In Annapolis still...

Larry had accomplished many of the little (and some not so little) jobs while the rest of us were in Washington, and we began to set our sites on Baltimore....however, Murphy had other ideas for us! If it isn't one thing it's 4 more as one of our "neighbours" commented one morning. The latest problems include radar that has ceased to work for unknown reasons. I'm rather keen on having radar, so that no freighters can sneak up on me at night!

The other problem that kept us in Annapolis longer than planned was Larry's computer...he just got it before we left and it is our main computer for charting/navigation, email (via the ham radio) etc...and it started acting up, and soon enough the stupid thing would not work at all. So we called Dell (after a few trials of making it work again, which involved Larry reloading Vista (boo hiss) and virtually losing everything we had saved on the computer, including my pics and my music! Whaaaa. It is there somewhere, but we don't know how to access it! Here's the part where any computer geniuses can tell us what to do to retreive these files...) Anyway, we had bought a "next day" service package from Dell, but in the end it took over a week for them to come to the boat (a first for the tech) with the right parts and fix the damn thing! So far it is working fine now, but we still don't know how to retreive the old files....no one likes working on Vista, thats for sure, and we wish this computer had xp....sigh!

So the long and the short of it was that we spent 3 weeks in Spa Creek in Annapolis, met some really great folks and made some nice friends. The spot we were anchored was really close to a great park for the dog, and for Graham to fish, close to town for showers and laundry and grocery shopping. Not too shabby!

We also bought a new radar system and a gas generator (so we can use a/c power for things like power tools, my computer, charging stuff and of course, charging the boats batteries). This happened on Larry's birthday, so it was considered his present! Now it only had to be installed!! Poor man, more work to be done! The Boat Show was fast approaching, and with it, the anchorage was filling up with people who were planning to work the show, and those who were going to visit the show. We knew that if or when we left our spot, it would be taken immediately! We had plans to go to the Whitby Rendevous and go to Baltimore, so we knew we were going to have to leave our peaceful spot!

Before we left, we went out to dinner with friends Susan and Barry (Night Hawk) from Nova Scotia, and had a great time. Susan and Barry have a great receipe for fricasse of chart plotter, which we hope never to duplicate! It involves leaving your chart plotter in the oven (where it was placed for safety during a thunderstorm) and then putting the oven on the next morning to make biscuts...oh dear!! On our dingy ride back from dinner, we stopped to see John and BobbyJo on "Don't Look Back" a Lagoon 38 - a catermaran, and quite something to behold! The kids would be in heaven to live on a boat like that - it is big and spacious, but for sea worthiness on ocean crossings, I'll take the Whitby (Star Shadow) anytime! We were also fortunate to have met Bob and Rusty (Morning Light) who have a car which they are kind enough to loan us when we need to do some heavy duty grocery shopping. Bob is teaching us how to be pirates, and accept offerings gracefully! I'm not sure how that makes us pirates, but there you go!

We said our goodbyes to our friends, and on Sept 28 we headed for the Whitby Rendevous at nearby Whitehall Creek, and then onward to Baltimore!