DotCalm

I’m not a gung-ho, flag waving, “love it or leave it” sort of person. But you’d have to be a stony-hearted soul to not have your patriotism needle moved by a tour of the U.S. Naval Academy.

We were in town for Plebe Parents’ Weekend and it was nice to see the white uniformed plebes walking around town with parents mostly, a few younger siblings, an occasional girlfriend or boyfriend in tow.

We toured the US Naval Academy today. I thought about the proud parents in a different way after reading the welcome booklet parents were given,  There was the obligatory warm welcome from the commandant in a letter that also “warned” parents that the kids they dropped off at the academy would be drastically changed from the boys and girls they were just a short six weeks ago.  Considering the incredible physical training that goes on (described as exhaustion) and the strict routines to instill discipline, the memorization of USNA traditions and lessons in naval history — it would be impossible for anyone not to be transformed.

 

 

The facility itself is top notch, a medley of French architecture from the early 1900’s, modern places for sports of every kind and totems of tradition across the grounds. You have to feel proud that “the best of the best” are striving here. I am sure that West Point and the Air Force Academy also have this boast….and many other places….but while you are at USNA you BELIEVE it!

 

It was a wonderful experience.

Our guide (Mel) was terrific. He did not attend USNA but has been involved with government organizations for most of his career. He and his wife are “sponsor parents” which means that each year a USNA student can spend time on their leaves at their home (and do their laundry there too). They’ve had the pleasure of watching a dozen or so plebes make the four year journey through USNA. He proudly wore a hat from a ship command of one of his sponsored students.

 

On an entirely different note, I’ve determined that the steamed crab experience is one of those things that is better in the rear view mirror than in person. Our cracked crab dinner at Buddy’s was not nearly as wondrful as I imagined it would be. Cliff and I cracked crabs with our kids, parents et al about 40 years ago. I’m thinking once every 40 years is about right.

 

Dashing around to get things ship shape for Gary & Carolyn’s visit. Amazing how many things get moved from their nautical homes when you are living aboard. The wooden bowl we use for fruits & vegetables suddenly has a crop of pens, business cards, glass cases, odd bits of hardware and other debris taking up all of the room. The boxes of crackers and cookies, the chips, the mixed nuts….snack central!….haven’t been in their cupboards for quite a while.

With a space this small, all is cleaned, vacuumed, dusted and put away very quickly. We also needed to make a provision run which we did…only to find out that Maryland’s laws do not allow grocery stores to sell liquor. So much for REALLY provisioning.

 

Strolled up to old town Annapolis to see a Corvette show. Quite impressive, a whole block filled with Corvettes starting with the oldest (1957 I think) and proceeded up the block to new ones with price tags topping $100,000. The 1957 model cost something like $3,600 when it came off the assembly line. It’s worth $75,000 today.

 

Went to a late lunch as a great French restaurant, deciding to eat lightly on-board tonight. Great decision as the rain predicted for Monday showed up early and we would have been drenched going to and from dinner.

Monday arrived sunny and warm. Cliff whipped up breakfast (scrambled eggs with scallions and cheddar, breakfast sausages, cut up apples and grapes). We even had freshly baked biscuits (thank you Mr. Pillsbury). Nice start to the day.

Next on the agenda, a dinghy ride under the bridge and up the creek. Beautiful, large homes and lots of different boats. No camera:-( I’ll plan to take some tomorrow.

 

Walked to dinner at a restaurant across the river from us. A short walk and an even shorter dinghy ride. We should have taken the dingy. A few raindrops splattered as we reached the bridge…..which turned into a steady downpour by the time we got across (and it isn’t that long of a bridge….see it in above photo). We were drenched by the time we arrived but grateful we made it inside before the clouds opened up and poured water by the buckets. All of us were soaked, but only one of us looked (and felt) like a drenched cat. Yeowwwwl.

 

One of the things we’ve been amazed about….the number of new Annapolis Yacht Club facilities that are being built. We had lunch at the new clubhouse last week. They are also building a huge sailing center and another place on the river in Eastport (just over the bridge from Annapolis) plus a fancy floating building right next to where we are moored.

 

Tomorrow we are going to tour the U.S. Naval Academy.

 

There is something completely mesmerizing (and perhaps anesthetizing) about anchoring out. Even though there were plenty of other boats in our little cove off the Rhodes River, we still felt like we were completely alone. Left to our own devices, we are pretty good at…..doing absolutely nothing!

 

Well, that’s not exactly true. We swam. We took rides in the dingy. We cooked dinners. We read. We relaxed — a bunch! We had grilled Italian sausages and pesto one night and hot dogs and French potato salad the next — how international, don’t you think!?

 

Today we cruised the short distance to Annapolis. Lots of boats of every size and description including huge container ships waiting for their turn in Baltimore Harbor. It must be a long waiting list as we saw the same ships anchored when we crossed the Bay Bridge last Thursday.

 

Gary and Carolyn Kreutz join us tomorrow. We’d hope to find a place to go swimming….but the recent rains causing the release of some garbage into the Chesapeake has made the water a bit iffy. The dockmaster pointed out a creek within dingy distance that might work. I’ll let you know!

