The Last leg up to Annapolis.

There were still some 200 miles to go to reach the city of Annapolis. Passing out through the Hampton Roads we covered 50 on the first day. We dropped the hook near Deltaville on the Rappahannock River which was a lovely tree lined deep estuary. We rowed ashore with the children to let Jethro ride his bike and Oliver play in a kids playground.

Next day we covered another 60 miles north, passing the Patomac River. Just before a thunderstorm struck we ducked into Solomon’s Island for shelter and anchored at the mouth of the Patuxent River before lightening forks lit up the skies. That ended a six week heatwave. The tobacco crops were desperate for the water. So were our water tanks.

Raising the anchor on Friday 12th August we were confident we would be Annapolis before nightfall. However the wind strength increased to over 25 knots and went round to the north west – bang on the nose. With an adverse current under us we were hardly making any headway and Camelot was pitching and rolling uncomfortably. We looked closely at the charts and decided to tuck under some cliffs near Herring Bay and batten down for a rolly night at anchor.

The following day was Saturday. It was now blowing a gale from the north. During the night we had felt cold for the first time since living on Camelot. I found sweaters for us all to wear and musty sleeping bags to keep us all warm in our bunks. By then we were very low on diesel. Jon did not want to set off in those conditions in case we sucked in air when rolling with a rocky lee shore. So we would be storm bound for another 24 hours. My food stocks looked like old mother Hubbard’s. I used our last tea bag between the four of us and we had crackers and jam for lunch.

Fairy Godmother appears

Early in the afternoon an incredible sight greeted us. A middle aged lady with two young men came roaring out from the shore in a aluminium dinghy, waving frantically as they came closer.

“Hey there Camelot, is that Jon and Sue from Tortola?”

It was Kate, a lady we had met living on a boat in the next slip to us in the Moorings at New Year. We last saw her setting off with her husband on their Gulfstar 50 ketch for Antigua.

“Kate welcome aboard, “ I said as they all climbed into the cockpit and tied their painter to a cleat. “How are you and Jim?”

“Aw shucks – we had a trip from hell down to Saint Maarten, we had an almighty row so I flew home and haven’t heard from Jim since!” She guffawed with laughter. “This is my youngest son Paddy and his friend Chuck.”

I was embarrassed that I had nothing to offer them as we all huddled down below in the saloon. I need not have worried. Kate went on,

“We’ve come to take you to my summer house,” she said brandishing a spare set of keys. “I have a chicken roasting and we’ve come to invite you over. Camelot is safe at anchor here. This storm will blow over tonight and you can carry on tomorrow if you want, or stay as long as you like. I’m back at work tomorrow in Annapolis but there is spare car if you need to go provisioning.”

So we dressed the boys in waterproofs and life jackets and when they returned in their dinghy, we followed in Gwinevere to her wooden beach house and tied up on their own dock. It was about half a mile in gradually more shallow water in a little hamlet called Deale. There was only a depth of three feet at the end of their dock so no chance of bringing Camelot alongside.

Kate was a fifty seven year old mother of six children, all grown and flown. We had a delicious roast dinner and our first alcohol since Bimini. The boys shared a hot bath then watched cartoons on television while we caught up. After dinner Paddy and Chuck went off in a pick-up truck. Kate showed us to her guest room with a large double bed and bunk beds all made up with cosy patchwork quilts. What a treat! Jon could see Camelot serenely lying at anchor with the mast head light shining.

On Sunday morning, Kate made us pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast and handed Jon the keys to a Honda Civic.

“That is the little brown car outside – it’s my old car and I’m driving Jim’s. It’s yours as long as you need it,” she told him. “ I use the house in Annapolis during the week so you can stay here as long as you need.”

The overwhelming kindness of that lady was such a timely blessing. We were extremely grateful. Kate managed the Irish Gift Shop in the centre of Annapolis. She had to work Sunday afternoon. We thanked her profusely for her hospitality and said we would set off in Camelot again to complete our journey now the weather was fine. We arranged to go to see her in the Irish shop in the next day or two, and maybe get a lift back with her on Friday to the beach house.

