July 10, 2008.

Our second day anchored outside Herrington Harbor was to be our last. The wind had picked up a bit and started to veer. We were getting fairly large rollers moving under the boat from side to side. We were not in any danger but some of the crew definitely had trouble sleeping in those conditions.

Herrington Harbor North is a huge marina complex that has about 1500 boats on the hard during the winter. It’s expensive as hell as far as slip rates go, but everything from the grounds to the services are top notch. We’ve decided to have the boat hauled here for the month of August rather than take her all the way back to Jersey. We only have a short list of things to do like painting the bottom, compounding and waxing the hull and topsides, changing the zincs, greasing the prop and re-doing the woodwork. Its labor intensive but they’ll allow us to do our own work, so along with the reasonably priced haulout, we’ll do okay. Then we’ll just rent a car for a week to see our people back in Jersey.

We went in and did laundry at the marina and walked to the ultra convenient West Marine right there on the marina grounds. After lunch back at the boat we headed back in to enjoy the swimming pool. After spending the afternoon swimming, we got together with the crews from Far Niente, Sapphire, Solitaire and Molly Brown for dinner at a local restaurant. The food was phenomenal, as was the company. We were even able to accomplish our biggest “boating upgrade” of the year during dinner. Jay from Far Niente is the man to see about acquiring a watermaker at a great price. It should be delivered to us when we reach Baltimore in a couple of weeks. The installation is something we can do while we’re out of the water in August.

The next morning we were in no hurry to get going because of the whole tidal flow thing again, so Nancy and Christy made a quick trip to the local grocery. Once we said our goodbyes we were under way by noon for the 20 mile trip to Annapolis. It ended up being one of those perfect sailing days. The engine was off as soon as the hook was raised and we were in the Annapolis Harbor 3 hours later after covering the twenty miles.

When we arrived it was in the middle of sailing school sessions. The waterway was thick with small sailboats headed this way and that. Who had the right of way made no difference as we threaded our way through the throngs of tiny boats. It was tense as hell as we wove our 28 thousand pound boat between 8 foot sailing dinghies Captained by 9 year olds. We made it to the anchorage without crushing anyone and treated ourselves to a 2 night stay on a mooring ball.

After dinner ashore we were treated to Wednesday Night racing that takes place just outside the anchorage and ends up with the competitors finishing up after slaloming through the mooring field. It was intense as some good sized boats were skimming along within a foot of our boat.



We weren’t really planning on hitting Annapolis until the boat show in October but slaying the Lenscrafters Dragon had become a priority.
I won’t bore you with a rehash of the whole Lenscrafters debacle. Let’s just say they suck, we’re pissed, they’re trying to weasel out of a refund, we’re pissed, they’re trying to hide from us and we’re pissed.

Christy found a store manager who would give us our refund as long as we could come to her store, to see her. Thursday morning we were on the bus to the mall outside of Annapolis. After two and a half months of eye exams, incorrect prescriptions, bad lenses and frustration we’re in and out of the store with our money back in less then 5 minutes. This manager unraveled the web of red tape we were caught in and in minutes we were sent on our way, semi-satisfied.

Tomorrow its on to Saint Michaels on the eastern shore…….