Annapolis

Annapolis is a charming, historic city that occupies a small peninsula between Spa and College Creeks on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay.  Approached from the land side it is bustling and busy with narrow, cobbled streets.  Approached from the sea it is the definition of maritime mayhem. 

We spent a leisurely day motoring up the bay from Solomons, MD to arrive at the Annapolis Town Mooring Field around 1500 hours on a Friday afternoon.  The field was already pretty full, mostly sailboats, but we located one of the few vacant yellow mooring balls reserved for boats over 45 feet in length.   As is our custom, I nudged Let's Dance gently forward as Bill expertly wielded the boat hook to pick up the pennant attached to the mooring ball.  Lucky for us it was at the edge of the field of bobbing boats -- we were within yards of the city docks, the sights of downtown and the Naval Academy campus.  We have arrived!

 

The weather is superb, and the first job is to loose the Love Me Tender so we can putter into town or around the bays and creeks that line her perimeter.  Also, of course, there is food to be considered, and after a few minutes of research we decide on Middleton's for dinner.  Scallops and stuffed flounder do not disappoint and the imaginary foodie bar we erected the week before continues to rise.

After dinner we return to the boat to watch the show!  From our floating vantage point we can monitor the parade of commercial boats that come and go --- ferries, water taxis, sailing charters and even a pirate ship full of miniature sailors and wenches.  But the real treat is the blatant ego-tripping of power boaters who rev their motors as they maneuver the narrow passage between the mooring field and the town docks.  It is called "Ego Alley" by the locals, and is reminiscent of teens in the 50's strutting their stuff on the local drag.

Saturday morning we decide to tour the Naval Academy -- after all, we are mariners, too.  Maybe we can get some tips!  We dinghy ashore and walk to the Visitor's Gate, pass the ID test, clear security and go inside.  They have a nice movie and, for the low senior's rate of $9 per person, we are signed up to tour the campus with Drew as our guide -- oddly, he's an ex-Army grad.

It is immediately evident that the USNA and Let's Dance have a lot in common -- for example, they love goats, we (well, just me actually) love goats.

 

There are many variations on the story of how the Navy got a goat for a mascot, but my favorite is that early sailors kept goats on board to eat the garbage and to provide fresh milk and butter.  Early multi-taskers.  Also, the Navy named their goat "Bill" -- how is that for coincidental?  We both keep a Billy on board.

As we tour the campus we are struck by the similarities between the life of a midshipman and our nautical personae.  They study seamanship, we study seamanship. They sleep in berths, we sleep in berths.  They wear snappy uniforms, we wear....well.  

They honor John Paul Jones, hero of the American Revolution, as the Father of the Navy, we humbly agree.  And, wow, what a tomb they designed for the old guy!

Most significantly, however, we share the same motto:

It was a super tour and a fun return visit to Annapolis.  Bill topped off the stay with a much-needed haircut at the Capistrano Barbershop.  Gerard did the honors, and I was there to supervise.

After Annapolis, we crossed the bay to spend a few days in the little village of Rock Hall on the eastern shore.  Finally, we have vaulted over the culinary bar!  Bill finds the best crab cake sandwich on the bay at The Kitchen -- a six table, mom and pop gem right there on Main Street Rock Hall!  Yum!!

 

So now the summer tour of the Chesapeake is a wrap.  Let's Dance is back at the dock in Deltaville, VA with the Love Me Tender nestled snugly on her deck.  Captain Bill and I are off to the Galapagos Islands without them because, let's face it, at 6 knots, it could potentially take over 433 hours of non-stop excitement.......we'll leave that voyage to the Navy! 

When we return from our busman's holiday, Bill will captain Let's Dance back to Charleston where she will rest up until January when the adventures of 2014 will begin.  Until then,

Let's Dance......Carol and Bill

Summer Stories

When last we wrote, Captain Bill and I had completed our third annual winter cruise to the Bahamas and successfully navigated to (and from) the remote Ragged Islands. Once back in West Palm Beach, Let's Dance was treated to the usual post-voyage pampering and then ferried up the Florida coast by Bill and his friend Mark. We chose Charleston as the spring destination so we could check out the charms of the Holy City and enjoy several weeks of history and culture and (mostly) good eats.

Our summer plans were sketchy and quickly scuttled when we learned in late May that Bill's mother was ill. Her 94 years on this earth were filled with infectious joy and laughter and, when her family was gathered around her, she quietly passed away. Hers was truly a life well lived.

