A social weekend in Annapolis

Our Happy Hour on Friday night lasted into the wee hours; it’s a fantastic crowd of liveaboards and land dwellers and everything in between. We got to meet the owner of one of our favorite boats, a Hallberg Rassy named Cracker Jack and we got to meet another one of the “Caliber couples” who is working for the boat show. Caliber isn’t a well known brand in the outside world; however, I am leaning, in the cruising community, we are like a cult. The owners of Aurora invited us to a Caliber rendezvous on Saturday south of Annapolis. So on Saturday morning we sailed down a wild Chesapeake in a small craft warning to the Harness Creek off of South River and anchored for the night right off the park where the picnic was held (N38 56.344 W76 30.663). There were 7 Calibers there for the fall rendezvous and many other people who drove to the party. It was a great time and we got lots of tips from folks who have been cruising for years. The advice isn’t always the same and equipment debates sparked up quickly. Later on that evening, 14 of us met on Paul & Joyce Wheelers’ boat, “Time”, for drinks and snacks and chatted the evening away (picture shown). It was nice to see the folks from “Eclipse” again since we parked ourselves on their boat during the rain showers at last year’s boat show. We met lots of great folks but we were particularly fond of Matthew and Gail Jenkins on “Alisios”, who we hope to see again. We actually checked their Caliber out pretty closely on Sunday morning when they invited us over for coffee.

We decided to get back to the dock on Sunday afternoon and had a nice fast downwind sail back to Annapolis (N38 57.979 W76 29.014). Our dock owner was there when we got in and we toured his Caliber and got more ideas and advice for cruising the Caribbean. So our first weekend in Annapolis found us surrounded by Caliber yachts and folks rich with southern cruising experience; if it keeps on going like this we are going to need a nap when we leave Maryland!