Every year, thousands gather in Annapolis, MD for the annual Sail Boat Show. This year we joined the crowd. We were there for the release of my book, The Oceans are Waiting - Around the World on the Yacht Tigger.
We had sailed Tigger to Deltaville, VA, hauled out for a month, polishing and painting and trying to look bright and shiny in anticipation for ….. I really didn’t know what was going to happen. After all, it was my first time introducing a book. I alternated between being very nervous, and being very Zen - it would all turn out as it is supposed to.

It all turned out as it was supposed to! We anchored in Back Creek, took the water taxi each day to the show, spent hours in the Sheridan House booth, met people, sold books, signed books, and talked sailing. It was perfect. It rained torrentially almost the whole weekend, but it didn’t seem to stop people from flocking to the show, decked out in full foul weather gear, or dragging large umbrellas. The giant tents, which housed the vendors booths, were stuffed with damp humanity and smelled like - yes, wet foul weather gear. But no one seemed to even notice the rotten weather and everywhere you looked sailors were talking about boats, equipment, charts, electronics, plans, dreams, etc.

Besides meeting sailors at the show, we had the great stroke of luck to attend a Tartan ’37 gathering. To finally meet the people with whom we had exchanged e-mail, newsletters, and notes for years. The Tartan owners are a fiercely loyal bunch, and the by-word was “what hull number are you?”

We also attended a Seven Seas Cruising Association gathering, which featured Hal Roth as the speaker. Hal is in his late 70’s and Margaret, his wife is 80. He told us of his plans to sail to Labrador this spring. I bought his book We Followed Odysseus, and also a video of their Cape Horn adventures. Both have now given me much pleasure, but when we watched the video of the Cape Horn trip, Dave could only watch it once (I watched it several times in as many days). One look at the harsh wind and seas had Dave crying for an extra jacket and he vowed never to venture where there is snow on deck. Rats, I thought he would be inspired. I still have a daydream about Cape Horn.

But it was soon time to head south, out of the Chesapeake Bay, down the intra-coastal (even I am not keen on rounding Cape Hatteras in late October) to Beaufort, NC, then outside to Beaufort, SC.

I can’t even get over my mal de mer in the short time it takes to sail along the coast from Beaufort to Beaufort, but it was the last ocean time I would have for awhile, so I happily endured and watched the sea and the sky and the stars and the sails. Tigger was going to rest in the Port Royal Landing Marina and we were taking our small RV on a land trip for several months. Dave ought to warm up in Florida.

August 2002
September 2002
October 2002
November/December 2002
January 2003
February 2003
March 2003
April 2003
Summer 2003
Winter 2003-2004