Category Archives: Tourism

Descriptions of the places we’ve been.

Last Sail on Ryana (at least for now)

So the boat is for sale and we have our flights booked back to the west coast.  We took Ryana out for one last sail to move her to the South River where she’ll be able to be viewed and hopefully find her new owner!  If she doesn’t sell by mid October we’ll move her south, but for all we know this could have been the final sail!

It was a beautiful day and the Bay was full of people out boating.  The wind was brisk and from the right direction so we hoisted sails and headed out.

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We settled in to the new marina, at least Stanley made himself comfortable.  Now just the final packing and we’re off!

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Going away party

Everyone likes an excuse for a party right?  🙂  Well our going away was a good excuse.  We took over one of the gazebos and had a potluck with our friends from Port Annapolis and all around Annapolis!  It was a fun night but very bittersweet.  We’re going to miss these folks!

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Jo, Matt & Monica – folks we met on the Caribbean 1500!

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Alex and Rob – Port Annapolis buddies

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Ryan enjoying a drink with Rob and Paul.

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Paul and Lori with the midshipman Lori is sponsoring.

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Ryan has a way with the ladies….Karen and Kate!

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More gorgeous ladies…Gail, Kate, Jo and Monica. Gail cooked up some chicken wings on the bbq….YUM!

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The guys…Joe, Paul, Ryan and Matt.

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Diana and Monica

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Jo, Matt, Diana and Kate.

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Lori and Alex without their super cute dog, and Stanley’s friend, Genni!

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Gail and Eric.  Eric brought Bonnie’s delicious chili.

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Kevin and Karen

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Ryan and Kate. Kate brought Ryan a yacht design book to get him started on his new passion.

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Monica and Paul. These guys are fun….maybe we can visit them in the BVIs!!

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Rob and Fran

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Jo and Matt

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Gail and Diana. I’m gonna miss this lady!!

Dinner with friends and packing it up

Well unfortunately the end is in sight so we’ve been enjoying ourselves out with friends and had to start packing up the boat.

We headed up to Rams Head for a last Lobster night dinner.  $20 for a complete lobster dinner, what a steal!  Oh and the company was wonderful and many laughs were had. 🙂

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Bonnie looking on gleefully as Gail learns what a MILF is for the first time.

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Just when we thought she couldn’t get any redder the waiter called her a GILF. LOL!

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Diana, Ryan, Gail, Eric and Bonnie

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Ryan looking on intently as Eric pulls up something on his phone. Maybe round 2 of the Myers Briggs personality test?


And then the packing….

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Boxes, boxes everywhere….

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Ryan taping up a box.

 

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Stanley wants to make sure he’s coming!!

It’s sad to be winding down on our trip, but I believe there are new exciting things in store for us!

 

Settling in to Port Annapolis

After one and a half years of cruising we are happy to have a home base at Port Annapolis off of Back Creek in Annapolis.

Doesn't Ryana look happy at the dock?

Doesn’t Ryana look happy at the dock?

I think Ryan and Stanley are happy too.  🙂

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We have a great time here with all our friends.  Thursday music nights are fun and so are the spontaneous dock parties!

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Diana enjoying the company and Stanley looking for food!

 

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Wrong Gail!!  😛

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Gail bet that Diana couldn’t catch a blue crab off the pier.

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Ryan showing off the crab Diana caught.

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Alex, Eric and Diana enjoying the evening.

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Eric, Diana, Bonnie and Gail.

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Alex, Diana, Kevin, Karen and Eric.

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Bonnie and Gail.

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Eric buying Stanley’s affection.

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A boat sailing by in the sunset.

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Looking good.

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Lori on top of her boat taking pictures.

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Ryan and Kevin bsing on the back of the ATA Marie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s so much fun here!

Still Pond

After getting our boat back in the water we headed to Still Pond for a weekend with friends.  Look how good Ryana looks back in the water with her new bottom paint!

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We got to Still Pond in the late afternoon and had happy hour on the ATA Marie.  We watched the beautiful sunset from there and just were happy to be back in the water.

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Next morning we took a dinghy caravan into one of the water ways off of Still Pond.  We had fun cruising around until it started to rain!!  Tokkie and Gail and Sharon and Ed in their dinghys!

