When last we left you on Thursday, we had stopped over in Oriental for a fix…yes, we are internet junkies, and we need our e-mail. From Oriental we headed down the ICW and out the Beaufort Inlet. We were trying to take it slow, but the current was with us and we screamed down the waterway at 8 knots; so we needed to take it slow out on the ocean. The winds wanted to take us slower than necessary though, so we ended up motoring our way down in order to come in to the Masonboro Inlet at sunrise on Friday morning. It was another 4.5 hour motor down from the inlet to Southport, NC, where we pulled into the marina where my sister and brother-in-law keep their boat, the South Harbor Village Marina (N33 55.240 W78 03.643). We have no wireless once again, but we can hook up to cable TV at this dock! We decided to stay for Friday and Saturday nights with plans to move to the anchorage nearby on Sunday afternoon.
What a treat, the whole family was there. Kevin came and stayed with us, Mom & Dad stayed at the beach house, and Lori & Chuck made it down to their boat as well with 2 very excited and happy dogs in tow. I hope we didn’t overwhelm Kevin with a highly-condensed family weekend, when he was just looking for a little private time. He had a pretty overwhelming first night as well, with the winds gusting to 40 knots and keeping us at a hard lean on our dock all night long. Now, I am again really hoping we make it to California with the boat in 2007, so we can come visit him on his coast. He warned us that the Pacific has quite the reputation for rough water and said he’d rather visit us in a Caribbean port just in case we end up choosing not to cross over to the Pacific; so we’ll see him in Spring over on this side of the continent no matter what we decide for later in the year.
We thought we’d move over to an anchorage after Kevin left, but it was so nice to visit with family while in a Marina that we decided to stay for Sunday and Monday night as well to get a little more time in with Lori & Chuck and Mom & Dad.
We’ll be heading south to Charleston, SC at noon on Tuesday for a Wednesday morning arrival. We never got the biometrics appointment for Reinhart, so now he’s had get a special appointment for approval to leave the US in December. They made the appointment for November 14, so we’ll have the boat in a secure place by then where it will stay for 6 weeks. We’ll probably be going back and forth between the 15th and Thanksgiving to do some work on the boat. Hopefully, we’ll have wireless in Charleston and can update you then.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Back in NC…is it usually this cold in October?
First up: Happy Birthday to Kris Buttenberg!
No letter came, so we went. We left Annapolis on a windy Monday morning and planned to sail through the night and the next day to NC where we would start anchoring at night again. We spent all of that time in Annapolis and never really checked out the Chesapeake, which holds a lifetime of anchorages and coastal towns…maybe next year. The forecast had promised NW winds 20-25 knots with gusts up to 30 knots and we were excited about finally having good sailing weather (also known as a small craft warning) and we ended up having an excellent broad reach down the Chesapeake in consistent 25 knot winds with gusts up to near 40 knots. The only problem with this is it got us to the Hampton Roads/Norfolk metropolitan area a couple of hours earlier than expected, and since it is still dark at 5 am, I had a hard time picking out our markers with all of the lights on land. Luckily our brand spanking new GPS chart plotter made easy work of all of it. We hit the first of many south-of-Norfolk bridges at 7:15 am which meant it didn’t open until after rush hour at 8:30 am and this started our 5 hours of waiting on the Virginia ICW bridges. The first bridge tender also let us know that the Coast Guard didn’t allow sails up on the Virginia portion of the ICW, so it was motoring from then on. We were in a big pack of 11 power boats and 5 sailboats that waited at each bridge and entered the Great Lock together; I believe we were riding along with the “snow birds” who are making their way from the north to Florida now that hurricane season will soon be over. We found a lovely anchorage off the Broad Creek on the North River, just north of the Albemarle Sound. This creek is wide and deep (enough) and completely undeveloped…how nice! Our coordinates are N36 12.166 W75 57.715; if any of you have been google-ing our coordinates, these should bring you to a different type of anchorage than you’ve seen with us since we left NC. Of course with the seclusion comes no wireless internet access, but our phone has a great signal.