So, as the heat of the summer gathered strength in the old south, Bill decided to set off on a solo voyage from South Carolina to the Chesapeake Bay. A way to test his marine mettle, if you will. Was I skeptical? Of course! How could he possibly run the boat without me there to supervise -- as first mate, dock hand, chef, navigator, etc? Really, how could he?? As it turns out, he could very well.

I wasn't on board for his two week "freedom cruise", but I was around for the prep, and I can tell you that he bought enough food at Costco for a crew of 20 on a cross-Atlantic run. Prepared chicken salad, shrimp salad, fruits, frozen meats and pizzas, chips and salsa, popcorn, nuts, sodas! And the ice cream! A choice of caramel or chocolate sundae sauce -- and, because he is health-conscious, one bag of frozen edamame. 

 

OK, he would not starve, but how could he handle docking or anchoring without me to guide his every move? Again, the answer is, quite well. A fancy new, and possibly expensive, gadget called a Micro Commander Handheld Remote Control System, allows him to roam the decks of our ship freely while controlling the functions of the main engine. Forward or reverse! Port or starboard! Wow! He can now escape the limited visibility of the pilot house and dock by judging the distance from the hull to the edge of the pier for himself as opposed to enduring the frustration of my stuttering, "Well, it's about 7 feet away, no, maybe 4. Wait, what pier?

A theme is developing here. Without me on board, there is no one to tell Bill what to do or how or when to do it. No one to suggest or hint or demand. No one to whine or complain or wheedle. In short, no me. Bill claims the company was great! This is an unexpected development. My admiral status could be in serious jeopardy. I make plans to join the expedition as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Bill leaves the boat at a friendly marina in Deltaville, VA for our super quick jaunt to the Boundary Waters of Minnesota to pick up nine year old granddaughter Maddie at summer camp.

After our return to South Carolina, we buckled up for the 9 hour drive north to Virginia to retrieve Let's Dance and the Love Me Tender. For miles along I-95, gaudy but eye-catching signage touts a stop called "South of the Border." Anticipating a refreshing lunch of quesadillas or fish tacos in lieu of our usual Subway sandwich, I urge a noontime stop. Turns out that there is no Mexican food here -- the only thing this place is south of is North Carolina! Hmmmmm......

The August cruise we are undertaking is designed by Bill to showcase lovely bayside villages, quiet anchorages and fine dining. The best of the Chesapeake Bay. Having set the culinary bar so incredibly low at the beginning of the trip, there is truly nowhere to go but up. In Deltaville, we enjoyed delightful crab cakes at Toby's and the offerings of a local veggie stand. Fresh corn and melons, squash and tomatoes -- the bar is already on the rise! With the larder full, we headed north, further up the Chesapeake Bay. One night we anchored in Mill Creek, another in Cornfield Harbor at the mouth of the Potomac River. The following day we motored past the absurdly named "Point No Point", then spent a delightful two days at a marina in Solomons, MD.

This quaint little village holds fond associations for me as it was the first home of my parents after their 1944 marriage at the Little Church Around the Corner in New York City. Dad had just received his commission in the Navy, and the newlyweds were posted to Solomons Island. As a newly-minted officer, Dad was tasked with teaching the basics of navigation to the enlisted men on the base. Apparently removing the sextant from its wooden box was one of the harder concepts....at least for Ensign Weaver. (I knew I came by my exceptional navigational skills naturally!)

While in Solomons we lifted the foodie bar another notch or two at the Dry Dock Restaurant. Yum! We are on a roll, and decide to move on to Annapolis and points north while the weather is fine and our appetites are hearty. We are finding that the Chesapeake has a great deal to offer us as we float about the bay. Who knows what delights we will find around the next bend in the shoreline?

Let's Dance........Carol and Bill

Will Wonders Never Cease?

Unbelievably, three years have passed since Captain Bill and I first set out on our big voyage of discovery aboard Let's Dance! We have traveled over 14,000 miles, met countless characters both on shore and afloat, become moderately proficient at electronic navigation and weather predicting and maintained our senses of humor. Well, mostly! We have marveled over the 'green flash' that sparks just as the sun sets over a cloudless western ocean, admired a full-fledged rainbow over a rain-rinsed shoreline and counted ourselves among the lucky few to have spent nights gently rocking at anchor in secluded, shallow coves. Life on the ocean is full of wonders!

