Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Boat Show Part II (Playing Ketch Up)

  …..Each day bring new adventures, and less and less time to chronicle those adventures.  Now that I’m a week behind in my entries (and the events are fading like ripples in the water,) I’ll do a quick recap. 
                One of the popular events at the boat show is the tear-down.  Like New Year’s Eve in Times Square, The crowd’s anticipation grows as five o’clock nears.  There are lots of reasons, and one at the forefront of many sailors’ thoughts is “Sundowners” or evening cocktails. The purported sport is to watch as hundreds of vendors pack their goods, and the professional delivery captains vacate the harbor.  It’s a well choreographed procedure that involves moving boats, docks and merchandise in quick cadence.  The reason for the need for speed is that the waterfront will be transformed into the “Power Boat Show” after one day’s break. 
                We gathered on the roof of Pusser’s Restaurant adjacent and overlooking the show where drinks, live boat music, drinks, pub food and did I mentioned drinks (?).  It was party city when the ball dropped (actually no ball dropped, but a cannon was fired.) If you Google the Annapolis boat show, they have a time lapse video of the process (the boat recessional, not the drinking. )   Annapolis T-shirts and bumper stickers proclaim, “ANNAPOLIS, a drinking town with a sailing problem.
     On the roof/ patio of Pusser’s, we ran into Garry (Garry with two arr’s.) Garry works at West Marine in Haverstraw with us, and was visiting the boat show with his wife.  We hung out until our friends Rene’ and David showed up.   We met them and dinked out to the boat for a short daylight visit.  We headed back to shore for dinners and to move the car and avoid a parking ticket.  We had a pleasant evening socializing at Armadillo’s, a colorful waterfront dive around the corner from the Naval Academy.  This place is frequented by midshipmen, but not on date night, I don’t think.  It’s pretty raggedy around the edges.  Beer signs and photos of our fighting forces overseas festoon the rough brick walls.   Your mother wouldn’t approve.  A sense of pride and valor and support of the wounded vets project make this gritty waterfront bar real.  The “Best Burger in Town” and some great crab cakes made it a terrific choice.  The front row view of the ongoing tear down of the show added to the drama.
                We bid our friends good night and headed back to Bentaña for a well deserved night’s sleep.

2 comments:

  1. Wow, that time-lapse video looks kind of frenetic, though I suspect it's a pretty well organized breakdown!

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  2. It was much more interesting in the video than in real life, though they did move the boats and the docks pretty quickly. Judy

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