Have I mentioned how cold it is? Its amazing how 50 degrees while sailing can feel just like skiing at 30 degrees; and the 30 degrees while sailing overnight felt downright artic. I know we’ve told people we like our weather on the cold side, but this would be far more comfortable with our cockpit enclosed; which we are looking into. Now I understand why so many of the cruisers were getting eager to get south quickly. While we were in Annapolis we were researching our heating options, since it is not possible to run our air conditioning/heating at anchor for long. The first idea was to install a diesel heating system which would cost about $3000 - $4000…it would keep us cozy warm, but that’s pretty high just for heat. Then we thought about a diesel generator; it cost even more, but it could run anything on the boat at any time. Then we thought about buying just a portable gasoline generator (Honda 2000); its only $1000 and it could run just about anything. Then we came to our final answer; the solar panels can handle all of our energy needs except for heat and air, so we just bought a portable propane heater for less than one hundred at the hardware store. An added bonus: it looks like a freaky little fireplace. Reinhart has already burned some of the hair off his legs.
We left our unspoiled hideaway (and nicely warmed cabin) on a cold Wednesday morning to continue our trip south. I spoke with my brother, Kevin, during the trip and he said he we love to meet us in Southport, NC this coming weekend, so that is our new plan; we should be there before noon on Friday. We did decide to anchor one more night on the way down and pulled into a lovely spot just south of Belhaven, NC on Pungo Creek (N35 30.861 W76 38.609). The shoreline is dotted with lovely homes and none of them have wireless AND we don’t have a phone signal; too bad, we really wanted to call my parents, and Kevin, and Emily, and Kris, and Arne & Bev. We can always think of a multitude of folks to call when there’s no signal!
We weighed anchor earlier than necessary on Thursday morning; we are heading down the ICW and out the Beaufort inlet, but I don’t want to start entering the Masonboro inlet (near Wilmington, NC) until sunrise on Friday, so we’ll have to slow ourselves down a bit. To make the schedule better, we are stopping by Oriental to kill a little time, have lunch, eat some ice cream at The Bean, and publish this blog. Have a great weekend, and we’ll catch up with you in Southport.
No letter came, so we went. We left Annapolis on a windy Monday morning and planned to sail through the night and the next day to NC where we would start anchoring at night again. We spent all of that time in Annapolis and never really checked out the Chesapeake, which holds a lifetime of anchorages and coastal towns…maybe next year. The forecast had promised NW winds 20-25 knots with gusts up to 30 knots and we were excited about finally having good sailing weather (also known as a small craft warning) and we ended up having an excellent broad reach down the Chesapeake in consistent 25 knot winds with gusts up to near 40 knots. The only problem with this is it got us to the Hampton Roads/Norfolk metropolitan area a couple of hours earlier than expected, and since it is still dark at 5 am, I had a hard time picking out our markers with all of the lights on land. Luckily our brand spanking new GPS chart plotter made easy work of all of it. We hit the first of many south-of-Norfolk bridges at 7:15 am which meant it didn’t open until after rush hour at 8:30 am and this started our 5 hours of waiting on the Virginia ICW bridges. The first bridge tender also let us know that the Coast Guard didn’t allow sails up on the Virginia portion of the ICW, so it was motoring from then on. We were in a big pack of 11 power boats and 5 sailboats that waited at each bridge and entered the Great Lock together; I believe we were riding along with the “snow birds” who are making their way from the north to Florida now that hurricane season will soon be over. We found a lovely anchorage off the Broad Creek on the North River, just north of the Albemarle Sound. This creek is wide and deep (enough) and completely undeveloped…how nice! Our coordinates are N36 12.166 W75 57.715; if any of you have been google-ing our coordinates, these should bring you to a different type of anchorage than you’ve seen with us since we left NC. Of course with the seclusion comes no wireless internet access, but our phone has a great signal.
Have I mentioned how cold it is? Its amazing how 50 degrees while sailing can feel just like skiing at 30 degrees; and the 30 degrees while sailing overnight felt downright artic. I know we’ve told people we like our weather on the cold side, but this would be far more comfortable with our cockpit enclosed; which we are looking into. Now I understand why so many of the cruisers were getting eager to get south quickly. While we were in Annapolis we were researching our heating options, since it is not possible to run our air conditioning/heating at anchor for long. The first idea was to install a diesel heating system which would cost about $3000 - $4000…it would keep us cozy warm, but that’s pretty high just for heat. Then we thought about a diesel generator; it cost even more, but it could run anything on the boat at any time. Then we thought about buying just a portable gasoline generator (Honda 2000); its only $1000 and it could run just about anything. Then we came to our final answer; the solar panels can handle all of our energy needs except for heat and air, so we just bought a portable propane heater for less than one hundred at the hardware store. An added bonus: it looks like a freaky little fireplace. Reinhart has already burned some of the hair off his legs.
