We finally got the correct part shipped for our watermaker and Mike, our repair guy was finally able to get the watermaker put back together and working properly. We can now make fresh drinking water from salty sea water. How cool! As Mike was busy finalizing the watermaker, Ed, Evelyn and I had a dinghy ride down back creek to Bert Jabin Yacht Yard. Bert Jabin is a staging area for all the boats coming in that will be on display at the Annapolis Sailboat show in a couple of weeks. We were able to board and tour a couple of the new Lagoon catamarans. These boats were shipped over from France for the show.

We also saw a boat on the dock here at Bert Jabin that was from Minneapolis, MN. So, of course, I had to knock and chat with the people aboard who are indeed from Minnesota. They live in Golden Valley and are heading south with their boat, just like everyone else around here. It was really fun to meet another boat from Minnesota.

After we were done with our boat yard tours, we headed back to Painkiller and picked up Mark who was supervising Mike finishing the watermaker. They were just finished up, so we hopped in the dinghy and headed to Davis Pub for an afternoon appetizer and a cold drink.

Then we walked to downtown Annapolis for our last night in town, as we are planning to leave tomorrow morning for Rock Hall. We hopped aboard a free shuttle bus in town that takes us to another area of Annapolis that has some cool shops and restaurants. Evelyn knew about this great little Italian restaurant up here so we ate dinner at this great place that had great food! And then we walked back to the dinghy and got dropped off by the Chart House across the creek and Mark and I walked the 3 – 4 blocks back to the boat for the night.

The next morning we were ready to leave the dock. We were a bit nervous about getting out of this dock area. It was very close quarters with a boat parked on a dock about a boat length behind us and two large boats on either side of us. We had barely enough room to get out of the slip and turn the boat without hitting the boat behind us. We had some extra hands on the dock to help us get out and Ed came over in his dinghy to help push our boat with his dinghy. Once we backed our a bit from the slip, we had Ed push our stern over with his dinghy so that we could avoid hitting the boat behind us. It worked out well and we were able to get out of this tight space we were in. On to Rock Hall.

We saw several boats leaving Annapolis area and heading to Rock Hall as well.

We even saw another Island Packet just like ours on our travels today.

Of course, we never tire of going under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. We met a guy, Bill, that was in the slip next to us in Annapolis that was an engineer before he retired. He was in fact the Chief Engineer on the construction of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Never know who you are going to meet.

Both Painkiller and Dutch Wind arrived in Rock Hall at Spring Cove Marina. Spring Cove marina is a bit out of the way and they don’t take transient boaters in the marina, however, Ed and Evelyn used to keep their boat here many years ago so we were both able to stay for a few days here. We also have friends here in this marina, Hayden and Radeen who also own an Island Packet, we also met their friend Ray on our last visit to Rock Hall. Ed and Evelyn have a friend here named Dave. Dave is heading down the coast with us. Dave will be joined by Ray on his boat, so we will have 3 boats in our little floatilla. Once we got settled in Rock Hall, Hayden and Radeen invited us to Happy Hour at 5 pm. There were about 6 couples for happy hour – Mark and Rose (Painkiller), Hayden and Radeen (Island Spirit), Ed and Evelyn (Dutch Wind), Tom and Tracy (Sailing Shoes), Jeff and Sharon (Lucille) and another couple that were friends of Hayden and Radeen. We all had a great time and all but one couple are heading south in the next few weeks, so it’s likely we will run into most everyone at some point. Also it seems like we will all be in Stuart, FL for Thanksgiving, so there was already talk of having Thanksgiving together.

The next day, we did a bit of grocery shopping in town and then we all piled into Dave’s car and he drove us to Chestertown and we had a bit of a tour of Chestertown. Chestertown was established in 1706 and was an important port on the Chesapeake Bay in Colonial times. At one point Chestertown was the second largest city on the Chesapeake Bay right behind Annapolis. Chestertown boasts some of the most pre-Revolutionary War buildings in the area. And George Washington spent a great deal of time in Chestertown.

We spent a couple more days in Rock Hall, lounging, eating shared dinners on friends boats, having happy hour, doing some minor boat repairs and just hanging out and having fun. Here is the sunset on our last night in Rock Hall.