had super-good weather and wanted to take advantage, as nasty stuff was going to follow.
Approaching Colonial Beach, we had to pass through the live-fire range again. Luckily for us they were not doing live fire that day, so we could cross easily. They had some kind of thing going on however, and there were patrol boats out, and they had closed off a section on the range. We did not have to travel near this restricted area, so we made good time and got tied up to the dock. About 3 hours later, Stulie made it in. By that time it was pretty late in the day, so we did not do anything special in the town.
Next morning we were up at 5 am, and got ready to get underway. We had to go across some big water in the Chesapeake, and we have found that you always want to get an early start. No matter what day it is, winds build up in the afternoon due to the fact that water and land heat up at different rates in the sun. We like to get to our destination early in the afternoon if possible to avoid the late afternoon winds while docking.
Our view out the front window. The harbour at Colonia Beach was absolutely infected with midges. They completely covered the boat, and the harbour even hummed from their wings. The spiders on the boat ate like kings, including a big one who staked out a space at the front helm window.
The whole boat was covered in bugs like this. Absolutely incredible. As we travelled, the bugs on the front of the boat got blown off, but the ones in the stern were sheltered and stayed with us most of the journey. When you walked on the boat you had to be careful to keep your mouth closed if you didn't want to taste any, they were everywhere.
Coming out of the boat, once again the harbour was humming and the boat was covered in midges. When I went to disconnect the shore power, I got a face full of bugs that were attracted to the stanchion lights. You had to keep your mouth closed so you didn't inhale any of them there were so many. The weird humming sound made it all seem surreal.
We got underway at about 5:30 and had a nice pleasant ride to Solomon's Island Yacht Club, which had recently become a looper sponsor and was offering a special dockage rate. Along the way we heard a pan-pan from the coast guard, warning of a big debris field on the Potomac river. Apparently there were so many logs in the water that you could not pass though it. They had to use tug boats to clear out the crap. Good thing we left when we did.
As we were on our way to Solomons Island, we passed passed the Patuxent Naval Air Station. They had a gunnery target set up in the middle of the bay for the jets to practice on.
On the left you can see the exclusion zone for the target, which is in the centre of the circle. The area is restricted when they are doing gunnery practice, but there was nothing happening this day so we were free to pass through. We did get a bit of an airshow, as there were fighter jets and cargo planes practicing touch-and-go landings.
We have not stayed at a lot of yacht clubs while doing the route, mainly because not all of them take transient boaters, so its easier for planning purposes to just look for marinas. When we have stayed at yacht clubs, it has been because we have info that they take transients, either because they are looper sponsors, or because others have directed us to them.
Staying at a yacht club is somewhat different from staying at a marina. A marina is kind of like a hotel for boats. You arrive, get your slip assignment, pay your money and that's it. Marinas generally offer services like mechanical repairs, fuel, or boats parts, and many of them also have a restaurant nearby, which is just a restaurant. Yacht clubs do not provide services other than pumpouts, although we have bought fuel from a really big one in Myrtle Beach. They also do not have normal restaurants on site, rather it is a club, and you need permission to enter. Sometimes you can go in, sometimes you can't. When you do go in, it is full of club members and you are the stranger from out of town.
However, what really sets yacht clubs apart are the rules. Clubs are formed from the members who keep their boats there, and are run like a small town. Each year you have a general meeting or meetings, and every member can propose a rule change to the constitution of the club. When you arrive at a marina, they give you the codes to the washrooms and gates, tell you the operating hours, and off you go. Yacht clubs hand you a list or booklet of rules you have to follow. Most of these are pretty obvious, "don't do jerk stuff" kind of rules of normal behaviour. In fact, you follow these rules anywhere, they just aren't explicitly written, rather they are normal common sense. However, for some reason, yacht clubs feel the need to provide you with a list of these rules.
Colonial beach took it over the top. Louise contacted them by email asking for slips for iFloat and Stulie for one night. She got a reply saying they had space, and providing a form for us to fill out with standard things like boat dimensions, power requirements, arrival dates etc., even though she had provided all this in her original email. OK. I filled out the form, and Louise sent it back to them by email. But, I brain-farted and wrote all the dates as being April instead of May (we did this around May 14 or so). First thing in the morning, Louise gets a call from the dockmaster telling her about the mistake, and asking us to re-submit the form. And by the way, do it quickly as their spaces were filling up. WFT? The mistake was so obvious that they told us about it directly, but rather than them just crossing out April and writing in May, they wanted us to re-submit the form before they would take the reservation that we had already sent the info for in a email. You do what you have to, we corrected the form and re-submitted it. The guy immediately called back to confirm we were good, but now he needed Stulie's form.