We figure it’s been more than 35 years since we moored on the lovely Rhodes River — in a what we considered to be a “huge” houseboat (40 feet) with our three kids, Cliff’s parents, my mom and my sister. As you might imagine the place has changed. The YMCA camp is still there (one of the ways we figured out we were actually in the right place) and the little island where the kids had free reign to play is there too.

 

We’d been told that the island had eroded to nothing more than a likely spot to go aground — but that wasn’t the case. Maybe eroded a bit, but I think the vegetation is a lot more dense. I could swear that we could keep an eye on the kids anywhere on the island from our perch on top of the houseboat.

 

What we are most surprised about is how we ever got to this place all those years ago. The lyric “fools rush in” seems apt. We didn’t have any charts, were vaguely aware of red and green markers (which I have no recollection of seeing anyway), no depth finder….and no sense. The route to this scenic spot winds off the Chesapeake with just a narrow channel of navigable water. There are “high spots” in the channel — in fact, we nearly went aground as we were heading toward the island we remembered so fondly.

Not really.  Took advantage (???) of being laid up for repair of fuel pump to explore some of the Chesapeake that we planned to do by boat BUT…. wouldn’t get to this trip.

 

Drove to St. Michael’s and then Annapolis. St. Michael’s hotel choice a bit of a disappointment — promoted as a luxury spa and falling very short. We ate at the restaurant (food was okay) but the condition of things like the door into the kitchen should have been an embarrassment. We had a suite….but it reminded me of a sad place we stayed on Lake Geneva where they’d combined regular rooms into suites. Felt more like a bowling alley than a room. Enough complaining!! Our stay at a Hilton Garden Inn in Annapolis was much better. Both towns are terrific.

 

We had lunch at the Annapolis Yacht Club, apparently completely recovered from a horrible fire two years ago. Nice people. Great food.

 

Returned to Oxford and took a sea trial to make sure that the fuel pump repair was solid. Yes!

Tomorrow we head to Rhodes River….a sentimental journey because this is a place we used to ancho when we took our kids houseboating on the Chesapeake MANY years ago — try 35 at least.

 

Spent the day making arrangements with repair people here in at the Brewers Yacht Yard in Oxford.  The first hopeful and optimistic report was that “sensors go out all the time” and that our problem might just be a sensor. Turns out that the fuel pump on the port engine is kaput. Our friend Alan Haag (an expert in all thiings Cummins Engine related) once told us that every diesel engine has “its own personality.” This wisdom was passed on to us when we asked why one engine ran sweeter (i.e., more fuel efficiently) than the other. Well, we’ve determined that the port engine is a bratty child, acting out to get as much attention as possible.

Being stranded in Oxford isn’t all that bad. Several nice restaurants, lovely homes and landscaping, a beach that’s about 100 yards away and an ice cream store that’s even closer!

This unexpected interlude, however, will take a week — days when we expected to cruise through the Kent Narrows and then head to St. Michaels. We’ve decided to rent a car to see St. Michaels and Cliff’s made reservations at a ritzy hotel there for two nights. We’ll also get into Annapolis to visit the Apple Store to see if they can figure out why Air Drop has stopped working on our Mac Notebook. I surprised that Annapolis has an Apple Store and Baltimore doesn’t!.

Meanwhile, here are some photos from our time on the La Trappe Creek.

 

Being in such a secluded area gave us a great opportunity to observe birds in the sky, along the shore and on the water.

 

Nature observations not limited to birds. Saw bait fish thrashing at the water’s surface (wonder what was chasing them!) and fish of various sizes jumping out of the water here and there. We also saw….

Wonderful to wake up to the sound of lapping water and then to have coffee up on the bridge and listen to birdsong….and nothing else.

Sam Sifton (NY Times food editor) had a lovely piece in a recent column of his. A line of poetry from Jim Harrison: “At dawn I hear birds, clearly divine messengers that I don’t understand, yet day by day feel the grace of their intentions.” I’d say that goes for their soaring flights, steep dives to the tops of waves, patient wading and all around beauty. I’ve been entranced by them on this entire journy. (And I hear bird song MUCH later than dawn!)

Alas, our trip has been diverted back to Oxford. Engine trouble. The pesky port engine continues to devil us. This time it is a fuel pump. Looks like we’ll be stuck in Oxford for a while because a part has to be ordered….the weekend intervenes…..and we’ll wait.

Thinking about renting a car and heading to St. Michaels and maybe Baltimore. Not what we had in mind, but have to make the most of it.

And, on top of all this, our nifty system for air dropping photos has suddenly stopped working. So we’ll figure out something and post photos later.

 

Heralded as “the best anchorage on the Chesapeake” in several Waterway Guide reviews, we headed from Oxford to the LaTrappe. Apparently the word is out… a sailboat was moored tight to the cove’s edge and a Sabre look-alike power boat slipped into a spot behind it after we moored a hundred yards or so away.

