Rocking and Rolling at the Annapolis Sailboat Show

On Thursday morning we left our slip at Piny Narrows Marina on Kent Island to sail to Annapolis to attend the 40th annual Annapolis Sailboat Show, a venerable institution in the world of sailors. It's here that I have met my sailing heroes such as Herb and Nancy Payson, Don Street, and numerous authors of Cruising World Magazine articles.

We arrived in Annapolis Harbor at about 3:00 pm and felt lucky to have found a place to anchor our little 32 foot boat among the Goliaths. Next to us was a 50 footer from Norfolk. The skipper of this boat, like most skippers of the other boats anchored near us, had two anchors down on massive lengths of heavy chain. We have two anchors but I set them on one line with a puny 50 feet of chain. This works out well for me since I don't have a windlass, a winch that automatically raises the anchor from the bottom like the big boats have. I have to haul the anchor hand over hand along with the 50 feet of chain. If I tried to raise two anchors with 130 feet of chain on each, you would be reading my obituary instead of my blog.

As our boat swung close to our neighbor's boat, I saw the skipper cast a worried eye my way. "How much rode do you have out?" I asked. "130 feet on two anchors," he replied. I had 80 feet out. I let out another 50 feet and we backed down out of his sight.

Most boaters drop a 7 to 1 ratio of anchor line to water depth for good holding. We call it 7:1 scope. That is, we check the depth of the water beneath us and multiply that by seven. We put out that much anchor line so that our anchor lies flat on the bottom. This minimizes the chance that the anchor will drag. We were in 15 feet of water so I needed to lay at least 105 feet of line (called the rode). I often don't lay out that much because I have two anchors at the end of my rode, a danforth followed by 12 feet of chain followed by a Bruce anchor followed by 50 feet of chain. I have never had my anchors drag with this setup. But I was intimidated by the skipper who let out 130 feet on two anchors.

All of the boats around us sat still on their position. They couldn't move much because the weight of all of that chain held them fast. Our boat, however, wanted to roam around the anchorage, perhaps to visit with all of the other boats. We would swing unnervingly close to the boat on our starboard side. Just as I was about to make an adjustment to the anchor rode, we would swing unnervingly close to another boat.

This went on all night. I frequently squirmed from my berth to pop my head through the V-berth hatch to assure myself that we weren't about to collide with any of the other boats in the anchorage.

Then at about midnight, the wind started up. I knew that the wind was supposed to pipe up to about 15 mph but I never thought that that little bit of wind could kick up such large waves. But it not only kicked up some large waves, it kicked up some waves large enough to make us feel as if we were pieces of popcorn in a Jiffy-Pop pan. By 3:00 am, I was hoping for an early sunrise so we could weigh anchor and go.

At 7:00 am, Friday morning, with Mandy at the helm, I tried to haul the boat toward the anchor, hand over hand. The wind was too strong so Mandy motored slowly forward so that I could haul the chain aboard as we moved. Soon, as we approached another boat from astern, I realized that our anchor was under that boat. The captain realized my dilemma and motored his boat to one side so I could retrieve my two anchors. Once we were over the anchors, I cleated the chain to the cleat and Mandy motored hard in reverse to break out the anchors and back us out of there.

An hour later we were again anchored but this time in quiet Weems Creek. We would have no water taxi to pick us up and drive us to the boat show. We would have to set up our dinghy and row to a nearby landing then walk two miles to the old town area of Annapolis where the show is held.

The show was fun. We boarded a few of our favorite boats and scoped out new products. We drank a couple pain-killers and joined a few drunken sailors at Armadillos Bar. We somehow spent $100 and didn't buy a single thing. All of the time we had to contain our party spirit because we realized that we had to make our way back to the dinghy landing and row ourselves back to Foxglove.

We spent Friday night anchored in Weems Creek. Mandy cooked and I continued to work on the shower problem. On Saturday,we listened to the OSU vs Wisc football game on Sirius radio.

This Sunday morning, we made our first real move south. We weighed anchor at 7:30 am and headed 45 miles south to Solomons Island where we had kept our boat for two seasons. It was kind of like going home since Spring Cove Marina, where we are now tied up is our favorite.

We'll be here for a couple days while I continue to solve boat problems, do laundry, grocery shop, and walk the streets of Solomons reminiscing.

The photos are taken of friends and neighbors' boats, while passing under the Bay Bridge, and Mandy popping out of the cabin.