Having had the day cooped up yesterday, we are all eager to get off the boat. Having said that, we don’t make it to shore until gone 11 am.
After paying for another night on the mooring, we arrange to meet at Chick and Ruth’s Delly for lunch and split up to explore after getting ideas and maps from the very helpful people at the Visitor Information office.
Since all the roads in the centre of town lead to the State House, the government headquarters, we make a start there. After checking our IDs and scanning my handbag, we are let in to wander around, although not all of it is open to the public.
Heading back to the main road, I go in a couple of clothes shops, trying stuff on but not really finding anything that takes my eye. All this time Mike either hangs around suspiciously outside or comes in and sits down looking bored – but he doesn’t complain and pretends to be disappointed when I don’t find anything I like. Either he’s turned into a bloody good actor or it’s a case of the invasion of the body snatchers!
We spend the rest of our morning walking around town, with me ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ and pointing my camera at the architecture around me. Annapolis is really quite lovely. Most of the buildings are either brick in the colonial style or clapboard. Most have been restored and look lovingly tended. A lot of the back streets are very leafy and people look after their vegetation, with lots of pots and window boxes.
We walk past the Hammond-Harwood Home, a house that Thomas Jefferson described as having ‘the most beautiful doorway in America”. All I can say is he didn’t see very many!
As we are walking to Chick and Ruth’s Delly for lunch, we hear Ann calling us – she has left Terry wandering about the Hammond-Harwood House and gone off alone, so we all go up to the diner together.
Now apparently Chick and Ruth’s Delly is a bit of an Annapolis institution, especially if you are partial to crab cakes, which I am. In fact, it’s known as Crab Cake Central and its crab cakes are shipped all over the US. It has also featured in the TV programme “Man Vs Food” and when we look at the menu it’s not hard to see why. There are sandwiches available with 3lbs meat in them and 6 lb shakes – 6 lb! In the programme the presenter managed to win the challenge by drinking a 6 lb vanilla milkshake and eating a 1.5 lb sandwich of turkey and corned beef in under an hour. Gross!
We go for something lighter – Mike and I have Eggs Benedict with jumbo lump crab meat (and fried potatoes) and Ann goes even lighter with a salad. We decide not to wait for Terry as he can get waylaid when his camera is out (even worse than me), which is just as well as he turns up half an hour later having been given a very enthusiastic tour of the house which over ran. He gets the same as Mike and I on our recommendation.
You can buy their half-pound crab cakes to take home and we decide to go back later to get some.
After a delicious lunch we all go over to the USNA (the naval academy) but as Ann and Terry have no photo IDs on them, we once again have to split up. To be honest, with all the security that abounds in the country now, I’m really surprised that we are allowed somewhere like this at all. They don’t even scan our bags even though the machine is there and waiting. We are just waved in by a bored looking job’s worth type who isn’t at all bothered by the 20 year old picture on my driver’s licence (long story).
Mike and I enter the huge campus, most of which looks like it has taken French chateaux as its design influence. The buildings are beautiful and the 338-acre grounds are beautiful and well tended. This naval academy has grown since 1847 when it was founded as the Naval School for 50 students and now has around 4500 midshipmen.
As we walk around, I hope to see battalions of fit young men jogging around singing “I don’t know but I’ve been told” etc and being insulted by their drill sergeants but I only see a few wandering around in very well pressed uniforms. I was expecting to see Richard Gere lookalikes a la ‘Officer and a Gentleman’ fame so I’m a bit disappointed.
As we walk back to the exit, I hear the sound of bagpipes and we follow it to find hundreds of midshipmen assembled ready for marching. There are also about 3 different bands playing different music which sounds more than a little jarring. The all of a sudden they stop and two lone drummers come and stand right by us and to their beat, all the midshipmen march in their squadrons past us and up the road. It takes almost 20 minutes for them all to go by and I film it all, or at least I think I do but I discover later that I pressed the video button once too often and turn it off again, so I’ve managed to film about 5 seconds of them and a bit of the floor. Such a professional! Maybe it’s just as well. They don’t look too professional and can hardly march in step. Maybe these were first years but they do need a lot more practise. All I have is a crap photo of them disappearing into the distance, white hats bobbing.
We leave to meet Ann and Terry at the dinghy dock and go back to the boat. We watch a fleet of kids in a race, all frantically rocking their boats from side to side in an effort to fill the sails as there is little wind. As they go past they some of them notice the Ensign and one little chap exclaims “Cool, that boat’s from Liverpool”, then I hear another one shout “is that a turtle?” I look over to where he is watching and there is something definitely moving in the water. Mike looks and says it looks like a crocodile but as far as I know there are no salties around here. While he goes off to get the binoculars we keep our eyes on it and when he comes back and takes a closer look he says it’s definitely a crocodile and can see the man operating it with a remote control. As he says this a guy on the dock leans over and picks up the crocodile head, laying his remote on the ground beside him. Why would a grown man be playing with a remote controlled crocodile head? Weird!
We had been expecting to hear from Jim, captain of Ocean Jasper on the WARC Rally, to arrange to meet up this afternoon/evening. When no call came during the day, I begin to wonder whether I have given him the wrong number – I have a track record of typing e-mail addresses wrong so why not telephone numbers. My fears are confirmed when we check our e-mail and find one from Jim saying he’s been trying to get me. Luckily, in a screwy sort of way, he hadn’t been able to get his car started after two weeks away (not like my 14-year old Mazda then which started first time after 18 months of being left outside!) so he couldn’t have come out to play anyway. We arrange to meet another day.
Ann and Terry had stopped for ice cream while they were out and after the big lunch, Mike and I don’t fancy any dinner but decide there is room for a serving of ice cream, and head back to town in the dinghy. We have no idea what time the shop shuts and one guy calls out that we look like we are doing some sort of military parade as we walk in time with each other as quickly as our little legs will carry us up the hill to the furthest away ice cream shop. It’s still open so we choose and then walk slowly down the hill again. I like American ice-cream. You get huge portions – a double scoop is like a half litre tub!
God, I’ve got to go on a diet!!!
Tomorrow we leave for St Michaels, just over on the east coast of the Chesapeake Bay.
Position: 38 deg 58 min N, 76 deg 28 min W
Distance so far: 2609 miles
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