Oct 21 - Oct 27, 2021 Annapolis, Maryland

Roger is standing alongside Ego Alley, Annapolis

Leaving Rock Hall where we had only experienced the new boat on a dock came with some trepidation. We were pumped to be moving forward on our trip and we had our fingers crossed that things would go smoothly; one can only ferret out problems in advance while on dock to a certain degree.

Thursday October 21,2021

Rock Hall, Maryland to Annapolis, Maryland

As we started out, the water was nice and calm and it was a great day for a sail, but we were still getting used to the boat being underway. Then, the chart plotter kept pooping the bed—but we had a backup with Navionics on the iPad which we have found to be far from perfect with GPS positioning. Lucky for us, that day it worked just fine. By noontime, we put up the sail, had lunch, and killed the motor for a little while. Ah... Chesapeake bay, peaceful sailing!

We pulled into the mooring field for Annapolis Harbor. It was neat to see the city from the water point of view rather than from the land; we had driven there several times before. There is always a bit of stress pulling into a new harbor not knowing how much maneuvering room there is, how much traffic there will be, and what, if any, assistance might be rendered if needed at our end destination – our home for a little while. The moorings were different than what we’ve encountered before and we had a bit of forewarning from one of our neighbors in Rock Hall. Typically you lean over the bow and pick up a mooring pendant with an expandable boat hook and then slip that over a cleat on the bow. Sounds easy enough, but it can be tricky if there is wind or chop. For some of these moorings the pendant is short so you need to run your own line through it and create a cradle to attach on both sides of the bow. Not too bad, as long as it is calm! In the end, we managed picking up the mooring beautifully. Yay us!

After we arrived in Annapolis, Eric Brown from BoatAC came over to look at our freezer; Roger had to pick him up from shore in the dinghy. He stayed for awhile, took some pictures of the freezer and said he had to research.

We dinghied down Ego Alley, so named because lots of people just go up and down that strip in the middle of downtown Annapolis to show off their boats, and we docked at the end. So our trip down ego alley was in a 10' inflatable boat with a proud Levi as a bow/hood ornament! We took a nice walk around town with Levi and returned him to the boat. We then dinghied into the end of Fourth Street near the Annapolis City Marina and went to the Boatyard Restaurant. As we were going into the restaurant we bumped into Gary Thomas from Riverside/G Winters marina. He is our go-to guy now with questions about several of the boat systems on board. He had been moving a boat that day and Roger had reached out to him earlier about the chart plotter issue. Roger jovially gave him grief because he had promised to call us back, and they had a discussion right there before we went into the restaurant.

Back at the boat that night, we heard a beeping noise, like an alarm. Roger investigated and realized it was the house batteries which were losing their charge way too fast. So he started the generator to help charge up the batteries and after about fifteen minutes the generator shut down on its own. Roger saw an error message and realized that the cooling water wasn’t flowing properly to the generator. We went to bed, rather disgruntled and hoping it would all seem better in the morning.

Looking through the dodger at the William Preston Lane Jr. Memorial Bay Bridge - the only one that crosses the Chesapeake Bay.

Known as the "Bay Bridge" by the locals

Kim and Levi in their usual position, despite the different boat. There is much more stretch out room.

First photo of the captain at the helm on this sailboat.

We passed by a schooner as they were busy taking down one of the sails; great lighting. Whether it's a schooner or ketch depends on which mast is taller and it's a bit hard to tell in this photo. If the main mast is taller than the aft, it is a ketch. Trivia for the day!

A neat little street with town homes and closely spaced small homes that are quite charming. We enjoyed the Halloween and seasonal decorations.

Kim just loved this artwork. Looks like wisteria.

Lillian Gray on the mooring in Annapolis. You might have liked this same photo on Kim's FB profile.

The Naval Academy from the mooring

Friday October 22, 2021

Annapolis Harbor to the Chesapeake Harbour Marina (the Canadian in Kim wants to bust out and spell "Harbour" the proper way every now and then!)

With the house batteries failing and the generator on the fritz, we wanted to be on a dock in order to have power and try to figure it all out. Chesapeake Harbor Marina was just a couple miles south of the downtown harbor area and this marina had a convenient shuttle running while the marina was open.

Roger did some research and trouble shooting on the batteries and generator. He was thinking that the impeller on the generator was to blame. The impeller is key to moving the cooling water through and can fall apart over time. We always had a few extras on the old Lillian Gray but we were lacking spare parts on this boat. He also talked to Eric who was researching the freezer for us and he volunteered to try to find us some new house batteries as we were not having any luck finding them...and we needed 4. We are finding that service folks and parts are in short supply everywhere we have tried. So coming across Eric has been a real boost for us!

Since the business closing on the September 28th, things had been going downhill with the new owner. It is hard to understand what was motivating her to have such a shift in attitude; but there are several major disagreements on interpretation of some of the transition details, despite all of the discussions that occurred during discovery and the details in the final agreement. The new owner wants a different approach with great detriment to us and it is clear now that the lawyers will have to get involved. Not a relaxing way to ease into retirement at all! But we remain optimistic it will be a blip in the past soon enough!

Roger updated the software on the B&B plot charters, and we will have to wait and see when we're underway if that solved the plotter issue. At least it didn’t shut down spontaneously afterwards. Roger also took measurements to ensure the new batteries would fit in the tight space; the European batteries couldn’t be bought here so we had to get different ones that will require some fiddling to fit in.

