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07/04/2010: "Fourth of July in Annapolis"

Saturday July 3rd:
We didn't do much today, just hung out on the boat then went on the other side of the harbor from downtown to see the Annapolis Maritime Museum and wander around in the afternoon. Other then that it was a quiet relaxing day. I had to drop off the rental car and when I got back I went up to the State House to check it out. It is the oldest State Capital Building still in use. There are two sections, the original built in 1770's and the new addition in 1902. The original Senate chambers is where George Washington went to meet with the Continental Congress to resign his commission in the Army and hopefully retire. It is also where the Continental Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris, the official end of the Revolutionary War. It served as the first Capital for a number of years. Unfortunately the old section is undergoing renovation to undo several hundred years of remodeling and there is not much to see. The nice policeman at the x ray machine in the entrance held my swiss army knife for me so I was able to get it back when I left. For some reason they don't allow knives and other weapons, imagine that.

Sunday July 4th:
First projects for the day were to check the engine: belts, oil, filter pressure and start it up to charge the batteries. We are just across form the Yacht Basin and when I called them they would give up free water if we took on at least 15 gallons of fuel. We needed to get there in the morning since there was a yacht coming in t tie up. We dropped our mooring, leaving the dinghy behind so we wouldn't lose it and motored over. We put on 21 gallons of fuel and about 100 gallons of water then went for a drive around the harbor and out into the river, the same route we will take on Monday when we leave. Since we were charging the batteries we may as well go somewhere. Back at the mooring ball we took the dinghy to town for showers and lunch. Back on the boat Cori worked on straightening things up a little while I helped and started a new book. Later it was back into town for the parade. Every politician was there but the only musical unit was the fife and drum corps. After the parade was music at the dock ending with the Naval Academy Band playing followed by the fireworks. They do a very nice job with the fireworks. When you think they are done and that was the finale, they start up again. There was actually three finale's. There had to be several hundred anchor lights out on the river and afterwards a steady stream of boats coming back in. Oh, the yacht that came in and tied up to the fuel dock took up the entire dock. It was the 160' Casino Royale. I found out that you can Google the name of a yacht and find out the specifics about it, a pretty nice yacht. The owner names all of his yachts for James Bond movies.

We will be starting back tomorrow so we need to get up early and store the dinghy and outboard, take down the flags and get the boat ready to start back. I will be sending out Spot reports once we are underway. For some reason I cannot get the Spot share page to show our marks for more then a week. I have tried changing it to a month several times but it will not save the changes. Maybe I'll get it working right before we get back. We think we will be going back to Solomon's since there is not many stopping places in this section of the bay. From there I haven't planned things out yet.