We left our unspoiled hideaway (and nicely warmed cabin) on a cold Wednesday morning to continue our trip south. I spoke with my brother, Kevin, during the trip and he said he we love to meet us in Southport, NC this coming weekend, so that is our new plan; we should be there before noon on Friday. We did decide to anchor one more night on the way down and pulled into a lovely spot just south of Belhaven, NC on Pungo Creek (N35 30.861 W76 38.609). The shoreline is dotted with lovely homes and none of them have wireless AND we don’t have a phone signal; too bad, we really wanted to call my parents, and Kevin, and Emily, and Kris, and Arne & Bev. We can always think of a multitude of folks to call when there’s no signal!
We weighed anchor earlier than necessary on Thursday morning; we are heading down the ICW and out the Beaufort inlet, but I don’t want to start entering the Masonboro inlet (near Wilmington, NC) until sunrise on Friday, so we’ll have to slow ourselves down a bit. To make the schedule better, we are stopping by Oriental to kill a little time, have lunch, eat some ice cream at The Bean, and publish this blog. Have a great weekend, and we’ll catch up with you in Southport.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
We are outta here! (but where are we going?)
Most folks don’t know this, but we’ve been waiting on a letter from the government letting Reinhart know when his biometrics appointment with the INS in Charlotte will be. He had requested Oct 23-25 hoping that we could leave the boat at the dock here in Annapolis, rent a car, and drive to Charlotte for a couple of days, then come back and resume our trip. We haven’t received the letter yet, or more accurately, Emily hasn’t received it in Greensboro, and now we are trying to make up our minds what we are going to do over the next few weeks.
The best thing for us would be if that letter shows up by Saturday…but that is looking doubtful. If the letter hasn’t surfaced, we’ll just go ahead and start heading south in the next several days, depending on the weather. It turns out there is a large meeting called the Southbound Cruisers Rendezvous in New Bern, NC from Oct 25-29; it looks like it presents a wealth of info for us; we probably couldn’t get there by Wednesday, but maybe Thursday or Friday. It would be fun to hang out in our home waters for a few days. Of course, we’d been hoping to go to Charleston before we stopped for the holidays and maybe we should just head straight there and get a little more offshore experience under our belts…heck, maybe we should just leave the boat down there for the holidays. We could even stop at Southport on the way down and see if anyone in the family would like to meet up there. We are also looking for someone to install an enclosure for our cockpit (so we can stay warm and dry no matter where we are) and if we find someone to do it, that will dictate where we are for a week or so.
We aren’t getting any better at making decisions; can you imagine how indecisive we are going to be when it comes to making up our minds about which islands we are going to visit. A little info on that: every cruiser we meet says we shouldn’t bother too much with the Caribbean and should just go to the Bahamas because they think it’s cheaper, the water is nicer, and the snorkeling is better. But most of this crowd doesn’t like long overnight passages either, so it makes sense they would prefer the areas that don’t require days at sea. We’d been pretty much in agreement that we didn’t want to go to the Bahamas, but now that we’ve looked at the charts a little closer and seen how many islands and cays there are, it is starting to look more attractive. There are so many other pros and cons to doing one or the other, or both; we just have to make up our minds by New Years!
I believe this is our last post from Annapolis (unless the weather keeps us here a few more days than expected); so I guess you'll all find out where we decided to go the next time we post.
The best thing for us would be if that letter shows up by Saturday…but that is looking doubtful. If the letter hasn’t surfaced, we’ll just go ahead and start heading south in the next several days, depending on the weather. It turns out there is a large meeting called the Southbound Cruisers Rendezvous in New Bern, NC from Oct 25-29; it looks like it presents a wealth of info for us; we probably couldn’t get there by Wednesday, but maybe Thursday or Friday. It would be fun to hang out in our home waters for a few days. Of course, we’d been hoping to go to Charleston before we stopped for the holidays and maybe we should just head straight there and get a little more offshore experience under our belts…heck, maybe we should just leave the boat down there for the holidays. We could even stop at Southport on the way down and see if anyone in the family would like to meet up there. We are also looking for someone to install an enclosure for our cockpit (so we can stay warm and dry no matter where we are) and if we find someone to do it, that will dictate where we are for a week or so.
