Voyage 2002-2003: Chapter 1

10 Jul 2002, Practice and Testing Continuing, 38 58.535 N/ 076 28.922 W

Tuesday night brought lightning, thunder, and a very scared Levi. The storm didn't lower the heat much. Still terribly hot. Early the next morning, we took the kids to shore and then headed for Annapolis to pick up a mooring. We arrived there around 1400. The wind was in our face (10-15 NNE) most of the way so the best we could do was some motorsailing. Ann picked up the mooring on the first try. We then rigged the plank, lowered the dinghy engine, and scoped out candidate landings for the kids. Grass is scarce in old town Annapolis but we found enough to satisfy Levi and Gina.

Wednesday is sailboat racing day. We saw hundreds of boats racing or practicing to race as we entered Annapolis.Keeps you on your toes. We didn't know it at the time, but the Wednesday night races included the mooring field as their downwind leg. We had boats all around us. Some said 'hi' while others were too focused to even notice our waves. Quite entertaining. Later that night, the cold air mass entered the area with a blow (reportedly gusts to 50 kts). We did fine but it did keep us awake for awhile. We stayed the next day and just 'chilled'.

13 Jul 2002, Practicing and Testing (concl), 38 43.529 N/ 076 32.599 W

Friday morning, we took the kids to Market Square for their last potty break. The folks around town were always helpful when we were unloading and loading the puppies. At 1000, we dropped our mooring and headed back to HHS. The winds were (a), favorable, (b) blowing like stink, or (c) no existent. The answer is (c). We were hoping for some fairly heavy wind to hone our weather skills. We haven't experienced much wind this year. Arrived at HHS at 1400. Things are looking up. Nothing broke. Well, almost nothing. We are having problem with one of the cockpit speakers (keeps us company on night sails) and found a crack in one of the bases of the stern pulpit. We hope to have both fixed by in a week or two. For the next several months we plan to practice our docking and sailing drills (man overboard, heaving to, multiple anchoring, etc.) We will not put this trivia in the journal. Rather our next journal update will be in September as we begin provisioning for Voyage 2002. See you then!