With all the unsolved problems looming over us - we decided to go out to dinner in downtown Annapolis and try to relax. The sentence "these are first world problems" was repeated a whole lot this week. Roger called and got us reservations at Osteria 177, an Italian restaurant, but Maureen the hostess called us back shortly thereafter to tell us she made a mistake. We could come and sit outside at 7:30--not ideal. We thought this was reflective of how things were going for us during this time! So, we arrived early at 7:00 by Uber, and went into the restaurant just to see what would happen. Huzzah! We ended up getting what we thought was the best table in the house. Our waiter was a character named Dimitri who knew a lot about wine and had apparently toured parts of Italy that don’t normally end up on the usual places to visit. He had a real knack for explaining the qualities of the wine we had, but don't ask us to remember! It was Bianco di Custoza Superiore Ca el Magro 2018. An affordable and definitely tasty wine.

The layout of this marina is very different from what we have experienced in the past. We're surrounded on all sides by a condominium complex. Lots of walking paths though and the beach and piers were nice. Our dockage spot was near the parking and picnic area.

We are about to pull into the marina, around that corner on the portside (left). It feels weird! Where are all the other boats?

The 4D AGM house batteries to be replaced- in a cubby under the floor. Each can weigh over 150 lbs!

There's the Lillian Gray, tucked away in the far corner of the marina.

Out on the pier overlooking the Severn River and Chesapeake Bay

Not outside (chilly)! We got the best seats in the house IOHO.

An interesting perspective of the Maryland State House in downtown Annapolis

Saturday & Sunday Oct 23-24, 2021

On Saturday, we walked a few miles altogether, getting to some shops and the grocery store for necessaries. Levi was a trooper and the weather seemed to suit him - he can get too hot pretty quickly. As we were walking home loaded with our goodies, we got rained on! Boo.

Sunday brought about yet another concerning issue. This boat has two heads - one in the forward main berth, and one aft. In the forward main berth, we finally discovered why there was a weird smell - the toilet had a slow leak that had been building up under the floorboard. That puts that toilet out of commission. On the Hunter 39, we had one head with about 30 gallons of waste storage. On this boat, there are two heads each having 17 gallons of storage. With one head out, that puts us in the position of having to get a pump out twice as often. And that can be one pain in the neck. This was bad news; the good news being that we have two heads, so not 100% out of commission. We can only pray that someone will have mercy on us and squeeze us in for a fix asap. Roger spent significant time calling around, trying to find replacement parts and leaving messages for places to call us back.

That night, Levi woke us up with nightmares, Kim had the crazy “toy on the head” dream, and Roger had some sort of horrid dream too complicated to elaborate on. Something in the air? We woke up feeling disturbed and unsettled. The emotions linger, however false and irrational. Kim was especially disturbed by her dream and what her brain had done while unsupervised. Roger was also very disturbed...by Kim's dream!

A little shopping trip in downtown Annapolis. A Lily Pulitzer shop can brighten anyone's day! Roger tries to usher Kim out quickly.

Looking in towards the marina from the entrance

Looking out towards the Severn River from the mouth of the marina

Monday Oct 25 - Wednesday, Oct , 27, 2021

Roger was continuing to try to work things out with the new owner of his business. We had been eager to help in any way for her to have success and just so taken aback by her 180 and needless adversarial approach. Oh well. These things happen and surprised or not, we knew there was always a chance of hick-ups. It is a shame nonetheless.

Eric found some replacement batteries at a good price and came by with them - each battery weighed just shy of 200 lbs! They had to maneuver them into the boat and into the space right at the bottom of the companionway steps coming into the main salon. Eric and his helper were sweating and struggling and there is no way we could have done that ourselves. Afterwards, they also took a look at the generator but did not have much to add - they agreed with Roger that the impeller would be the first thing to check. He suggested a Cummins dealer in North Harrington; our generator just happens to be Cummins made. Eric seems like a truly good guy and we really appreciate him helping us out.

Roger contacted the Cummins dealer and they said they had a guy coming to our area and he would stop by to look at our generator if he had the time. We also begged and pleaded for help from a plethora of other marinas and service companies to help us, especially with the leaky head but to no avail. None of them consider that an emergency - just an inconvenience and they are all super busy with winterizing boats right now and helping their regular customer base. It is so ironic to be in one of the sailing capitals of America (and actually the first capital of the United States) and be unable to get the help we need in a timely manner.

As much as we wanted to move on, we decided to stay a couple more days to try to get the generator fixed and perhaps more importantly, there were gale wind forecasts. A young guy named Wade from Cummins was able to change the impellor while Roger closely watched to pick up any tips on the change out. We learned that we would never be able to change the impeller (which needs to be changed every year) on his own due to where it was located and how much disassembly is required to access it. One of Roger's pet peeves is how they make and install things sometimes on a boat leaving routine maintenance tasks and parts so difficult to access. Wade struggled a fair bit himself, losing a small screw driver beneath the generator in the process. Before Wade left, we ran the generator for half an hour or so under load and all seemed fine. Yeah! An item taken off the list for a change!

Earlier in the day, after Roger had gotten a bunch of work done, we went for a walk to a little cafe near where a bunch of boat yards are, then continued the walk into a little nature preserve. It was good for our souls to be walking in the woods.

We tried Uber Eats for the first time and it worked very well - Food from P.F. Chang’s!