We aren’t getting any better at making decisions; can you imagine how indecisive we are going to be when it comes to making up our minds about which islands we are going to visit. A little info on that: every cruiser we meet says we shouldn’t bother too much with the Caribbean and should just go to the Bahamas because they think it’s cheaper, the water is nicer, and the snorkeling is better. But most of this crowd doesn’t like long overnight passages either, so it makes sense they would prefer the areas that don’t require days at sea. We’d been pretty much in agreement that we didn’t want to go to the Bahamas, but now that we’ve looked at the charts a little closer and seen how many islands and cays there are, it is starting to look more attractive. There are so many other pros and cons to doing one or the other, or both; we just have to make up our minds by New Years!
I believe this is our last post from Annapolis (unless the weather keeps us here a few more days than expected); so I guess you'll all find out where we decided to go the next time we post.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The Wind-Down
By the time the Annapolis Power Boat Show was in full swing, we were getting a little burned out on the whole experience. There is definitely a different feeling with the powerboat show; it’s far more aggressive and masculine, while the sailboat show is easier going and light hearted. The crowd was not nearly as international as the sailboat show’s was; however, it was far more diverse. The powerboat show was more boat driven, while the sailboat show seems equally driven by the boats and the boat “stuff”. We did hop on a few spectacular boats; the Aicon 64, the Ferretti 55, and the Azimut 55 represented the opulent luxury of Italian yachts, and we finally got to tour a NC made Hatteras yacht and were impressed with its quality and elegance. Nothing compared with the Nordhavn 64 for us, though; it isn’t a yacht, it is a ship. When we finally got onboard the Nordhavn, the only person available to show it to us was the captain, and he spoke with us as if we were captains who were also considering taking positions on an owner’s Nordhavn. We ended up getting one of the most technical and informative tours we’ve ever gotten in a boat show. I actually left the two of them in the engine room and headed back to work after a while.
Once the horns finally signaled the end of the show on Sunday night, everyone was ready for it to be over. Some vendors had been there for 2 weeks and were just as burned out as all of the staff was. We didn’t do too much work on Sunday night, but we were all there at 6:30 am on Monday morning turning the boat show back into the Annapolis waterfront. We broke down all of the tents and gathered up all of the signs and temporary buildings and took them to a central parking lot in front of the harbormaster’s office, where everything was organized, placed on pallets, and put on tractor trailers to take to “site X”, a holding area about 3 miles from the show grounds. I was really surprised how fast it went, and at 8pm they let most of the staff go for good. They only have a small crew finishing up Tuesday, which includes Reinhart but not me. They’ll be taking out the last of the floors and moving the 8 trailers which made up the boat show office complex. Both of us will be working Wednesday through Friday, though; making sure everything at “site X” is packed up properly and moving it from “site X” to its actual storage area 25 miles from Annapolis.
They are throwing a dinner for all of us on Thursday night and we are really looking forward to that. Some of the cruisers will be heading south before that though, so there will be a pre-party Tuesday night. It seems funny that folks with such casual existences as cruisers can’t wait another day or two for the party; however, lots of these folks are at anchor and these nights in the 30s are getting old. I expect the ICW will be crowded with sailboats headed for Florida in the next week! We still haven’t made up our minds when we are leaving; it is almost like leaving home again, since we have spent half of our time in Annapolis since leaving the triad. It will be sad, but it will be great to get back on the water again…then we’ll get to see how cold it actually is since we won’t be hooked up to shore power again. Everyone here has been trying to convince us to buy a generator before we leave though, and we might actually do that…but we are also interested in a satellite phone and a spinnaker, and at some point we have to make some tough choices.
We’ll let you know when we decide to leave and where we are going from here in a few days.