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We took a fun walk on the beach with Gail and waded up the creek.

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Stanley still got a little scared though and had to be carried by Ryan.  What a weenie dog!

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Finally, after a great weekend, we headed home.  The winds were on the beam and gusting and we had a great sail back!  Ryan was grinning the whole time.  We were regularly over 10knts and I think our average was 9!

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Life on the hard

Ryana on land

Ryana on land

We spent a few days on the hard at the Pleasure Cove Marina to get new bottom paint and a wax job on Ryana.  Pleasure Cove is a little marina tucked away on Bodkin Creek and is one of only a few places on the Chesapeake Bay that can haul us out of the water.  Everyone there are really nice and we enjoyed our time at the marina!  But a boat is not supposed to be out of the water!  It’s interesting…first off we were at a slight tilt.  Not so much to bother you but when you get up you can feel it and are off balance!  Then no using the sinks so pretty much no cooking on board.  And forget about air conditioning which is water cooled.  You also have to climb a ladder to get on your boat since the transom is 6ft off the ground.  It’s interesting.  I know there are folks who spend weeks and even months living on their boat on the hard and manage fine, but I was glad it was only a few days!  A boat is just supposed to be in the water.  🙂

We did have a funny / scary incident with Stanley.  We’d been there a few days and were lifting him up and down with no problems.  We were a little worried he’d fall off but he hasn’t fallen off the boat before so we let him be.  However, we didn’t anticipate how strong his anti-shower sentiment was.  I had the hose in my hand, to fill our water tanks not even to shower the dog, and he took one look at me and went leaping off the back of the boat!!!  He landed and rolled and got up.  We were freaking out and went to see if he was ok.  He had scraped his chin and paws up a bit but other than that was fine.  I cannot believe that dog hurled himself off the boat from 6ft up just to avoid a potential shower.  So crazy!  At least he’s not hurt!

Ice cream, a spinnaker and dick waves

Ryan’s friend from high school and his wife Marie came out to visit us for a few days.  They’re both from Washington but Marie works every week in D.C. flying back and forth Sunday through Thursday.  So, occasionally Jason will come visit her in D.C.  for the weekend and this time they made it out to see us!

First the Ice Cream….  They arrived on Friday to Annapolis so we had to initiate them to the Annapolis happy hours!  We went to a few different places before Ryan decided he needed ice cream.  The cones were so delicious Ryan wanted to save some in his beard for later!

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Ryan attacking that ice cream cone.

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Hey Jason…it’s dripping!

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Next the Spinnaker.  It was a light wind day on the Bay and we were headed down to Harness Creek.  We were in no rush, but seeing as it was such a nice day decided to take out the spinnaker.  Jason and Marie were happy to help with the sailing and it all went smoothly!

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Lastly, the dick waves.  Ryan describes a dick wave as ..

“Dick Wave:  a wave created from the wake of a large power boat (generally a Sea Ray or Carver) over taking within 100 ft of another vessel in open water.”

With a lot of people on the Bay we were rocking and rolling from all the wakes they threw up.  Some people got unnecessarily close to us.  This is a world wide phenomenon and I’m glad Ryan has finally named it.

Also, while there in Harness Creek we met Mr. Waterfront.  We knew it was him by the 3ft tall letters painted on his boat!  We had anchored out in front of his house and boat and when he dinghy’d over to us we weren’t sure what to expect.  He just wanted to welcome us to the neighborhood and invite us to use his yard to walk Stanley or his house for showers or laundry!  What a nice guy!  We did take him up on walking the dog and got to explore the beautiful neighborhood there at Harness Creek.

Here are some bonus pictures from our night in Harness Creek.

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Crab, a boat ride and a beautiful sunset….yeah we’re good!

We left Annapolis, which has turned into our home base this summer, to go less than an hour to Ridout Creek in Whitehall Bay.  We were visiting our friends Kirk and Donna who were staying at a friend’s dock.  This is yet another idyllic creek with gorgeous houses around it.  But the difference here is that their friend had a power boat!  So, the six of us took off on the boat to head to Cantlers for some Maryland crab!

Arriving at Cantlers

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Enjoying the crab in some of that delicious Old Bay Seasoning

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After dinner we took a fun boat ride through some of the nearby creeks and enjoyed a gorgeous sunset!

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