DAY 33 -- ST. MICHAELS TO ANNAPOLIS

                                    DAY 33 -- ST. MICHAELS TO ANNAPOLIS 

            We got up early and had breakfast on the outdoor deck at the Harbor Inn. Absolutely gorgeous sunny morning. Nice change after the last couple of days. The First Mate enjoyed the start of the day so much that she authorized this photo for the blog.

            We were underway at 9:40 for a simple 21-mile run over to Annapolis, which took two hours dock-to-dock. The water was dead calm the whole way. Interesting sights included the Bloody Point Bar Light, another caisson type, built in 1882, automated in 1961 and still in service:    

and the Thomas Point Shoal Light, which is the only screw-pile lighthouse in the Chesapeake Bay in its original location. The others have been moved to museums (like we saw in Solomons and St. Michaels) or other spots. It was built in 1875, wasn't automated until 1986, and is still in service. 

            We saw a bunch of ships anchored in the Bay between the Thomas Point Shoal Light and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. I counted six general cargo ships, three oil carriers (all empty), and one loaded container ship. You can see some of them in the background in the photo of the Bloody Point Bar Light.

            The oil carrier that we passed close enough to identify was the Royal Argo, built in 2020, 958' long and 148' wide, with a deadweight capacity of 182,883 metric tons. By my calculation that means she could carry about one million barrels of crude oil. It helps put the world's crude oil consumption in context when you think of it as being equivalent to 97 such ships every day. 

            Approaching Annapolis from the water was impressive. You could see the Naval Academy with the domed chapel and the state house (which unfortunately was covered with scaffolding). The state house dome is to the left, the chapel dome in the middle, and the Naval Academy campus to the right. 

            We pulled into our dock right at two hours after leaving St. Michaels and were met at the dock by our friends Sue and Dave as we were still working with the dock girl to get our lines straight. They had driven over from Sea Isle NJ in a rental car. Once we were checked in, we all went to lunch at a nice waterside spot on the other side of Spa Creek and then to the Naval Academy, where we took a guided tour. Then they turned in their rental car and checked in at their hotel while we went back to the boat to clean up and blog. We had a nice dinner in the historic district and then walked the main drag. There were lots of people out on a Friday night. 

           Janet here: this was the first marina shower facility that didn't remind me of Girl Scout camp. This one has private showers and met my cleanliness standards too.  It's the little things that make this first mate happy.

P.S. We really enjoy the comments that we get on the blog. We're sorry that we haven't been replying to these, but we didn't want to the blog to turn into a series of dialogues -- partly because these would be public and partly because we just didn't want to spend the time. Our hands have been plenty full planning upcoming days and documenting past days. But please keep the comments coming. We look at them every time we are on the blog site.