Going to sleep in Annapolis on Thursday, October 12 was surreal. We had met another one of our crazy deadlines and we were now in the sailing capital of the world. Our guests had arrived a few hours after us and we all hit the bunks to rest up for our big weekend.
The surrealness wore off a little when overnight the wind picked up and Alaya started rocking and rolling. Turns out our marina didn’t have much protection from the bay. I felt so bad for Danielle and Ethan in the v-berth, the boat was really rocking by the time we all got up and it was worst up front. We quickly got ready and hopped in the rental car, we wanted to get a full day in at the sailboat show and I didn’t want to get seasick again.
Annapolis hosts the world’s largest in-water sailboat show every October. We first attended in 2021, that’s where we met Danielle and Ethan at a sailing class. We got to chatting during the class’ lunch break and became fast friends. We’ve been comparing boat project notes and sailing stories ever since. It was so fun to reunite with them at the show two years later.
We spent all of Friday at the show, talking with vendors, checking out new boats and enjoying the boat show’s signature adult beverage, the Painkiller. To non-sailors, this might sound pretty boring but the five of us loved it! The energy of Annapolis during boat show is just so fun. Paul, Lucas and I left the show around 5 p.m. and took an Uber back to Alaya. Earlier, we had decided to move her to a different, more protected marina. We needed to wait until high tide to make the move. We motored across the bay as the sunset and then navigated through the shallow Kent Narrows channel by spotlight. The new spot on Kent Island was much more comfortable, we kept Alaya there the rest of the weekend.
Saturday was another boat show day, although much rainier than the day before. We grabbed our foul weather gear and hit the show. My favorite conversation of the day was the 20-minutes we spent chatting with our toilet manufacturer – so many poop jokes. We toured more boats as well, my favorite being the Tartans and the Lyman-Morse. We had dinner in downtown Annapolis, eating some delicious tacos and enjoying the sailboat show atmosphere for as long as possible.
Danielle and Ethan headed home Sunday morning. As always, their visit was too short but we had a great time. Paul was staying with us the entire week, we had promised to finally take him cruising after all the time he spent helping us with boat projects over the years. Before we could go cruising, we needed to regroup a bit and do a few boat chores.
First on our list was to head back to Annapolis to pick up our new watermaker. Working with Rich, the US rep for Schenker, we ordered the boat show-model months ago at a discount. That meant our unit was on display for the show and then we could pick it up at the end of the show on Sunday. We loaded our watermaker and then grabbed dinner in Annapolis. Later than night, we met up with fellow Michiganders, Erika and Ryan, SV Resande, for drinks at an arcade bar. We had been following their journey from Michigan to Annapolis since the summer, they were always about a week ahead of us. It was so fun to finally catch up to them!
Side note – I learned the hard way that the coin machines at this particular arcade bar only dished out tokens, not quarters. Without realizing this, I put a $20 bill in thinking I could refill my laundry money can with any leftovers. Thankfully, some very kind man bought out the rest of my leftover tokens because the bar wouldn’t. Thank you kind stranger!
Token near-debacle aside, it had been another amazing boat show weekend. We will certainly be back in the future!
Glad we could meet up again in Annapolis! It was awesome to see you both, and keep up the great blog posts!