Swan Creek to Annapolis, MD

16.9 nm
Wind: calm
Maximum speed: 6.2 knots
Average speed: 4.2 knots
Latitude: 38°58.62’N
Longitude: 076°28.89’W

At least we moved today. There’s another storm heading in tomorrow, and we need to get showers, and I’m beginning to feel stranded in the middle of Chesapeake Bay. I’m sure we’ll make it, and I’m sure we’re making progress, but I feel like we should at least be to Norfolk by now. There’s snow predicted for tonight. Snow. That’s fairly ridiculous.

Then again, I’ve felt this way on all of our journeys. On some of them, maybe all of them, I’ve been right. We just need to get our butts out of here the day after tomorrow, and make a run for the border, as fast as we can. Maybe we need to do another overnight. I’m just beginning to be freaked out about time and cold, and if I’m more freaked out about that than I am about the shower, then that’s really saying something.

We’re in Annapolis, tonight, which is cool. Anchored right off the Naval Academy. Coming in today was crazy. There was a sailboat race going on right in the mouth of the harbor, and with almost no wind these boats were tacking straight towards us. Some of them were literally three yards from our bow before they tacked. We, of course, were motoring straight here, trying to get here before the harbormaster’s office closed, which we failed to do.

I’m not sure we’re anchored in a place we’re really allowed to be. A ferry keeps making loud noises as it goes past, but the police went by earlier and didn’t say anything. We’re right at the edge of a mooring field, right behind a crazy green catamaran, but we’re right in the middle of everything, and it just doesn’t seem like we’d be allowed to anchor here. Still, we’re going to stay until someone says something, and hopefully we’ll be safe in the storm tomorrow.

We've also managed to get wireless access, although it involves a pseudo-prehistoric ritual of pressing the send button and then angling the laptop up towards the sky in a half-hopeful, half-prayerful stance. Karl's out collecting the fenders that have gathered in the corners of the harbor. As he says, they're worth twenty bucks a piece. That's a pretty penny. I'm a little depressed at having missed the showers, but I know we won't leave until we get one, so that makes me feel better. And I just want to get south fast. This cold is not cutting it.