Rhode River

Monday, 9-21-09

Yesterday, we left Ferry Point about 10, and headed south.  The wind was light, but the bay was churned up worse than Morse Reservoir by all the power boats.  There's only one bridge crossing the bay here in the middle, and it's between Baltimore and Annapolis.

The children's prisons are nicer than the ones back home.  (If kids on the boat are not behaving, you can drop them off at these "prison" locations.)

The bay is VERY busy on the weekends.  When we're on the water, we always have the VHF radio on.  The traffic was heavy on the radio as well.  There was someone on a 36' sailboat calling the Coast Guard for assistance because his boat was taking on water (sinking).  He finally got the leak slowed and changed his call from the Coast Guard to Tow Boat US.  Next, was a report of a boat on fire on the Choptank River.  This got the Coast Guard excited.  However, after several calls back and forth, the caller said there was no fire--only smoke.  Most of the day, the Coast Guard was broadcasting a request for boaters to keep watch for an overdue 18 foot 1963 tri-hull heading from Virginia to Baltimore.  He said there were two people on board.  We heard the broadcast several times, and each time, it sounded like the name of one of the missing persons was "Billie Ray Cyrus".  We can only hope.

We decided to do a fly-by of Annapolis.  We plan to go back on Monday night in hopes it might be less crowded.  There was hardly room to maneuver in the harbor for all the boats.  There were several groups of one design sailboats racing in the middle, and hunderts of power boats coming and going.

One group of sailors not only had one design boats, but they were all the same color hulls, and all the same color spinnakers.

It's my guess that they have matching boats for their day job as well.  You can see them behind this breakwater.  (They're all grey.)

Your tax dollars at work (and play) at the Naval Academy. 

T