When we arrive in Annapolis from DC the bus has to let us off a street early - a street party is underway = all the restaurants have loaded up the street with tables, there is a wait for however and we have to give it a miss.
We pick up a meal at a restaurant that was recommended to us by a volunteer in the maritime museum, actually it was not great but had quantity on its side if you ate crabs. We opted for the crab cakes and I had hush puppies - these are a savoury corn ball battered and deep dried and not made of soft leather like British hush puppies, although they might as well have been, at least in this "restaurant" (I am pleased to report I persevered and had hush puppies again in Baltimore - and they were delicious). Just shows, a personal recommendation is fairly personal... to the person giving it.
Another restaurant had really cool beer pitchers! though Shirley and I refrained
So, back to Annapolis; the US Naval Academy is here, and takes up a large portion of the peninsula we are moored off. The mooring field is a bit near the academy and we heard "PT" being undertaken by 1100 midshipmen at 6 am every morning (not too bad if the wind was blowing in a good direction). Their instructor would recite "one-two-three" a fair few times over the course of 45 minutes. We take a tour of the academy a few days later and find it very interesting.
Annapolis is also the sailing centre for the US east coast and there are boats and marinas galore (23 marinas) every street end, seems to have a dock. We are in Spa creek, the main inlet, but there are a couple of others, in fact we use the dinghy to go around to a nearby creek that has a maritime museum.
As well as dinghies there are 3 or 4 other bigger boats sailing about taking the public for daysails everyday.
I like their bowsprit - it takes the length of this boat from 27 feet to 51 feet!
And a useful bumkin, maybe not quite the correct nautical term
Being the 12th July, I put up a fleg and march around the boat a bit before motoring around to the museum in the next inlet.
This time I put it up the correct way (the sloping thicker white uppermost nearest the flagpole/halyard)
On the way around to the museum we see two Ospreys on a pole. Like the platforms I had seem on the Navigation marks on the ICW. We learn later that these poles are put up because if an Osprey starts to build on a cellphone mast, streetlight or TV mast ( though TV masts are rare in these days of cable or internet streaming) then they are protected and must not be touched, even if the cellphones stop working!
The museum has a "skipjack" oyster boat outside - just delivered and to yet be restored as the "Wilma Lee" there used to be 2000 of these in the Bay and now there are just a handful. The rather larger museum at St Michaels has ones that can sail with public on board.
These highly decorated bows are typical of many Bay designs.
The docks lead us to a raised dock area that Shirley learns is used for Wedding venues.
All these docks, it is lucky that there is a lot of wood in the US, but since there is it is good that they build docks (and houses) with it. Not having much tidal range helps too. (though a few weeks later when I am in New York there is flooding in Annapolis and several other places in Chesapeake Bay. It is a funny year for weather.
The museum concentrates on Oysters and Nature in the Bay.
These tongs can be on poles up to 32 feet long, needs muscle to bring those up. The tray is for sorting Oysters, they have to be at least 3 inches long. Tonging is still practised but is very hard work, there is also a powered version but dredging is now used. I have seen the effect of scallop dredgers in Strangford lough on the fragile ecosytems that exist on the mud - one small boulder can have 20 species of marine life clinging to it, after the dredge goes past the sea bed looks like a nuclear holocaust has destroyed everything. The rape of a seabed. Though I do like the taste of Oysters...
Fishing is controlled of course but the numbers taken out of the Bay in the old days is beyond belief. They were tinned and sent all over the states
The Museum also has a stuffed Osprey, at least I hope it was stuffed.
At least they are thriving; we see quite an abundance of fish all up and down the East coast of the states, even in New York harbour, Baltimore had some, it was the only "dirty" water I noticed.
The collection of boats are interesting to me; and more so at the maritime museum at St Michaels were they combine their preservation and restoration workshops with the museum exhibits. Annapolis has boatyards elsewhere working on old wooden boats.
A wee boat, all the Bay boats are very flat bottomed and usually single chined and lowish freeboard. although the centre (center!) of the bay can be rough most boats are up smaller inlets and don't need to cope with large seas. The bay is very shallow, large swathes are less than 10 feet, the average is 20 feet although you can get 50 to 100 feet in the middle part of the main part of the bay.
