That’s boatspeak for “back into the water” and far more comfortable than being “on the hard” as were for the last week and a half.  The marina drove a kind of motorized frame over our boat and lifted it in a pair of giant webbing slings.   Then they drove to a special slip designed for the purpose, and lowered us back into the water.          While we were hanging in the slings we asked them what the boat weighed...
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I half-remember a children's story about a little girl who lived high in the mountains, and for whatever reason, she relocated to the city.  Poignantly, the first few nights when she heard the unfamiliar sound of cars passing in the distance, she assumed the sound was wind in the pine trees - the thing she was familiar with.  Here on the hard, every time I hear a car pass, I interpret it to be a dinghy passing our stern, and flex my knees to take up the shock as I "know" that...
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There are some items of boat maintenance that simply can’t be done in the water.  Painting the bottom comes to mind.  So does removing and cleaning the seacocks, those handy devices that keep the ocean out of the boat.  Right – remove them for maintenance, then there’s nothing keeping the ocean out of the boat!  So for those lovely projects, the boat has to be on land.  When I first heard a boat-savvy friend use the phrase “on the hard”...
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One of the wonderful things about living in Annapolis is that sooner or later everyone who’s cruising up and down the East Coast comes through here.  Sometimes they just stay for a day or two, sometimes for a few weeks, sometimes for a season.  So even though we’re tied to one spot (for now) by jobs, we are in touch with cruisers from everywhere.     So we were excited to hear from good friends James and Ellen that they were arriving in Annapolis after coming...
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 I telecommute; my boss lives and works in Florida.  So when I told him that Annapolis virtually shuts down when the Blue Angels perform, his first reaction was something like, "Must be nice to live in a party town.  Any excuse, huh?" (Oh, that makes him sound so curmudgeonly; actually I like working for him enormously and the line was delivered in a jokey manner.)  But if you live here, you know exactly what I mean.  They put on a spectacular show well worth using...
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We learned to sail in the Caribbean, and then kept our boat in northern Lake Michigan, so we took it for granted that water is clear.  Our mooring in Michigan was in 21 feet of water, and we could look over the side and see the old railroad wheel that was our “anchor.” So it was a bit of a shock, coming to the sadly murky greenish-black Chesapeake.  When I first found the satellite maps in Google, I did what most people do first  – plugged in my own address. ...
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So, we mail-ordered this amazing new light fixture for the main cabin.All our friends have been raving about this - great color light,super energy-efficient, attractive box, etc etc. It arrived yesterdayand we can't wait to install it. We're reading the instructions andthere's this warning about being careful about the input voltage, ifthe lamp is operating with input voltage too high it will burn out theballast. Uh, oh, our new super-efficient...
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So for Earth Day, Dan & I:*telecommuted and saved gas (okay, I guess I really did that for myself. love working from home!)*took the stairs instead of the elevator to my doctors appt*brought reusable bags to the grocery store, where we bought local produce whereever we could*wiped the hard disk from an ancient laptop, and collected a bunch of used batteries, to bring to the "personal electronics recycling drive" at work*hoped to install the solar panels we bought a couple of months...
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The water of the bay holds winter's cold, so here at the shore, spring is delayed compared to inland.  My drives to our office in northern VA are like a drive through time-lapse photography, as trees are flowering there while they're just bare branches here.   (We get the reverse effect in summer, when the water holds the warmth and autumn lingers here long after the leaves have fallen inland.)But finally, there's a green mist hovering over the formerly bare tree branches,...
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So, we're headed to Aruba for Carnaval for two weeks - wild calypso music, warm sunshine, dancing in the streets, and a parade with costumes like this, more than all the feathers and sequins you've ever imagined.  Not to mention, warm clear water, white sand beaches, sunshine, and did I say warm?  I can't get over the number of people who think, "ah, Caribbean island," and ask if we're sailing the boat there!  So I patiently explain that we're flying because:...
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