Louise contacted them to get their paperwork in, and it worked out, but why they could not just enter the info in their system like anyplace else was beyond us, especially as they could not just correct the dates on the form once they were printed out. OK, its just a form. We laughed about it, and moved on. Well, next she gets sent a few more forms we have to fill out, they want insurance details and us to sign that we agree to follow the rules, etc. Welcome to the yacht club. In the email, they ask us about our ETA, and requested that we call them by phone when we are about a half hour away. Fairly normal stuff, and Louise replies by email.
About half-way through the trip to the yacht club, Louise gets a call. It is the club, asking us where we are and when we will arrive. She gives them the same ETA we sent them by email, and tells them that as per instructions, she will call when we are about a half hour away. They say all is good.
When we are about 30 minutes out, Louise calls to tell them this info. They ask why we are calling. She say as per instructions, and the previous phone call request, we are letting them know we are nearby. OK, now they understand. Louise asks them which VHF radio channel they want us to hail them on when we get to the harbour for docking instructions. She is told they don't use VHF, instead we should call by cell phone.
We enter the harbour, and Louise calls for instructions. She has to replay the instructions from the cell phone to me, and has to yell over the engine noise. We see the guy on the dock holding a cell phone to his ear and giving us instructions. On a cell phone! This is a boat, why don't you use VHF radio, which can be heard over the engines, like the rest of the world? Anyways, we got set in the slip, and while I connected the electrical hook-ups, Louise went up to the office to fill out more paperwork.
In the end, this was a really nice destination. The facilities were first-class and the people really nice, but a totally different world for sure.
One feature of this location we did not like was that it was not fully protected by the harbour break wall. There was a pretty steady swell coming through, and so we were rolling in our slip the entire time.
The harbour at Solomons Island Yacht Club.
There were some AGLCA harbour hosts here, and the docks were full of loopers. We had a really large docktails at the club, which provided a free drink to all loopers. We visited with Doug and Susan Smith, the local harbour hosts, who were super nice and who gave us some good info about Annapolis and the northern Chesapeake. We also met a number of other loopers we had not met before. We are meeting so many new loopers now that we are almost done.
Lots of loopers at the Solomons Island Yacht club. I think this was one of the largest docktails we have been in by far. We visited with the local harbour hosts, and a couple of boaters from Michigan.
Next morning we were on our own. Julie and Chris had decided to stay in Solomons Island a couple of extra days. They are Safe Harbour members, and as such can stay for free at Safe Harbour marinas for up to three days. Turns out there was a Safe Harbour nearby, and so they decided to spend a couple of days there. We don't get any discounts from SH, and those marinas tend to be a bit expensive, so we parted ways for a bit. We wanted to get moving to take advantage of the good weather window to Annapolis, since some nasty stuff was on the way.
We had super smooth conditions all day long, except when we passed a container ship. As luck would have it, we met in a narrow part of the bay, and so we were a little closer that we normally like to the ship. Close is relative here, as our closest point of approach as 1.5 km, but believe me, we prefer to be much further away from these things, especially when they are moving fast (AIS showed this guy doing almost 35 kmph).
Views of the container ship as it approached and passed. We saw other ships heading towards Baltimore, but they were moving slower and their wakes were more of a gentle roll. This guy was outbound at 35 kmph and made a big wave.
As we passed, we kept a sharp eye out for the wake. As it approached, I slowed and turned into it, but turns out I didn't slow enough and we had a bit of a ride through it. Video below.
Going over the container ship wake. With a wave this big, you want to cross it at a slight angle. We had passed over a couple of other big wakes the previous day which were fairly smooth rides, so I got a bit complacent on this one. We took it a bit too perpendicular and I did not slow down enough, so we kind of crashed through. Turned out the past couple of days, the other ships were going about half the speed of this guy. At the end, you can hear Louise saying we have to do it all over again. As luck would have it we didn't, as we did not need to pass out the other side of the wake. After we crossed the channel we turned to a course parallel to his course and so never crossed the other side of the wake.
At this point we had to travel behind the containership to get to the far side of the channel. As we got to the centre of the channel, we passed through the turbulence from the ships passing. At this point, the ship was about 2 km away from us. The turbulence was so bad it messed with our depth sounder. All of a sudden, the depth finder went from showing a depth of 80 feet to a depth of 3 feet. We knew we were in deep water, a ship had just passed through, and the chart showed 80 to 90 feet, but still a bit of a pucker moment to see the depth finder showing shoal conditions! This lasted only a few minutes, and then the depth sounder began to work again. Yikes, the turbulence was off the chart. I have only seen that effect on the depth sounder a couple of times on the loop. Once in a really muddy section of the ICW, and once in the Mississippi.
