June 26, 2007

We got a 6am departure and heading to Old Saybrook. Two days of New Port is enough for my dads wallet, to say this place is dangerous for women is a serious understatement. My mom found one store where she spent a hour and half the first day and about 45 minutes or so the second day.

Not being a Sailor and hearing the groans that we are from Annapolis is funny especially being in a motor boat. At a quick glance from my two days of expert analysis it's a toss up as to which is the sailing capital. Newport is a resort town that has some big saiboats, and the sail and other boat oriented shops are intermingled with t-shirt shops and restaurants. Where Annapolis is a working state capital and well the sailing shops are more out of sight in Eastport and other areas. Annapolis also seams to have quite a bit more sailboats, maybe a fact or 4 or 5 times as much. But then again, they may be more widely dispersed and not in dense area like naptown.

I do wish Annapolis would take some hints from Newport and have some more small walking areas, the shopping area in Newport is HUGE! The main drag along the water is every bit of maybe 6 miles, and not main and west streets like annapolis. Newport has also seemed to do a good job of making new buildings blend into the old colonial buildings where as some of the buildings in Annapolis quite simply don't belong. The marinas are all also bigger and more accomidating to transients then Annapolis, also the Mooring field is HUGE!!! Naptown could do the same thing if they extended it more in front of the academy and put them out there for larger boats. Oh, one other thing I like.. They have a very strict 5mph speed limit there.. Not 6knots, not no wake.. 5mph and enforced..

Hmm.. What else, oh another cool thing is there is this tall ship from Singapore there and coming in on sunday when you enter the harbour they had kids from a local school or something playing there. Nice touch!! As we left this morning it looked like they had USCG cadets or something climbing up the masts huridly up and down each side.

Lobster pots.. So far there aren't any in any density like they are in the bay or the carolina's. BUT!! Unlike bay crabs where it seems they don't put pots down in over 45 feet of water, there seems to be no rhyme or reason why and where they put them here. I've seen them in 35 feet, and seen them in 110 feet of water.

Well thats it for today.. We are heading south and hopefully will be home around Sunday or Monday weather permitting. We are not in any huge rush as we having a blast.