After a couple weeks on the hard, it was great to get back out on the water. We got an early start and motored past the Potomac before rolling out the jib and getting in some sailing. In the late afternoon, I noticed some squalls popping up on shore. Since they looked to be coming our way on radar we put on lifejackets, rolled up the jib and turned on the engine. We decided to drop the main as well out of an abundance of caution, but we were already at the mouth of the Choptank so we didn’t miss much by way of sailing.
Our destination was St. Michaels, up the San Domingo Creek, which is beautiful. There were a bunch of other boats already there and we snagged the last open space that Windara fit in comfortably. We had hoped to get a good view of the fireworks, but the trees blocked our view entirely. At any rate, it was still a lovely evening at anchor and a pretty spot. I hope we get to come back sometime and explore ashore.
We got going early and it was bouncy until we were out into the main body of the Choptank River. Windara was just plain fast, and even as the wind died back, we were outsailing the other boats around us – they honestly looked like they were standing still. We decided to pop the chute and I took the opportunity to practice spinnaker trim. I’ve seen lots of good examples of what a well-trimmed spinnaker looks like and tried to absorb the coaching I’ve heard some of the more experienced trimmers I’ve sailed with give, and I think I managed to do a decent job of trimming. It was a lot of fun, but after an hour and a half, my hands were pretty raw. We doused for a gybe (we don’t gybe with the spinnaker up double handed), and we ended up having to take the sail down because one of the sock retrieval lines was wrapped around itself and Chris had a heck of a time getting the sock down. The wind faded off anyway, so we motored the rest of the way to Annapolis.
Given that it was Fourth of July weekend, we weren’t hopeful that we’d find a mooring, especially not in the main Spa Creek mooring field, but we figured we’d take a look anyway. Once again, we totally lucked out and managed to snag the last open mooring, just beating out a couple other boats who were on the hunt too.
The boat on the mooring ahead of us was Windward Passage, who we’d seen over and over on our first trip south but never met. It really is funny how you keep running into the same boats over and over, and we were glad to finally have the opportunity to say hello.
We treated ourselves to a nice dinner at Osteria 177, which we’d been meaning to check out. Everything was absolutely amazing, and we’ll definitely have to go back.
We started the Fourth of July with breakfast at the Iron Rooster and then wandered over to the Annapolis Maritime Museum, which we really enjoyed. Later in the day, we spent some time browsing The Old Fox Bookstore and then spent the rest of the afternoon reading our finds. We headed back ashore to check out the parade and try to catch up with another cruising couple (timing didn’t work out). We had an incredible, front row seat to the fireworks from our mooring. I couldn’t get over how many boats came to anchor out in the harbor… from where we sat, it looked like you could walk from boat to boat, and the number of anchor lights was impossible to count.
Laura came down to have dinner with us the next day, and it was great to catch up! It turned out to be fortuitous – Chris had gotten bitten by a cat and even though we cleaned it right away, his leg swelled up and seemed to be getting worse. We had Laura drive us to the ER on her way home, and we spent the night waiting to be seen. He got some heavy antibiotics via IV and a prescription for a full course of additional antibiotics, along with the warning to come back if it didn’t get better.
We slept a good portion of the next day and took it easy, but we did get back out to explore town a little. I’d been intrigued by Reclaimed, a shop downtown that sells – you guessed it – reclaimed items, many of which are recovered from building demolitions, so we spent some time browsing (and I got some cute, non-reclaimed but vintage themed, black cat coasters). They also host live music on Saturdays, which we’ll have to remember for next time we’re in town. We also got an Instacart order so we’d be ready to make our final run to NY. I was really nervous about leaving given the cat bite incident, but Chris said he was already feeling better, and we agreed to monitor it and bail out if needed.
I always love visiting Annapolis and am bummed when it comes time to leave, but I’m super excited to make the trip home. It’s so surreal to be almost done with another year of cruising.