Our arrival at Annapolis was surprisingly rocky. The harbour here was really busy, with lots of boats making wakes. A big change from the middle of the Chesapeake, which was nice and smooth. We trundled through the harbour, then had to wait a bit for a draw bridge to open. Once we passed through to the inner harbour, we got set in our slip at the South Annapolis Yacht Centre. This is a really nice facility, full of boats that look like they are (a) brand new (b) never used. Shortly after we got set up, another boat arrived which looked just like Stulie. Turned out they were docked beside us, and it was another looper couple aboard Bobbin Along (Gerry and Tiffany). We visited with them for a bit, then set off to get something to eat.
As we left the marina there were dark clouds rolling in and we could hear thunder. We made it to the restaurant before the storm, and as we were eating dinner we watched the deluge hit the city. We decided to take our time eating, and even had dessert. We timed it perfectly as we finished just as the storm finished and made it back to the boat before the next one rolled through.
The next day was a lazy day. Initially we had planned to visit the Academy, but we decided to take a break as we had just finished a couple of long days. Louise did laundry while I cleaned out the bilge. We talked with Gerry and Tiffany of Bobbin Along. Turned out he was a Naval Academy alumnist, and he volunteered to take us through the academy the next day. They were having a special muster in the morning, and then we planned to take a guided tour.
Some excellent restaurants here. The harbour is full of expensive boats, and the eating establishments are always packed. We overheard some people at another table discussing million-dollar deals.
A family of ducks visited us in the marina.
Checking the Academy website, it turned out that they had recently made changes to their security, and were no longer allowing foreigners to tour the grounds unless there were special circumstances. Oh well, easy come easy go. Gerry was disappointed, I think he was looking forward to showing us around his alma matter.
We broke out the scooters and did some shopping, and again went out for dinner, although this time at a different place. The area we are in is pretty high-end, lots of Audis, BMW's and similar cars around, and the restaurants were packed. Turns out this was the start of commissioning week, the graduation for the Naval academy. There were lots of events planned, including a Blue Angels show.
We picked up some non-alcohol beer at a local store. This stuff is not always easy to find, so we stock up when we get the chance. We were riding our scooters, and the cases would not fit in our backpacks, so we took the cans out of the cases to fit everything in. (A trick learned from Chrissie on the Miss K).
Looper bottled water.
This was a first. We are at a really nice marina in an expensive neighbourhood in a harbour filled with million-dollar boats. Well, the showers at the marina were outdoors! I think this is the first time we have seen outdoor showers on the loop. Did not expect that one here for sure. Too cold in the mornings to use it.
We awoke to blustery conditions. It was super windy, and even though we were in a well-protected place, the boat was rocking. The movement was not due to waves, rather it was purely wind. Strong gusts would push the boat sideways, which would then roll and recover. The result was like being in a rolling anchorage, even though we were securely tied to the dock.
The Naval Academy was immaculate. Really nice campus, all the students dressed in white. Too bad we could only watch from the outside.
We broke out the scooters and went for a visit around downtown Annapolis. It was super windy, but once we got downtown, it became less noticeable. The roads and sidewalks here are made of brick, and are really narrow. There were parked cars on both sides of the street, so there was only room for one lane of traffic on most streets. You have to be patient to drive around here, as there always seems to be some kind of traffic jam. We walked by Ego Alley, which is the city-run marina right downtown, but with the nasty conditions there were only a couple of boats tied up. We passed a motorcycle club of some sort, lots of high-end bikes parked to show off. We also went by the Naval academy, but could not go in.
Gives you an idea of how narrow the streets are here. Most of them only have space for two cars to pass, and there are parked cars on every street. Some are one-way streets, but on the two-way streets you see that there is also only room for one lane at a time to pass.
Monument for Alex Haley, who wrote Roots.
On our way back to the boat we had to stop while they raised the drawbridge. It was super-windy, and nobody was moving around except for a couple of crazies in sailboats. The boaters going under the bridge were obviously having control problems, why they were leaving the dock I had no idea. Not a nice day for boating.
The wind had knocked a power line loose, and this loop was dangling at chest height across the sidewalk. Yikes!
We spent the afternoon lazing around again, I think we both napped a couple of times, then went to dinner with Gerry and Tiffany at a really nice restaurant that they suggested downtown. Turned out we talked so much that we were the last people out of the restaurant. I hope we didn't keep the staff too long. Afterward we visited with them aboard Bobbin Along. The name of their boat comes from their business, she used to own a quilting shop.
Our final day in Annapolis was another day mostly on the boat. I did some cleaning in the bilges and in the engine room, and afterward we cleaned the salon and re-organized some stuff. In the afternoon we did some last minute shopping. Conditions here have been super-windy since we arrived, so we are stuck in port. The winds have been pretty strong and gusty.
Boat Name of the Day: OOCL
