Annapolis MD to Norfolk, VA

October 19-22:
Took two lay days in Annapolis while Jason visited his girlfriend Kate in Baltimore. Tuesday was repair day. Readjusted the autopilot belt and replaced the strarbord running light, replaced the kill guys. Wednesday Andria loaned me her XK6 Jag convertible (you go girl what a ride) parked at the end of the subway line and took the metro into DC and went to the Air and Space Museum. A redo since I have been there last made it a great experience. The IMAX theater had a 3D movie on the Hubble Telescope, do incredible it literally brought tears to my eyes.
Thursday got a bit of a late start since Jason was getting a ride from his girlfriend from Baltimore and I had to get a ride from Andria from Edgewater. Wind was southwest at 15-20 we sailed with main and genoa and the wind veered just perfectly to allow us to stay on one tack. At dusk the wind veered into the north at 20 so we tried to sail on foresail and genoa. This worked ok, but without polling out the jib we had to tack downwind. The seas were too big, slewing us back and forth thru 45 degrees on our heading so it was hard to keep wing and wing for very long before jibing the foresail so tacking downwind worked much better. We sailed thru the night with a beautiful 3/4 moon ligting our way. We purposefully stayed near the western shore to avoid being in the shipping lanes and this worked out teriffic. There was a lot of traffic, but it was typically several miles away. The wind died at around 10 pm and we motored until 4 am when I came on watch. The wind filled in from the SW and we raised the main and genoa on a close reach into Norfolk Harbor. A naval cruiser followed us in and called to remind us we needed to stay clear by 500 yards. This required us to furl the genoa and motor closer to the wind to get to the starbord side of the channel. She only identified herself as US warship number 64 ( I guess if the terrorists knew her real name it would make her easier to find??). We fueled up at Tidewater Yacht Marina and for $12 got us use of the dingy dock, showers and laundry while we anchored nearby at Hospital Point. Had a great dinner at the Beer Garden on High Street, followed by some baseball at Barons Bar and Grill.