As soon as we closed our laptops for the day, we had dinner and hauled anchor to head to Annapolis. It’s about a 25 mile trip, and we knew we’d be arriving after dark, but with no dinghy to get us to shore, waiting until the weekend wasn’t practical. It was a nice evening on the water, if a bit chilly, but sweatshirts and hot chocolate made the trip better. As we approached the entrance channel, I went up to the bow to keep an eye out for crab pots. It was surprisingly rolly up there, but it was a bright enough night that I could see without using our spotlight and I didn’t find any pots in our path. Once again, the headsets made life so much easier! The anchorage was pretty exposed and we got bounced around all night, but I was glad to be anchor down.
Wednesday and Thursday were forecast to be nasty, and we woke to a blanket of fog on Wednesday morning. I was worried that we might not be able to get a mooring, especially with no boats on the move, but I had nothing to fear – there were a ton open, and we picked up one of the innermost moorings by Ego Alley.
After settling up with Harbormaster, we did some research and called a local dealership about getting our hands on a new Highfield dinghy. They didn’t have the model we wanted in stock, but they had the next size down (Ultralite 310FD), so we took it. We spoke to them first thing Thursday morning and they had it set up and ready for us to come get by 3pm that day. Welcome to the family, Williwaw!
We took her out for a test run after work, and she’s great. She’s more stable and drier than poor Squall, and has better fuel efficiency. She’s also got a deeper V and bigger tubes, and she tracks much better. I’m actually happy we didn’t get the bigger version – Williwaw is a great size and doesn’t feel any smaller than Squall did. Plus the slightly smaller size fits our davits better and saves us about 20 lbs over the larger version.
We stopped in at Pusser’s on our way back and got caught in an absolutely insane downpour. But we got a beautiful rainbow and were treated to an amazing sunset afterwards. I finally got to have my ice cream at Annapolis Ice Cream Company, and it was worth the wait.
We took Squall to the dealer we bought Williwaw from on Saturday so they could get rid of her for us, which was a big deal since we didn’t have the first clue what we were going to do with her. We spent the rest of Saturday relaxing – we toured the William Paca House’s gardens, stopped in at Old Fox Books (one of my favorite places here), and took Williwaw out for an inaugural fishin’ mission. We didn’t catch, but it was fun anyway.
Sunday was a relatively lazy day. We started with a late-ish (for us) brunch at Iron Rooster and got in some good reading time before we met our friends Corky and Alex who live in the area. We had a wonderful dinner at their home, and it was great to catch up!
We also got the chance to meet up with Laura and her granddaughter during the week, along with another cruiser who was a friend of a mutual friend, for a wonderful dinner at the Boatyard. Our server, Morgan, was so patient (we were too busy yakking away to even think about the menu half the time, and she never rushed us). We had a huge seafood tower to start and I got crab cakes, which were amazing (my favorite crab cakes I’ve found so far). For dessert, I got the salted caramel Old Bay ice cream, mostly out of curiosity, and I’d argue it was one of the better flavor combinations I’ve ever tried. Laura also insisted on getting me a slice of Smith Island cake to bring home (I’ve been wanting to try it since we started cruising, and it lived up to the hype).
We met Corky and Alex the next night for dinner at Pearl, a relatively new restaurant in town. We shared a few small plates, and everything we ordered was really good (the gnocchi was my favorite). They also have a creative cocktail menu. We finished the night with another visit to Annapolis Ice Cream Company (who am I to say no to ice cream?).
Our current plan is to spend another week cruising the Chesapeake before we head back to NY. The rough plan is to do a little gunk holing on the east side of the bay, then sail into Baltimore for a couple days. From there, we’ll either head up to Havre de Grace or anchor in the Sassafras River, where we’ll stage to run the C&D Canal and make the run to NY. I’ve been loving our time here, but the summer heat is starting to kick in and it’s time for us to be on our way.