By midday on Sunday the storm had blown out and it was a perfect summer afternoon. We returned to Camelot and hauled Gwinevere back up on davits. Once the anchor was raised we hoisted the main mizzen and genoa to sail the last twenty odd miles up to Annapolis.

Being Sunday afternoon there were many boats out on the Chesapeake. Jethro and Olly had never seen so many sailing boats. There were dinghies racing on one course, cruising yachts on another, and hundreds of launches and motor yachts of every description. It was like Cowes Week on steroids.

Annapolis at last

Once in the main harbour we dropped the anchor and had a family hug to celebrate reaching our destination safely. Then it was time to go ashore to explore. The city centre had a dinghy dock at the top of Ego Alley, which was right in the middle of the old town in the market square. Nearby was the US Naval Academy where the sounds of marching and drilling and orders being shouted carried across the water.

Annapolis had been the capital of the USA for a couple of years in the 1700’s and the domed Capitol building was very impressive. The narrow paved streets were lined with charming old wooden houses with stoops and porches and lots of colourful window boxes. We learned that the city had been named after Queen Anne of England.

The rather grand yacht at the dock behind Jethro in the rowing dinghy belonged to an English aristocrat. Jethro taught their daughter Catherine to row. In exchange we were all invited on board for a fabulous seafood supper, served up by their own onboard chef and stewardesses. Catherine’s father told us:

“We only came into the dock to take on fuel. After we had filled up, they told us they don’t accept credit cards! We are stuck here now until a banker’s draft comes through, and that could be five days.”

Jon located the Hood sail loft within walking distance of Ego Alley. He was offered work immediately. They would get him an H2 temporary work permit. While waiting for that, he could be paid by Bill Bullimore from the Hood loft in Tortola, as his BVI work permit was still valid, and they would reimburse Bill. He started that very first week.

Jon learned the techniques for making new sails from Mylar and Kevlar for the first time. He was also covering yacht steering wheels with hand stitched kid leather. By one of his colleagues in the loft he was recruited as main sheet handler on a racing yacht to take part in Wednesday evening racing with a finish line inside the harbour. That was good spectator sport from our boat for myself and the boys.

School for Jethro?

I went to the local Lutheran fee paying school to see if Jethro could start there. They would place him in second grade if he could pass some tests. But he failed. Their rising seven year olds were already doing cursive writing. Their reading ability was beyond Jethro’s, as was their ‘math’. We did not know then that Jethro was dyslexic. The other free (or public) school was already over subscribed. So we carried on with lessons from the teaching books I had on board for a couple of hours each morning whilst Jon went to work, and Olly still had a morning nap.

Camelot needed a lot of tender loving care before we could think about putting her up for sale. Also there was the need to save up for the import duty. We would have to haul out to take the hull back to bare wood and re-varnish. The topsides had taken such a battering over the past three months that the teak timbers were blackening in places.

Lou Lou from Gustavia sailed in his yacht Pluto to anchor close by. He offered to get all the materials we needed to fix Camelot up at wholesale prices. He had sailed from Gustavia in less than three weeks having taken the offshore delivery route. They went north to Bermuda then west to the Chesapeake. We had taken three and a half months from Road Town. But we had enough memories to last a lifetime.

One day Lou Lou, his wife the boys and myself went to the Smithsonian National History museum in Washington D.C. which was grand building in the city centre with huge exhibits of dinosaur skeletons and we could even watch a brave young woman feeding huge hairy tarantulas.

“Look mummy there’s a whale like the one at Bitter End,” pointed out Jethro recognising a sperm whale jaw similar to the one on the beach in Virgin Gorda Sound.

I remember thinking at the time, “Okay so he cannot do joined up writing, multiplication or division, but he can recognise a whale skeleton. He could also order an ice cream in three different languages. He was being educated after all.