Once the horns finally signaled the end of the show on Sunday night, everyone was ready for it to be over. Some vendors had been there for 2 weeks and were just as burned out as all of the staff was. We didn’t do too much work on Sunday night, but we were all there at 6:30 am on Monday morning turning the boat show back into the Annapolis waterfront. We broke down all of the tents and gathered up all of the signs and temporary buildings and took them to a central parking lot in front of the harbormaster’s office, where everything was organized, placed on pallets, and put on tractor trailers to take to “site X”, a holding area about 3 miles from the show grounds. I was really surprised how fast it went, and at 8pm they let most of the staff go for good. They only have a small crew finishing up Tuesday, which includes Reinhart but not me. They’ll be taking out the last of the floors and moving the 8 trailers which made up the boat show office complex. Both of us will be working Wednesday through Friday, though; making sure everything at “site X” is packed up properly and moving it from “site X” to its actual storage area 25 miles from Annapolis.
They are throwing a dinner for all of us on Thursday night and we are really looking forward to that. Some of the cruisers will be heading south before that though, so there will be a pre-party Tuesday night. It seems funny that folks with such casual existences as cruisers can’t wait another day or two for the party; however, lots of these folks are at anchor and these nights in the 30s are getting old. I expect the ICW will be crowded with sailboats headed for Florida in the next week! We still haven’t made up our minds when we are leaving; it is almost like leaving home again, since we have spent half of our time in Annapolis since leaving the triad. It will be sad, but it will be great to get back on the water again…then we’ll get to see how cold it actually is since we won’t be hooked up to shore power again. Everyone here has been trying to convince us to buy a generator before we leave though, and we might actually do that…but we are also interested in a satellite phone and a spinnaker, and at some point we have to make some tough choices.
We’ll let you know when we decide to leave and where we are going from here in a few days.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
The Changeover
The Annapolis Boat Show changeover from sail to power was just incredible. I can’t believe we’ve been coming up here for over 10 years and we’ve missed this each time. From now on, when we come for the boat show, we’ll always stay Monday night.
There was a lot of excitement in the air Monday afternoon and once the cannon was fired to signify the end of the show, Marci, my boss lead me over to her favorite place to watch the festivities. I wanted to see if Reinhart made it back over to the Caliber Yachts float, so I ran up there to look for him. I just met him as he was coming back from his off-site work. Everyone remaining at Caliber was on-board the 47’, Bright Ayes, having wine and crackers and we joined them. In the background we could hear the huge crowd down at Pusser’s celebrating and cheering & jeering the boats that were already leaving. We were all the way at the top of Ego Alley, so we had a long time to wait while the water crew removed the maze of docks to free our section. As time neared for us to leave, we joined our captain, Mel, and another Caliber owner, Gus, on Mel’s brand new Caliber 40 LRC. I was getting quite nervous because I felt like we wouldn’t be very special and the crowd would just do nothing; especially after I noticed the Sunsail charter catamarans heading out before us were throwing T-shirts and other giveaways into the crowd. However, Mel wanted me to film the crowd and they just went absolutely nuts waving at the camera. Reinhart had them waving in unison with the bar’s music for a little bit, and they really cheered when he blew the air horn. Mel was just grinning from ear to ear at the wheel. We were looking up at all of them crowded on the docks, rooftops, and balconies and it felt like we were on a football field looking into the stands…it was a great feeling. Once we got to the marina behind the Spa Creek bridge, Mel opened a celebratory bottle of wine and we chatted about his new home in eastern NC before we headed back to see who was still hanging out at the show.
When we got into work on Tuesday morning, there were lots of hangovers. It was a relatively easy day though, and we just needed to adjust a few things as the powerboat vendors made their way in. We only worked about 7 hours and we actually got to come home and see Maia in the sunlight; I only got a couple of bruises and didn’t bleed once. We get to go in late, 8 am, on Wednesday, and hopefully we won’t have to work until dark either. Then on Thursday, the powerboat show starts and we’ll be back to 10-11 hour social work days.
Check out this website if you’d like to see an article about the Changeover in 2000: http://www.bayweekly.com/year00/issue8_40/lead8_40.html
It’s pretty accurate, except for the part about Pusser’s being a reluctant participant…now they have lots of beer specials and separate tent bars set up outside for Pain Killers, Red Bull drinks, Jagerbombs, etc. They also didn’t say anything about the other waterfront business, like Fleet Reserve and Fawcett’s who have people on their rooftops as well.
