We spent a few days in the Annapolis area, enjoying the history and having a short visit with Jack and Hannah who came over from Washington DC. Annapolis is a lovely town - a center for yachting, home of the US Naval Academy and the capital of Maryland.
Our first stop was a visit to the Naval Academy and the tomb of John Paul Jones.
I was intrigued that Benjamin Franklin wanted this flag for our nation but it wasn't adopted. In addition, we went to a naval museum that had great artifacts from the Revolutionary War to the present.
That night the harbor was hopping with boats starting to gather for the big boat show, inflatables and the water taxi zipping back and forth, and with live music from the waterfront establishments.
The next morning we enjoyed walking the streets of the town, looking at the old houses.
The state house was impressive and gave a sense of the wealth of the Maryland Colony compared to Massachusetts.
This is the room where Washington gave up his commission at the end of the war.
Jack and his girlfriend, Hannah, joined us and we sailed to the Wye River on the Eastern Shore for an overnight. They explored a little tributary.
It was a lovely tranquil spot. We watched a local crabber at sunrise.
Hannah enthusiastically took to the sea.
When we dropped them off, back in Annapolis, things were really gearing up for the show. We spent the night at a friend's dock in the next harbor over. The display shows each boat that triggered an alarm on our AIS system - constant beeping to alert us to an impending dangerous situation.
We then sailed back to the Eastern Shore to St. Michael's. We walked the town and, once again, enjoyed the old houses. In 1813 the British tried to bombard the town at night but the inhabitants caught wind of the plan and put lights on the top of the masts so the British aimed too high and only hit one house with a cannonball.
Typical home in the village.
Many had the wide chimney exposed.
The next morning we went to the maritime museum and saw a huge collection of recreational and working boats as well as excellent exhibitions on oystering, early maps of the area, a lighthouse and recreation through the years on the bay. We got a sense of how rich the bay was before dredgers wiped out the massive amounts of oysters and runoff clouded the waters.
The lighthouse, which was moved to this location from Hooper's Strait, was set up as it was when it was inhabited. This is the outhouse which hung over the water.
We were fascinated by the old log canoes, made from five logs lashed together and then hollowed out.
There was quite a collection of old...
and new.
The bay is a study in contrasts. One night we were in a quiet anchorage on Tilghman Island where all we could hear were the fish jumping, birds calling and the crab fishermen leaving at sunrise. The next we were in The Mill River, a tributary off of the Patuxent River, with a naval air base nearby. Ultra modern aircraft such as the Osprey, giant helicopters, F 18's and one with a giant radar disk were flying overhead.
Great stuff
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