Annapolis, Spa Creek

We are going to try to make a long run to Annapolis, 80 miles. Will be on a close reach with lots of waves if we can believe the forecast.

Most of the day the wind direction constantly varies 30 degrees or so and the wind speed varies from 13 to 24 mph, which makes it hard for the auto pilot to work well. I end up hand steering at least half the day. 

With the wind and motor-sailing we make pretty good time. We go through the draw bridge to Spa Creek at Annapolis at 8:00 PM. Love having all this day light we did not have in the Fall. Then some days we left before sunrise and anchored around sunset and were lucky to go 45-50 miles.

 

We are too late for Happy hour at the Rams Head, so we have dinner on the boat in Spa Creek. Spa Creek is about the prettiest urban anchorage on the whole east coast. Gorgeous homes on the creek and lots of boats. Most streets that dead end on the creek have dinghy docks for public use.

Picking up mooring at Spa Creek at sunset

 

Smith Creek, Potomac, Day1

After looking at the wind forecast for the day I decide to stay at Smith Creek another night. The wind is suppose to pick up to 20-30 knots out of the north later in the day, the direction we are heading. We are nice and calm in our little creek and Linda thinks I'm nuts. I am having my doubts about the forecast being correct, but I stick to my original decision. After getting a bunch of chores done, defrosting the refrigerator, etc. we take the dinghy down the creek to Courtney's a local fish restaurant.

 

Courtney's resturant

Once we get into the lower creek we are running into white caps and it takes a lot of effort to keep us dry. Now my decision is looking pretty smart. We tie up to an adjacent dock to the restaurant and throw out a stern anchor so the dinghy does not bounce against the dock. Courtney's Restaurant is my kind of funky establishment. Run by a husband and wife in their 70's. It is at the end of a road on the water, not a place you just happen upon. We both get the fried oysters, very good. 

When we leave Courtney's it is even rougher. We both get wet heading back, but Linda gets the worse of it and changes her wet clothes when we get back to the boat. Later in the afternoon I see a sailboat coming up the creek with a messed up and torn head sail. Linda said they went out an hour ago when I was down below reading and/or snoozing and the head sail was furled just fine when they headed out.

Smith Creek, Potomac

Long day of motoring down the Potomac. We catch the tide and current in our favor and get a good speed boost most of the day. Much of the day the river is like glass.

Calm morning on the Potomac

At one point there is a call on the VHF radio channel 16 to a sailboat approaching the RT301 Bridge. Only activity on the radio all morning. I have no idea where RT301 is. My charts only shown bridges and there names. A few minutes later the same call comes again, so I go look at the Chesapeake map that we keep on the wall in the boat and sure enough the bridge we are going under has RT301 passing over it. I now answer that radio call and find out we are talking with the Range coordinator for the Navy who advises us on where to pass going down the Potomac to avoid being a target in their test range. Late in the afternoon the wind picks up behind us and we put our head sail which more than compensates for the current which is now against us. A thunderstorm slips by to our south and it starts to get a little rough. We go to Smith Creek and drop anchor in a very calm and protected creek.

Mattawoman Creek, Potomac

Manana at Mt. Vermon

Up and out by 8:00 AM. We stop again at the James Creek Marina for a pumpout, but find they don't open until 9:00 AM. I fill our water tanks while we wait for opening time. Two hours later we are anchored down stream at Mt. Vernon. 

We dinghy ashore. This is the one day they don't have a tour boat landing here, which I thought was a good thing. Unfortunately to buy tickets we have to walk to the other side of Mt Vernon to purchase them. After a few missed directions and about two hours of viewing exhibits and museums we finally make it to the entrance to pay for admission. Kind of go now pay later, for us. After touring the main house and some of the out buildings we went back to the theater at the entrance to see the movie that most people see first. No one there but us, this late in the day, so we get a private showing in the huge theater. We get back out to the boat and Linda realizes she left her Bahama hat in the theater. So back we go to the entrance theater, but doors are locked at this time. The cleaning personnel let us in and we find her hat at the counter tagged and ready to be sent to Lost and Found. So now we head backwards through the exit and have to explain that our ride is sitting out in the Potomac, not in the parking lot.

We motor for 3 hours and arrive back at Mattawoman Creek just after sunset.

Capital Yacht Club, Washington DC, Day 4

Sabrina is leaving this morning so I fetch her car, from the parking garage, while she and Linda goes to the Safeway for grocery shopping. I pick them up at the Safeway. Sabrina drives us back to the Yacht Club and takes off for a 3-1/2 hour drive home to Phillippi, West Virginia. After putting everything away on the boat Linda and I head to the Air and Space Museum so I can see the other half that I missed.

Air and Space

US Botanical Garden

Then we head to the National Gallery of Art. We have a very nice, calm Sunday Buffet lunch. Hardly a child in sight unlike the noisy, huge MacDonalds at the Air and Space Museum. Then we hit our last stop, the US Botanical Garden, before we walk back to the boat.

Capital Yacht Club, Washington DC, Day 3

We have a leisurely breakfast on the boat and then walk to the Mall and to the Washington Monument. Crowds are too big to even think about going up the monument. We walk onto the Reflecting Pool, by the National WWII Memorial and to the Lincoln Memorial. As we walk towards the Lincoln Memorial we keep passing people holding up signs trying to engage passerby's on their view of their religion. Many others are standing around preaching to the crowds walking by and ignoring them. Looking further we see quite a large crowd of people around the west half of the Reflecting pool. Oh great we are going to a holy roller convention ! Well it turns out to be the Reason Rally 2016 “the biggest gathering of nonreligious people in history” supporting public policy based on scientific evidence, not religious beliefs, separation of church and state.

The Reason Rally 2016 at the Reflecting pool

So of course this brings out the religious kooks who are going to show these people the errors of their ways. I stop at many entertaining discussions with small groups with opposing views which are for the most part civil. I find it highly amusing. I keep thinking of a line that was recently heard on the VHF radio towards a rather ignorant boater, “You are just a special kind of stupid”. 

 

After we go to the Lincoln Memorial we walk to the Vietnam Memorial, our main goal for the day.

For lunch we head back to the Pavilion Cafe. Then we go to the Natural History Museum to catch an I-Max movie on the National Parks.

Down by the Wharf near the Yacht Club we kept passing an outdoor rib place where they smoke them right there. Well, this time we stop and by some to bring back to the boat for dinner.
 

Sabrina and Linda, Ribs on the Potomac

Capital Yacht Club, Washington DC, Day 2

In the morning we go to the Air and Space Museum. I guess I'm too slow, Linda and Sabrina are finished by noontime and I am not even half way through. I figure I will see the rest later. The roads on both sides of the mall are lined up with buses. I guess this is class trip season, kids everywhere. Most museums have pretty good lines to enter for scanning people and backpacks. We were here two years ago in October and there were no lines or crowds.

Sculpture Garden

Albino Squirrel at the Pavilion Cafe

 We head over to the Pavilion Cafe at the NGA Sculpture Garden where we stopped yesterday for something to drink and noticed the interesting lunch menu. Actually, they have every lunch item on view in a glass case, better than a picture. The Cafe has glass walls so it is a nice air conditioned place for lunch and people watching.

We spend the afternoon in the American History Museum, but can barely do it justice in that amount of time.

American History Museum, Dodge Caravan

I guess we are officially old, when something we bought new is now in a museum.