There was a lot of excitement in the air Monday afternoon and once the cannon was fired to signify the end of the show, Marci, my boss lead me over to her favorite place to watch the festivities. I wanted to see if Reinhart made it back over to the Caliber Yachts float, so I ran up there to look for him. I just met him as he was coming back from his off-site work. Everyone remaining at Caliber was on-board the 47’, Bright Ayes, having wine and crackers and we joined them. In the background we could hear the huge crowd down at Pusser’s celebrating and cheering & jeering the boats that were already leaving. We were all the way at the top of Ego Alley, so we had a long time to wait while the water crew removed the maze of docks to free our section. As time neared for us to leave, we joined our captain, Mel, and another Caliber owner, Gus, on Mel’s brand new Caliber 40 LRC. I was getting quite nervous because I felt like we wouldn’t be very special and the crowd would just do nothing; especially after I noticed the Sunsail charter catamarans heading out before us were throwing T-shirts and other giveaways into the crowd. However, Mel wanted me to film the crowd and they just went absolutely nuts waving at the camera. Reinhart had them waving in unison with the bar’s music for a little bit, and they really cheered when he blew the air horn. Mel was just grinning from ear to ear at the wheel. We were looking up at all of them crowded on the docks, rooftops, and balconies and it felt like we were on a football field looking into the stands…it was a great feeling. Once we got to the marina behind the Spa Creek bridge, Mel opened a celebratory bottle of wine and we chatted about his new home in eastern NC before we headed back to see who was still hanging out at the show.
When we got into work on Tuesday morning, there were lots of hangovers. It was a relatively easy day though, and we just needed to adjust a few things as the powerboat vendors made their way in. We only worked about 7 hours and we actually got to come home and see Maia in the sunlight; I only got a couple of bruises and didn’t bleed once. We get to go in late, 8 am, on Wednesday, and hopefully we won’t have to work until dark either. Then on Thursday, the powerboat show starts and we’ll be back to 10-11 hour social work days.
Check out this website if you’d like to see an article about the Changeover in 2000: http://www.bayweekly.com/year00/issue8_40/lead8_40.html
It’s pretty accurate, except for the part about Pusser’s being a reluctant participant…now they have lots of beer specials and separate tent bars set up outside for Pain Killers, Red Bull drinks, Jagerbombs, etc. They also didn’t say anything about the other waterfront business, like Fleet Reserve and Fawcett’s who have people on their rooftops as well.
Sunday, October 8, 2006
The Annapolis Sailboat Show and a visit from Emily and Nicol
Working the sailboat show has proved much easier than setting it up. We work about 10 or 11 hours a day just taking tickets and putting wristbands on folks and making sure none of the hoodlums at the Marriot’s Pusser’s Bar sneak into the show. Reinhart sometimes has to help out with saving some piece of equipment from drowning or putting in temporary flooring, because, as is typical in October, Annapolis floods every 12 hours. The combination of high winds and high tides makes foul weather boots a handy investment.
Emily and Nicol made it up here on a miserable Friday afternoon, the high was just shy of 60 degrees and it rained all day. It really is unfortunate they had such bad weather since the weather has been lovely since we’ve been here. We wore our foul weather gear to work and were surprised how many folks actually showed up. It takes a lot to scare off a sailor. The folks selling jackets and bibs did a great business though. When the show day was over and we all got back to the boat, we only wanted to put on our sweats and eat Emily’s pineapple dip! Simon and Christy Lewandowski caught up with us and came over after they finished dinner and we caught up on what we’ve all been doing the past several years. It was wonderful seeing them again and I do hope we bump into them more often…we can barely understand how we haven’t been bumping into them a couple times a year since we have such common interests and existences.
We woke up to a slightly less rainy Saturday and by the time the show opened, there was very little rain…we were glad we wore our foul weather gear again all day because of the general cool and moist atmosphere. I guess standing out in the rain for hours on end isn’t so good for you, and I started to realize I was coming down with a serious cold on Saturday afternoon. I had been so excited about attending a Sunsail party after hours on Saturday night, but there was no way I was doing anything after work but heading straight to bed. Too bad, as well, because Simon’s little sister, Magda, and her husband, Doug, and Greg Husemeier were all in town as well. Nicol and that crowd headed out to dinner for a mini-reunion. Emily also met up with some old friends and they went out to dinner and stayed out to the wee wee hours of the night catching local bands at different bars. Reinhart took me to dinner at Chez Reini and tucked me into bed early. Now that I’ve got some medicine in my system, I’m feeling much better.
