5-31-17 Annapolis Naval Academy

June 6, 2017 karen@scottandkarensgreatloopadventure.com

We picked up a mooring ball in Annapolis. This city knows how to get boaters to come into town. At the end of each street is a nice floating dinghy dock. However, the Harbormaster Company that runs the mooring balls has less than ideal facilities.

I have to share my shower story. We had been at anchor for quite a long time and taking a long hot shower sounded so good. Plus we needed to do laundry. There were two washers and driers one in the mens and one in the ladies. Dumb. I go to the shower and it says “out of order, see the dockmaster”. I was told they have a handicap shower they can let me into. The dock hand takes me to the shower. First thing I see is a bank of lockers and the usual posters you see in an employee area. The shower stall was in the employee area. He said just bolt the door and you will be fine. First, there is no shower curtain…brrrr. Second it’s filthy….keep the shoes on, Third the hand held shower head only had one spot on the wall to hang from….belly button level. I almost ran out screaming, but Scott had already started laundry in the men’s room and started to shower, so I had no way to contact him and didn’t want to wait for an hour for him. I bit the bullet, was careful to not touch anything and took the most unsatisfying shower of my life. To add to the specialness, as I was standing there naked, a male employee opened the door with his key. Luckily he yell “is anyone in here” before he came waltzing in. Ahhh life on a boat.

Why is there a huge fender under the handicap sink?

All I can say is EEEWWW. Don’t touch anything!

The sign on the washer states that the management uses these washer. Although they fun two load of soap and bleach after they use them, they cannot guarantee sterility. Not putting my clothes in there!

Met up with many Looper friends in Annapolis. Great fun!

The next day was much better, we went to the Naval Academy. Scott’s Dad (Nat DeVoll) graduated from there. Fun fact. He was in the Air Force, but they didn’t have the Air Force Academy yet.

The Chapel was stunning. It was amazing how they had a separate area for the religions such as Greek Orthodox, Muslim, etc.

The stained glass on at the altar was done by Tiffany. Beautiful!

There were two large windows on each side of the sanctuary that were done by Gorham. Impressive!

This pipe organ is huge. I can’t remember the details, but it a very special one. The pipes were all around the sanctuary.

I have never seen such an exquisite casket entombment before. Wow!

This is a bust of John Paul Jones. After he had it done, he decided he was a pretty good looking guy and had several more made.

The museum main floor was filled with interesting items and history, but the upper lever took our breath away. When large ships were made, a to-scale-model was also made. It often took as long to make the model as the ship. I have way too many pictures, but will share a few so you can get the glimpse of detail and craftsmanship that went into each of these beauties. Many originated in England, but someone went over and bought many of them up. They have all been cleaned and repaired if needed and are on display at the Naval Academy. There was another area of model ships that were all made of leftover bones from the meals of French Prisoners. These are not made to scale but from the prisoners memory. They are so beautifully done.

There were several displays of metals.This display was all from one man.

This is my favorite model. All made of bone and fabric

You can see some of the detail put into the bow Look closely there is a girl riding a horse as the figurehead.

This tells about the Ship Victory in the next photo

These intricate carvings are made of bone.

Look at the detail the artists put into this bow.

I hope you can read this about flag “Don’t give up the ship”

This flag is still in existence from 1813. Amazing.

After the Naval Academy we were hungry so we went to Chick and Ruth’s Delly. Yes, that is how it is spelled. We heard they say the pledge of allegiance at 8:00 every morning. There was pictures and saying that made it a very patriotic place. The food was delicious.

Now that’s a milkshake. The whole table couldn’t finish it.

Annapolis State Capitol building. We never got inside. Next time.

That was our day in Annapolis. Next….Washington DC

Thanks for reading.