 

This spot is semi-protected by a sandy, grass covered spit of land that has sweet beach spots and lots of no trespassing signs. We took the dinghy to the far side of the spit and beached it on a spot without a sign. Though there were some blue skies peeking through the clouds, it was mostly cloudy but warm. The water was cool and clean with a steep drop-off just a few feet from the shore. I was in over my head with one stroke. Heavenly. So I got my swim and dinghy ride in!

We can see a lovely house with comfortable looking outdoor seating from our mooring. It has a small dock with a very small sailboat and a larger, open power boat. They ferried a group of children and adults and lots of beach equipment to the sandy spit around 6pm. It took three trips and I think the captain of the boat barely had time to step on the beach before it was time to start ferrying everything back. The house came from was across the creek from the beach (definitely not contiguous with their property) so I think they were probably ignoring the trespassing sign, too.

Dinner aboard — Tuesday grilled Italian sausages with peppers and onions. Portioned out our red wine stash. I am determined (we’ll see how determined!!) to save the bottle of wine Mary & Jack Anderson brought us from her brother’s vineyard to share with Gary K when we meet up in Annapolis. Wednesday we had grilled lamb chops with crispy smashed potatoes and a romaine/tomato salad (the last of the fresh vegetables aboard!) I see a provisioning trip ahead of us at our next stop!

Cliff reports there was a deluge of rain around 3am. I slept right through it. The boat is sparkling with all of the brackish spots rinsed away. I’m repeating myself if I remind our Lake Michigan friends about how nice fresh water boating is:-)

First thing he did Wednesday morning was check the “breadcrumbs” on our charts to see whether the boat had slipped any on the anchor.  A bit — not much. But the wind is up and we decided to tuck into the more protected spot where the sailboat and power boat had been moored. Both of them left last night, which seemed strange to us. Hope they don’t know something about this anchorage that we should know! Just in case, Cliff set his alarm for 3am to check on how the anchor is holding.

 

Off to the Kent Narrows Cut tomorrow. Staying at Knapp’s and they’ve “promised” that the swift current of the narrows is nearly non-existent once you are inside their docks. We’ll see!

More photos to come!

I wish I could send you a recording of the boat yard’s sighs and clanks and whistles and tinkles on a windy, gray and rainy day. I think the grayness of the day somehow amplifies the sounds or maybe it’s my imagination that makes them so soulful and sad. Maybe it’s how I feel about bad weather interrupting our dreamy days of cruising.

 

We skipped going to the beach on Sunday (bright perfect day) thinking that we’d have just a few locals on the narrow strip of sand on a Monday. Indeed, we would have had the whole place to ourselves. We skipped a dinghy ride too. Our friend Ron Greeley has a saying that applies: A pleasure postponed is a pleasure lost forever. (He also has a handy ur version: Anticipation increases appreciation.) I think I will embroider these sayings on a sampler:-)

 

So what do you do on an inside day? Read, watch TV (finished up re-watching Ken Burns’ Civil War series, finalized travel plans from Annapolis to CG and Chicago, knit (did you know I knit!!??) We walked through the drizzle to have lunch at Capsize and made it our meal of the day. Peach ice cream for dinner. That counts as a fruit, right?

 

Tomorrow’s weather looks better by afternoon so we’ll head to a nearby anchorage, determined to get in a swim AND a dinghy ride.

P.S. Radio silence for the next couple of days. “Anchoring out” means no wifi and no AT&T signal. Stand by!

Started the day with a big breakfast courtesy of chef Cliff. Eggs with cheddar and scallions, Italian sausage coins, fresh-made fried potatoes. Cups and cups of coffee.

 

A walk to “town” netted us an ATM, a Sunday New York Times and a replenishment of the gin supply. In addition, we enjoyed looking at a wide ranging collection of houses, mostly modest and historic looking. The town was started in the mid-1600’s and its architectural style reflects it. The town’s streets are a who’s who of the earliest inhabitants. The Robert Morris Inn (where we had lunch yesterday) is named for the man who was “the financier of the (American) Revolution” according to Wikipedia.

 

One with a very inviting front porch was for sale and had a “take one” informational flyer. We learned that it was built in 1988 — so historical is technically not correct but stylistically it seems to apply. We also learned that it was priced at nearly $900,000!!

Oxford is situated on a crooked finger penninsula between two rivers which flow into the Chesapeake. We are on the Tred Avon River side. The Choptank River is on the other side. And it’s a very short walk between them!  The city has the oldest privately operated ferry service in America. Established in 1683 (!) it crosses the 3/4 mile distance between Oxford and Bellevue. Wikipedia calls Oxford a “waterman’s town” — being slowly invaded by tourists. The film “Failure to Launch” was filmed here.

 

The city sponsors a “picket fence” auction each year benefiting the volunteer fire department.  These fences are painted by local artists and are displayed at various places  around town. I also spotted a flyer posted at the small market (where we scored the Times, the gin and the $$) inviting the whole town (I guess) to a farewell party for a local couple (who are moving to Florida). The event was described as “an Oxford party” i.e., BYOB and an appetizer to share. Sounds like a fun time.

 

Dinner at a stylish place named Capsize. Soft shell crab for me (here they are called “soft crab”) and a weird chicken dish for Cliff that, happily, came with a large side of mac and cheese:-)