Sunday was absolutely gorgeous and I wish Nicol and Emily could have stayed a little longer; it seems like we only saw them for a couple of hours. Hopefully, both of them will get back to visit us when we have more time and when I am better company. We bumped into Jerry Newton and his gal and he treated us to lunch. He was busy doing some serious shopping and planning at the show, so we decided to meet after the show was over so they could check out Maia. Reinhart and I ended up getting off a little later, so we really didn’t have very much time with them before they had to hoof it back to downtown to catch a shuttle bus back to the show parking lot. I expect we’ll see some more of them though, since sailing is obviously in Jerry’s future.
Tomorrow (Monday) is going to be a great day though. I had no idea that all of the sailboats leave and all of the powerboats come in on Monday after the show closes at 5 pm. It turns out it is a huge party, with folks lining the roof of Pusser’s to commend and criticize the captains and their exit strategies. Reinhart has been asked by the owner of the Caliber 40 in the show to help him move his boat out, so maybe he’ll be part of the entertainment tomorrow night, if our boss lets him off early enough.
Emily and Nicol made it up here on a miserable Friday afternoon, the high was just shy of 60 degrees and it rained all day. It really is unfortunate they had such bad weather since the weather has been lovely since we’ve been here. We wore our foul weather gear to work and were surprised how many folks actually showed up. It takes a lot to scare off a sailor. The folks selling jackets and bibs did a great business though. When the show day was over and we all got back to the boat, we only wanted to put on our sweats and eat Emily’s pineapple dip! Simon and Christy Lewandowski caught up with us and came over after they finished dinner and we caught up on what we’ve all been doing the past several years. It was wonderful seeing them again and I do hope we bump into them more often…we can barely understand how we haven’t been bumping into them a couple times a year since we have such common interests and existences.
We woke up to a slightly less rainy Saturday and by the time the show opened, there was very little rain…we were glad we wore our foul weather gear again all day because of the general cool and moist atmosphere. I guess standing out in the rain for hours on end isn’t so good for you, and I started to realize I was coming down with a serious cold on Saturday afternoon. I had been so excited about attending a Sunsail party after hours on Saturday night, but there was no way I was doing anything after work but heading straight to bed. Too bad, as well, because Simon’s little sister, Magda, and her husband, Doug, and Greg Husemeier were all in town as well. Nicol and that crowd headed out to dinner for a mini-reunion. Emily also met up with some old friends and they went out to dinner and stayed out to the wee wee hours of the night catching local bands at different bars. Reinhart took me to dinner at Chez Reini and tucked me into bed early. Now that I’ve got some medicine in my system, I’m feeling much better.
Sunday was absolutely gorgeous and I wish Nicol and Emily could have stayed a little longer; it seems like we only saw them for a couple of hours. Hopefully, both of them will get back to visit us when we have more time and when I am better company. We bumped into Jerry Newton and his gal and he treated us to lunch. He was busy doing some serious shopping and planning at the show, so we decided to meet after the show was over so they could check out Maia. Reinhart and I ended up getting off a little later, so we really didn’t have very much time with them before they had to hoof it back to downtown to catch a shuttle bus back to the show parking lot. I expect we’ll see some more of them though, since sailing is obviously in Jerry’s future.
Tomorrow (Monday) is going to be a great day though. I had no idea that all of the sailboats leave and all of the powerboats come in on Monday after the show closes at 5 pm. It turns out it is a huge party, with folks lining the roof of Pusser’s to commend and criticize the captains and their exit strategies. Reinhart has been asked by the owner of the Caliber 40 in the show to help him move his boat out, so maybe he’ll be part of the entertainment tomorrow night, if our boss lets him off early enough.
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
The Annapolis Sailboat Show is Ready!