This would have been a very long boat but "Miss Lonesome" is missing her better half
I think the full boat is over 50 feet long.
I did like the steering arrangements - by having it at the side, amidships they optimise the cargo space and can steer from where they are working.
We return that evening - the music is supposedly from a Tradional Irish Rock group. Everyone is out having fun, you buy a ticket and swop the ticket for beer...
And we get free hats and glass coolers
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Not sure how "Hey Jude" is trad Irish/Rock ? The streets of New York does mention Galway Bay I suppose.
Back in Annapolis we spot a "Pirate Ship" that is on the water all the time - wildly enthusiastic staff whip the kids up to a frenzy, one of the staff takes to a rowing boat and gets shot by water cannon and falls overboard, a buoy is flung in the water, possibly serreptitiously and is recovered - I think there is a treasure chest on the end of the rope. We observe this aberant behaviour in Baltimore as well as DC (last blog)- must be an American thing, but it could catch on, it is just what Castleward Bay needs
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Our next batch of Touristing is to visit the US Naval Academy, it has an impressive Visitor centre and we are herded with a lovely twinkly old lady tour guide, though later left to wander - it is a big site. It is really like a big university - 1100 "students" (Midshipmen) every year. Intake from every state, you must have your senator's recommendation to get in, and goodish grades and a lot of other good stuff - volunteering, sport and community etc., I think our guide said 10 applicants for every post. And since it amounts to free schooling it does save your parents a fortune. 4 year course and then you must serve for 3 If I remember correctly.
You do everything with your classmates, go to lunch, do PT etc, everything, bonds them all together I suppose.
The Dormitory, when you come through the gates you hand in your mobile phone for 12 weeks of intensive boot camp. 6am to late evening as you probably have to study most nights.
Nice building though
We visit an impressive gym with an Olympic swimming pool. All midshipmen must be able to swim for 30 minutes in full uniform, and cover a fair distance, we were told this is in case the ship sinks...
This hall is used for social dances and such like, every state has its own flag flying here, every intake must have someone from every state, very egalitarian.
There is a multidenominational church on the grounds too, unfortunately shut due to wedding rehearsals. Many sailors come back here to get married.
We were able to see the catacombs and the tomb of John Paul Jones
By the way if you have ever wondered what one pip or two pips meant on naval uniforms here is a set of instructions
The Academy also had a small museum, full of many models of ships - intricately made. Some of the more interesting things there were
This is interesting (to me) because rigging a ship like this is called "Dressing Overall" and there is some controversery over the proper way to do this. Some believe a random selection should be used of Alphabet and numerical pennants whilst there are two conflicting arrangements of flags shown in some texts. This is a further example but may predate the others. I once attempted to "dress overall" when we visitied St Petersburg in a rally organised by the Cruising Association. I will study it at length.
I have heard of some boats as being like bathtubs, here is one that looks like a bathtub
To be fair it is actually a catamaran hull with a steam driven paddle wheel between the hulls. Quite sophisticated in fact.
I think the vessel below is a model of the Maine, of great interest because of its role in Cuba. The plaque below states this, now, isn't it interesting that "Fake News" was used to bring the US into the Cuban war. Conspiracy theorists abound as to who exactly blew the Maine up. It might have been the Spanish but it was in the interests of the Cubans to motivate the US. Though they ended up regretting in the early 1900s..
We provision the boat, including populating my special banana bag (thanks Amy)
At least we have coffee and iced tea (and Bananas) for the forseeable future
I also make a chilli in the magical Mr D. This has a massive metal base and after simmering food for a few minutes it gets placed in a double skinned outer pot that acts as a massive thermos flask, losing 2 degrees per hour it cooks without needing gas. We have two as it makes such good tasting food. I use the one on the boat a lot. By the way, in the heat down below, even with multiple fans running I usually wear less clothes than you see here. ( Ughhh!)
And then it is off on a cruise around the top of Chesapeake Bay - First stop after Annapolis is a small creek near St Michaels, then into St Michaels and then off to the Rye river near St Michael, then North to Broad Creek on the McGothy River and finally into Baltimore.
I reckon the Chesapeake is a really good cruising ground, I wonder how New England and Nova Scotia will compare?