When we left Daufuskie Island for southern waters this winter we did not anticipate encountering livestock. We were mistaken. Big Majors Spot, a small island in the Exuma chain is home to a small cache of locally famous pigs. Last year they ignored us completely as we brought the Love Me Tender close to the beach for a quick look-see. They would not even leave the shade of the small, scrubby trees to check out our offerings. This year, as we approached the narrow beach, we saw two of the porkers paddling idly offshore in about six feet of water. Just imagine the wee water wings keeping these fellas afloat! We had no snacks aboard the tender, but they looked prepared to board us anyway, so Bill quickly revved the engine and we sped away. Who knew pigs could swim so fast? Wonder if they can fly?

Luckily, as we bob about the oceans, most of the encounters that make us say "wow" are more aquatic in nature. Nurse sharks are quite common, and they often idled under the keel while we were anchored. Tossing an occasional tidbit into the water sometimes brought them out for a quick photo op as they circled the Love Me Tender. The swim platform was closed for guests when these guys were in motion -- a nurse shark is still a shark, after all.

Great shelling! That's how the inland waters of charming Pipe Cay were described, so we timed our arrival to coincide with the ebbing tide. Wide open sand flats were revealed as the water receded. 

 

At first we didn't see many shells of any sort, but as the little ripples of receding waves revealed more and more of the pure sand bottom, a few pale pink reflections became clearer. Conch! Some small, some broken, some large -- all opalescent in the early afternoon sun. Naturally I had to pick up as many as possible, very careful to replace any with a tenant still in residence. There were a few other treats along the shore as well. Yellow-tinged periwinkles and an intact Atlantic Coquina for the collection. A pair of perfect, translucent pen shells! The ebbing tide continued to reveal her bounty and increase our awe. It was a wonderland!

We met Sandy at the fresh water faucet serving the Island Breeze dock on Long Island. She somehow found her way over from Florida and can't get home again, so she stops by daily for a sip of unsalted water, making friends with all who pass by. Lest you feel too sorry for her plight, you should know that she has her own web page! 

 

From giant manatees to the the smallest shells -- the wonders of the islands are plentiful. Bill spotted this tiny, sand-encrusted starfish on the beach at the Land and Sea Park, and I collected a minute sea biscuit and baby conch for the collection at another beautiful bay.

And the wonders we can't show you -- inadvertently scaring up a sea turtle in the shallows of Pipe Creek, the full moon rising over an abandoned lighthouse, the endless variety of blues and teals that make up the ocean palette, the mystery of a million periwinkles huddled as one mass, a spirited mahi mahi leaping high into the air as he reaches for freedom -- it is all good aboard Let's Dance!

So, friends, we are back at home on Daufuskie.  The azaleas are in full bloom, the breezes are cooling and all is well with this wonderful world.  Let's Dance will pass the rest of the season in Charleston for a bit of a change of pace.  Happy Spring!

Let's Dance.......Carol and Bill

Day Trippin'

It is 0630 hours on Let's Dance, the sun is just barely lighting the eastern horizon and Captain Bill has already put in a shift or two. The coffee is steaming and the single-sideband radio (SSB) crackles and hums. Class is about to begin! Six mornings a week, Florida rock star meteorologist Chris Parker takes over the SSB airwaves on frequency 4045 MHz to interpret complex weather patterns for interested skippers from the Bahamas to Central America.

We are all slaves to the weather -- wind speed and gusts, cold fronts, warm fronts, occluded fronts, barometric pressure, sea state -- we watch for even the smallest change with rapt attention. And Chris Parker is rarely wrong as he interprets and advises and warns. He has hundreds of sponsors -- people who pay to receive personalized weather forecasts. We try, whenever possible, to be anchored right next to one of these people. Captain Bill even signed us up to have call-in rights, at $25 a pop, for personalized advice. When asked for his thoughts on our timetable for touring the Ragged Islands, Chris was adamant -- possibly the worst front of the winter to date looms. Wait a week!

An island tour by car seemed just the ticket since boating was ill-advised. We rented a car from Mike at the Island Breeze Restaurant -- a blue car with over 200,000 miles, a low front right tire and a missing wiper blade. We discovered that Long Island is, in fact, long. Eighty miles of island with 100 miles of paved road....the Queen's Highway, no less! More tourist attractions were touted for the southern half of the island, so we took a right from the parking lot and prepared for a day of land-lubbing.