Karen and Scott

Unique Random Photo of the Day:

5-28-17 to 5-29-17 St. Michaels One of Our Favorite Places

June 4, 2017 karen@scottandkarensgreatloopadventure.com

5-28-17 to 5-29-17 St. Michaels One of Our Favorite Places

We heard about St. Michaels from Cathy and Michael on Trawler Life. We were unsure if it was worth crossing the Bay to go there, but they assured us it would be. We pulled into the anchorage on the Saturday of Memorial Weekend. Once again expecting a zoo and having a difficult time finding enough room to anchor but there was plenty of room and we anchored easily near our friends, Karen and Mark on Captain’s Choice and Maria and Mike on Aquafennatic. We hadn’t seen them in a long time. We went into town to do “towntails” and dinner. We had so much fun catching up with them.

The town of St. Michaels is just the right mix of quaint bay town, fishing town, and tourist town. Classy little shops, lots of small restaurants, a nice size marina and a totally amazing Maritime Museum is what we found and were pleased. Trawler Life was right.

This summed up the feel of St. Michaels.

Saw this in a shop window. It is made of some sort of vine.

It is always so sad to see older wooden boats like this. I think “Scott could save it and restore it back to new”

We had just done the Maritime Museum in Solomon’s Island, and were unsure if we were going to see all the same stuff at another Maritime Museum. Oh no no no. They were very different and so glad we went to both. We spent many hours there and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The lighthouse families collected fresh water off of the roof and stored in these barrels. We saw several of them throughout the lighthouse.

Stunning! We actually saw it in Virginia and now it is here. It is restored to perfection.

There was whole building dedicated to Oystering. This is the bow of the Oyster boat they had in the building.

Can’t you imagine the sailor in his raincoat at the helm.

The Oyster Boats had these small boats towed behind the big boats. Their job was to free the big boat when they went aground.

Once the Oysters were shucked they were packed in tins that sat inside these barrels with ice around them.

They had an impressive collection of Oyster cans.

There is a boat building technique where they used logs. This is the bottom of a salvaged boat. You can see the size of the timbers they are using to rebuild the rest of it. Now that is a project boat!

The sawmill is right on the grounds to cut the large timber.

The building that impressed me the most was the Waterfowl Hunting exhibit. I had no idea there were such things as Punt Guns. Check it out.

These are punt guns. They shot a huge amount of shot to maximize take down of birds.

You can get a better idea of the size of these guns when you see them in the boat.

These are Battery Guns. Multiple shots at one time to take down more birds.

Believe it or not this is a boat. It is a type of Layout Boat. The hunter would lay down in the boat so the ducks couldn’t see him.

What an impressive display of decoys . This is only a small section of the display.

How appropriate that these ducks were hanging close by the Fowl exhibit.

We saw these geese with their goslings in Virginia.

It was a nice sunny day so the snakes were out on top of the grass soaking up the heat. These three were all snuggled together to maximize their heat. I am usually snake phobic, but these guys intrigued me.

We learned a bit about the local crab business today. There was a dock close to town, one side for dinghies and one side for crab boats. There were two crab boats there so of course, I am always curious and like to talk to the locals. I told them we were from Michigan and asked about their fishing. They were catching Blue Crabs. Both Captains groused about the poor numbers they are getting. The one boat only had one and a half bushels. Must be hard to make a living off that. They said it has been steadily declining over the years. They were re-doing their bait bags for the next day. Instead of traps, they run a “Trot Line” They have a red float they hook-up one end of a line. Then all along the line are these little bags with small clams in them that drops to the bottom. The other end is hooked to another red jug. They pull up the line and the crabs stay attached to the sack and they pick them off. They refill the sacks and put them back out for the next morning. So, boater friends if you see two red jugs don’t anchor between them. You not only will get you ground tackle caught in it, but you will probably have an angry crabber in the morning. Oh the things we have learned on this trip. It’s all little stuff, but all so interesting.

These salts were filling the mesh bags with a certain kind of clam. He said it is crack to the crabs.

We met on Aquafennatic after dinner to share information. Both of the other boats have done Canada and Mike and Maria are from Canada. They shared a some canadian wisdom with us. We made some tentative plans for Annapolis. We originally were going to skip DC, but then realized we could take a bus there from Annapolis a lot cheaper than taking our boat. So how do you see DC in one day. Well like the rest of this trip, you see what you can and are thankful for God gives you each day and you move on. It helps to know there is a new adventure just a trip on the water away.

