In the afternoon, Aaron came down from Columbia, Maryland to pick us up. We had dinner with Aaron, kelly and the grandkids and then drove Kelly's car back to Annapolis so we could us it for the grocery store trip to reprovision.
On Saturday, the front came through with a vengence. As we were driving to the grocery store, we passed the Navy football stadium. The U.S. Naval Academy is just a few hundred feet from where we are docked. The tradition is that the midshipmen (all 4,000 of them) march to the stadium for each game. The stadium is about a mile from the main campus. This is homecoming weekend and they are playing Wake Forest. Unfortunately, just after kickoff the skys opened up and began a downpour. It rained most of the rest of the day. Needless to say we have no pictures from Saturday. Aaron and Kelly invited us over for dinner and cooked some fantastic steaks with sauteed onions and mushrooms, tator and salad.
Sunday dawned clear and sunny, although a bit cooler and still a bit breezy. Aaron, Kelly, Noah and Kennedy came back down to Annapolis to pick up Kelly's car and we walked over to tour the Naval Academy. Since it was a nice day, we got a few pictures.
The campus is very pretty, but I like our Ram (UNC) better.
Inside the visitor's center, there are a number of exhibits and displays. I liked the uniforms from the 18th century.
These were worn by John Paul Jones, a revolutionary war hero who is largely credited with starting the U.S. Navy. I learned that after that war, he joined the Russian service and led that navy to several victories against the Turks. I guess he needed to keep a hand in.
From Wikipedia:
John Paul Jones (July 6, 1747 - July 18, 1792) was the United States' first well-known naval fighter in the American Revolutionary War. Although he made enemies among the American ruling class, his actions in British waters during the Revolution earned him an international reputation which persists to this day.
During his engagement with Serapis, Jones uttered, according to the later recollection of his First Lieutenant, the legendary reply to a quip about surrender from the British captain: "I have not yet begun to fight!"
Here is a shot of the chapel on campus. Unfortunately we had just missed the visitor's hours and it had closed for the day.
From the visitor's center, one can look out over the Annapolis harbor.
Looking southwest towards Spa Creek (we are tied up at the city docks just to the right of this photo).
Back at the boat, the canal here is called Ego Alley. Boaters are constantly parading through the narrow channel which deadends at the town square. Here is a shot from our bow looking down the waterway towards town.
There are several tour / cruise boats that come by, this one was pirate-themed:
This week, Annapolis is hosting the World Cup competition for the Melges class performance sailboats. Their web page is http://www.melges24worlds2009.com/ The Pre-World regatta current standings:
After two races it’s an all Italian top three with Nicola Celon, the 2006 Melges 24 World Champion, leading this warm up series with Lorenzo Bressani sailing Uka Uka Racing second and Flavio Favini aboard Blu Moon third. America’s Bill Hardesty sailing Vince Brun’s Event’s Clothing/Atlantis lies in fourth place just ahead of Bruce Ayres and his Corinthian crew aboard Monsoon.
The actual championship races begin on Monday. There appeared to be about 50 boats tied up at the end of the waterway.
The races were held out in the Bay, we could just see the sails. Here's one of the teams returning from the day's race:
The rum supply truck was right on schedule and just in time.
Now that's what I call an RV.
We all went to a seafood restaurant overlooking the waterway and enjoyed some Maryland crab cakes and other great seafood.
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