Our first stop was the Library/Community Center/Museum located in Deadman's Cay. Nice name, huh? The museum was small but well maintained and we learned a bit about local customs and lore. The story is familiar -- once home to over 7,000 people, with salt panning the major industry, the island now provides for only a few thousand who fish and build boats and porch-sit.

Continuing on, making sure to drive on the left, we pass through Mangrove Bush, Pettys and Hamiltons on our way to Dean's Blue Hole. (As an aside, these hamlets, although well marked on maps of the island, mainly consist of one or two occupied, cinder-block houses surrounded by four or five abandoned, roofless houses. There may be a small church and graveyard or a tiny general store as well.)

The sign at the corner for the turn-off to the blue hole reads, "Turtle Cove, Private." The asphalt drive is worn through in spots and weeds are growing up. Another real estate deal gone bad. Near the Atlantic side of the island the road turns to sand and ends abruptly. So, here we are, at the world famous "Dean's Blue Hole."

A blue hole is a cave, or underwater sinkhole, and a rare wonder of nature. Most contain both salt and fresh water and are characterized by a center of dark, dark blue water with concentric circles of lighter blues radiating outward as the water becomes shallower. At 663 feet, Dean's Blue Hole is the deepest blue hole in the world. 

So, what do you do with a very, very deep hole in the water? You dive in, of course! And to make it interesting, you do it without air tanks! Free diving is a unique sport practiced by a select few. One of these is a cute girl named Ashley whom we met at Thompson Bay. She holds a world record for free diving to 220 feet. Her husband, Ren, hovers below the surface with SCUBA gear to act as her safety net should her breath give out too soon. Talk about trust!

To facilitate the singular sport of free diving, a floating platform is installed in the center of the circular cove. A heavy plumb line is attached to the platform and hangs straight down into the depths. If a competitor wants to dive to 150 feet, for example, he has a SCUBA diver attach a metal tag to the underwater line at that depth. The retrieved tag provides proof of the depth of the dive and the plumb line keeps the diver from getting off course and wasting valuable air. We watched from the shore as an Australian diver prepared for a practice run by meditating and thinking happy thoughts while resting on the floating platform. When ready, he pulled on a large, single fin that gave a nice mermaid effect, then held his breath and hooked onto the long line for his descent. Once he was in the water the show ended, at least for us. Free diving is not a spectator sport.

From Dean's we continued south down the highway, dodging the occasional herd of sheep or goats. We stopped for lunch at the Outer Edge Grill at the Flying Fish Marina in Clarencetown. Loved the signage as you drive into this tiny settlement:

There are so many churches on Long Island that we wondered if their were enough priests to fill them on Sunday mornings. A few churches are small Pentecostal or Baptist churches, but most are either Catholic or Anglican. A Father Jerome, born in Britain in 1876, studied architecture before becoming an Anglican priest. His ministry led him to the Bahamas where he reportedly built many of the island churches by hand with locally quarried stones. Amazing!

Our last stop on the Long Island self-guided tour was the company town of Hard Bargain. True! Thousands were employed by the Diamond Crystal Salt Pans until the 1970s when the Bahamas became independent from Great Britain. At that time, the new Bahamian government thought they'd renegotiate the terms of many foreign business contracts. The Diamond Crystal company didn't like the new arrangement and literally walked away from their investment. They left the dredging machinery, processing equipment, office buildings, employee housing and shipping facilities. We don't know if Hard Bargain got its name before or after the exodus.

A hapless tugboat was left tied to a dock and, as the years passed, the bay silted in and left the tug permanently mired in sand.

We were warned to tour the salt pan area in daylight, as finding the route out could be problematic after dark. No kidding! The roads were rutted tracks that intersected at odd angles and were marked by identical, scruffy shrubs at every corner. We made several wrong turns before finding the overgrown runway that served as our escape route. The Queen's Highway continued southward for another few miles to end at Gordons and the Crooked Island Passage. We decided to head back north, however, as skies were clouding up and the windshield wipers looked inadequate.

The rain caught us before we got back to the Island Breeze and the dinghy ride across Thompson Bay to Let's Dance was rockin'. Great weather reporting, Chris!

Let's Dance.....Carol and Bill