I swear we aren’t asking for sympathy, we are just having a darn good time doing very hard work. It's just like mountain bike riding; you are bruised and scraped, but exhilarated. Reinhart worked 36 hours and I worked 35 hours over three days (Monday-Wednesday). Monday and Tuesday were definitely the hardest, starting at dawn and working well into dark. Wednesday wasn’t so bad and we clocked out (with the 35 and 36 hours), and then we immediately got hired to unload a vendor’s van and trailer. Reinhart also backed the guy’s large trailer out of the show with such grace and accuracy as to attract the accolades of surrounding vendors. I think if we were willing to work 16 hours a day, we could just keep unloading trailers and toting boxes for overwrought vendors for $20 an hour. We are so happy we are at a dock and can enjoy extra long hot showers and air conditioning when we get in at night. We also really appreciate the meals over the past three days, since we never have the time to eat breakfast before we leave and don’t have the energy to make dinner once we get home; but that’s over now, and we are on our own for meals for the next 5 days.
Reinhart has fallen into a trio of boat show workers that have reputation for doing anything very quickly without complaint. He even got a six-pack of Corona today from a vendor as a tip. They are letting him do all the driving and he has gotten the same reputation he has in NC for driving "sporty"…but he can maneuver the golf carts around the boat show traffic with such speed that he doesn’t even hear the vendors cussing in his wake. I’ve got the reputation of being willing to run any message, package, or materials anywhere in the boat show; I think they see me as highly energetic, when the truth is my hands are so cut up from building tents on Monday and Tuesday that I was happy as a lark to stick to leg work on Wednesday. I was also given a compliment on my decorating abilities in a little corner of the boat show.
But now the furious work of building the show is almost over. We start at 7 am tomorrow for the last touches and then the show opens at 10 am. We’ll both be working at the same gate of the show (yacht basin, near the bridge), and I guess our jobs will be to make sure folks have tickets, people-traffic is flowing safely and efficiently, and vendors are happy.
Reinhart has fallen into a trio of boat show workers that have reputation for doing anything very quickly without complaint. He even got a six-pack of Corona today from a vendor as a tip. They are letting him do all the driving and he has gotten the same reputation he has in NC for driving "sporty"…but he can maneuver the golf carts around the boat show traffic with such speed that he doesn’t even hear the vendors cussing in his wake. I’ve got the reputation of being willing to run any message, package, or materials anywhere in the boat show; I think they see me as highly energetic, when the truth is my hands are so cut up from building tents on Monday and Tuesday that I was happy as a lark to stick to leg work on Wednesday. I was also given a compliment on my decorating abilities in a little corner of the boat show.
But now the furious work of building the show is almost over. We start at 7 am tomorrow for the last touches and then the show opens at 10 am. We’ll both be working at the same gate of the show (yacht basin, near the bridge), and I guess our jobs will be to make sure folks have tickets, people-traffic is flowing safely and efficiently, and vendors are happy.
Monday, October 2, 2006
A visit from the Parks sisters
Reinhart left for work right after 5am this morning (Monday), and I just got up so I can leave around 6:30, but there is always a little time for the blog. It’s a new thing for us to be setting alarms again. We actually did end up being called into work for a few hours on Sunday, but it was such a beautiful day that it didn’t bother us a bit to set up a few more tents in the Fawcett Boat Supplies parking lots. The Fawcett lot was the only place we were allowed to do anything this weekend, but starting Monday morning, the entire waterfront is available to us and the building of the show will go into overdrive so the show is ready to go on Thursday morning.
We were thrilled that Lisa and Amanda Parks could stop by on Sunday. It is just such a treat to see friends. We sat outside at McGarvey’s and soaked up the beautiful afternoon and Lisa treated us to drinks and crab dip (thanks Lisa!!!) Then Lisa turned the car over to Reinhart, and Lisa and I rode the bikes back to the boat so we could show Maia off. I’d include a picture of us on the boat, but Reinhart took the camera with him this morning…too bad, since he made the three of us gals pose for umpteen photos!
We were thrilled that Lisa and Amanda Parks could stop by on Sunday. It is just such a treat to see friends. We sat outside at McGarvey’s and soaked up the beautiful afternoon and Lisa treated us to drinks and crab dip (thanks Lisa!!!) Then Lisa turned the car over to Reinhart, and Lisa and I rode the bikes back to the boat so we could show Maia off. I’d include a picture of us on the boat, but Reinhart took the camera with him this morning…too bad, since he made the three of us gals pose for umpteen photos!
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