We are in Annapolis for a few days

We departed on Monday from Oriental and followed the Intercoastal Waterway north. We anchored out in a beautiful and isolated cove on the Alligator River (N 35 40 05.5 W 76 00 57.4).

Tuesday morning we continued to follow the ICW to VA and went through some heavy rain showers. It turns out, I love rainshowers when we are underway, it cools things off and keeps the boat clean. Once we got up into the Virginia section of the waterway we had to pass through swing bridge after draw bridge after lift bridge...it was rush hour traffic, so we had to wait a while for each of the bridges to open. We just passed through the Great Bridge Lock at their last opening for recreational boaters - 7pm. We went ahead and decided to anchor right after the lock in a convenient sidewater (N36 43 32.4 W76 15 52.7)...it was perfect, calm and deep. However, at about midnight we were awakened by a tug boat with a barge, honking a deafening horn at us and lighting up the entire sky and our boat with their work lights...turns out that lovely sidewater leads to a quarry and there wasn't enough room in there for the both of us. We jumped out of bed, pulled up the anchor and started to make our way in the night. About a mile along the ICW, the tug came along and told us about a good anchorage for us; he said this happened all the time since it was such a nice deep creek right at the Lock. We passed through another draw bridge together (he is commercial traffic, so no waiting) and we anchored right by the bridge (N36 44 12.1 W76 17 48.0). We were surprised to find it only took us 30 minutes to wake up, weigh anchor, make our way down the ICW in the dark, pass through a bridge and drop anchor again. I was embarrassed by the whole situation, but Reinhart was thrilled with how well we ended up handling it.

Wednesday morning we headed on up the ICW and were surprised by the number of bridges we had to go through. The ICW between the Lock and the Norfolk is densely commercial and it is a really interesting ride, we felt out of place as recreational boaters floating through this extremely hardworking section of the ICW. We were often chaperoned through this narrow channel when we were passing naval ships in workyards. I loved spilling out into the Elizabeth River and seeing Norfolk...it is just so huge and lovely from the water. We decided at this point just to make our way straight through the Chesapeake Bay to Annapolis (another 20 hours). We sailed together during the day but went to watches overnight...we had following seas all night, so it was a rocky ride, but pretty uneventful; we were only passed by one huge containership which rocked Maia a little more than usual.

We arrived in Annapolis at 10 am on Thursday and anchored in Spa Creek (N 38 58 11.9 W 76 30 04.4). Its a very nice spot, very close to a dinghy dock and we have free wireless available. As usual, I feel like we've infringed on the privacy of our neighbors by anchoring a bit close, but Reinhart said it is fine. I felt better after the homeowners we are anchored near came out and welcomed us to their creek. We plan to stay here for several days before we head north offshore. Its hot as the blazes here, so Reinhart and I are going to dinghy to shoreand bike into town for ice cream.