Annapolis

If you like boating of any type, and are surrounded by some of the country's best cruising waters, you have a formula for a city built for the boating culture.  Annapolis is the Yachting Capital of the US.  That honor is well deserved.  It is hard to describe the accolades for this city, but there are many.   It is the state capital of Maryland, very historic, beautiful countryside, and many fine restaurants and bars.   Shelley has a radar for bars that serve Guinness beer.  We found quite a few.  Then add the United States Naval Academy right at the water's edge, right in the middle of the city, and you get the feel of this city's excitement.  We approached it from the Chesapeake Bay and all you see are the shorelines lined with boats and marinas.   Every square foot of shoreline has a dock on it.     Annapolis is the site of two of the world's largest boat shows every October. The Annapolis Sailboat Show and the Annapolis Power Boat Show.  They float in thousands of feet of dock for 100's of sailboats to display the first week, then quickly shift all those boats out and bring in 100's of power boats for the second week.

United States Naval Academy as you approach from the Bay

The Waterfront with the Capital Building on the hill

The town is laid out for yachtsmen/women as there are water taxis that scurry folks from the downtown docks to restaurants all up and down the creeks and marinas, or out to their substantial mooring field.  We stayed on a Mooring ball for several days and just called the water taxi to take us to shore.  $3.00



This is Graduation Week so the city is full of Midshipmen in their dress whites walking the town with their families.  You can see the pride in the parents for their graduating son or daughter.  The city is packed with visitors which makes the downtown area really fun.  The one problem they have here....parking for cars.   They do a much better job parking boats.  Cars...not so much.  Very difficult to find a parking space.


How do I know this about cars?   Well we rented one so we could do some traveling around the area and do some reprovisioning.   There are no spots on the street, so we parked in the city garage for $20/night.  We took the short drive yesterday to Washington DC and then south.  I am constantly amazed at how close cities are here on the east coast.  For those of us schooled in Kansas and Texas, we understand that to get from one major city to another typically takes 3-4 hours.   We left downtown Annapolis, drove through its western side and within 15 minutes were on the outskirts of Washington DC. The same is true if you want to go north up to Baltimore.   And only 20 minutes northeast of Baltimore is Wilmington, Delaware, which is really a suburb of Philadelphia.  It is just one big mass of folks around here.

I will leave to another blog update to tell you about our trip to Mt. Vernon and Fredericksburg.   However, we truly enjoyed our stay here in Annapolis.   The marinas are a bit expensive, but there are many.   They have a large mooring field which is much more economical and you still have access to all that Annapolis has to offer.   All in all this is a great stop on our tour, and one to which we will return this fall.   We are weighing anchor tomorrow morning and heading up to the Delaware Bay.   This is our last step before we make three days of open water passages to get to New York City.  But I will have more on that later.  All I can say to end this blog is that you do not have to have a boat to enjoy Annapolis.   It really should be one of the top destinations for your travel plans.   Marc