Thank you for reading,

Scott and Karen

Unique Random Photo of The Day:

Love this boat name and the graphics they used.

5-25-17 Solomon’s Island on the Chesapeake Bay

June 3, 2017 karen@scottandkarensgreatloopadventure.com 2 Comments

5-25-17 Solomon’s Island on the Chesapeake Bay

The Chesapeake is a huge body of water. It has many tributaries coming into the bay making the shoreline very ragged. That means there are lots of places up each tributary to explore. On Lake Michigan, along the coast, it is more town to town and easier to plan. But the Chesapeake has so much, you don’t know where to start. This is where fellow Loopers help you out with spots they have either been to or have heard from other boaters. It’s a wonderful network.

We wondered why the war ship wasn’t moving. Thanks to our chart we learned it is a Target hip. Hope we are not in the line of fire.

We met up with some friends, Pat and Cathy on Southern Cross, and Colleen and Dave on Moon Shadow. We crossed the Gulf of Mexico with both of them. We hadn’t seen them for quite a while. We did docktails on Southern Cross. It was so good to catch up with them. It still amazes me how many nice people we have met and continue to meet. There is an instant bond. We may not see each other for months, but are so happy to meet again. Love the people on this trip!

I tried a raw oyster again. The jury is still out.

We did a lot of anchoring in some really beautiful spots on our way to Solomon’s Island. We arrived the Friday of Memorial Day weekend expecting a zoo. We easily found an anchorage right in the harbor. The boaters were respectful with their wakes and it was an easy dinghy ride to everywhere you wanted to go. It was nice to have multiple access by dinghy. We went to the Maritime Museum. We got a lot more than we expected. It was a great museum.

This is our view from our anchorage. Pretty classy.

They took the woody out of the boat house right after I took the above picture. She’s beautiful.

Drum Island Lighthouse was move to Solomon Islands as the centerpiece of the Maritime Museum

Families lived inside the lighthouse. Here is the kitchen

This is the mechanism to ring the bell. Can you imagine listening to that bell dinging constantly.

This cracked us up. A bare lightbulb in this beautiful Fresnel lens.

We found it interesting that they were concerned with the lenses causing fires from the sunlight back in the day, but yet they were left uncovered during the day now. Hmmm

View of boats that have been restored from up in the lighthouse.

This is a Chapel Boat. A minister found the boat and added the top onto it. Half was a Chapel and half was a berth. They are working on stabilizing the hull. It has many big crack in the structure from sitting so many year.

There was a whole shed filled with old boats of all types. They are in their original state. It was interesting to see some that had not been restored.

This is a paddle boat. Funny that they painted it to look like a fast boat.

The museum had some live exhibits. The darker one is a Skate and the lighterone is a Sting Ray. Skates have fatter and shorter tails. They do not have a barb to sting with. This is what come out of the black “Mermaid Purses” Sting Rays have a long thin tail with a barb for stinging.

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Click this image_1192 to see a baby Skate climbing on the aquarium wall. What a funny face.

They had a hands on feature with turtles, Crabs, Starfish, etc.

The attendant turned over the Horseshoe Crab so we could see and touch it’s legs.

The Otter exhibit was one of our favorites. This is Bubbles and Squeak. Scott says he wants to be reincarnated as an Otter.

Megalodon tooth. Prehistoric Shark. By the size of this tooth you can imagine the size of these monsters. Glad they are extinct.

I admire people with the skill to do this art.

This is an impressive board displaying knots.

After many hours at the museum, we were starved. The decision for lunch was easy….Famous Maryland crab cakes. We went to the Lighthouse Restaurant and were not disappointed. We even got a bonus. Smith Cake! Cathy heard about Smith Cake that is famous from Smith Island. She had been asking every restaurant they have been to on the Chesapeake if they had it. Finally she found it at Lighthouse Restaurant and told us about it. It is nine thin delicious layer of cake. We split a piece and ate every bite. We were stuffed after that. It is hard to find, because it is so labor intensive to make. Restaurants don’t want to deal with it. We also felt fulfilled that we got to eat a hard-to-find local treat.