Books We Love Insider Blog: #passportyachts

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Floods at the Annapolis Boat Show, by J.C. Kavanagh

Darkness Descends,

Book 2 of the award-winning Twisted Climb series

My partner Ian and I are avid sailors. We own a 36' Catalina sailboat named Escape Route II that we sail all over Georgian Bay and also the North Channel, which, by the way, has been voted the best fresh-water sailing destination in the world. We're both adventurous souls when it comes to sailing and we've decided that in the next few years, we're going to upgrade to a bigger boat and sail to the Caribbean and points further south. And maybe even cross the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.
So we've been checking out all kinds of boat manufacturers on the Internet, trying to decide which type and size to buy. It's difficult to gauge 'online' if a certain type of sailboat meets your needs because the best way is to actually board the boat. When it comes to checking out multiple sailboats, there's no better place than the Annapolis boat show in Maryland, U.S.A. It's the largest in-water sailboat show in North America, with more than 400 sailboats of all sizes and makes on display, just waiting for you to board. Annapolis is about a 10-hour drive from our home north of Toronto, Ontario so we made plans to stay for four days.
What a fantastic four days.

The weather couldn't have been nicer for mid-October: sunny and a very warm 22 degrees Celsius (that's about 72 degrees Fahrenheit). For Canadians, that's delightful 'summer' weather.

And then on Friday morning I received this notification on my cell phone.

And then we noticed this.

See the dock beside the boat on the right?

Yeah, that's underwater.

We kept walking, and saw this.

And this.

That's the Annapolis Waterfront Hotel. Except now it has water in the front and in the back.

We were told that the high tide, combined with the full moon and the after effects of Tropical Storm Melissa, were causing the flood waters. We felt uneasy but the locals all shrugged and said it was 'normal.'

We headed back the next day, Saturday, October 12. By noon, water levels had risen more than two feet above normal. Seawater laps over the docks, inch by inch. People start taking off their socks and shoes and walking through the cold, salt water.

Water flows into a vendor tent as a little girl

waits for her dad to save her.

I receive more weather alerts on my cell phone.

At 3:30, all power to the show is shut down. Imagine the voltage used by hundreds of boats all hooked up to mobile electric posts, all on docks that are 'fixed' to the seabed floor. Imagine the thousands of vendors losing power to their debit/credit card machines and all lighting in the vendor tents shut off. Imagine the level of fear in the tens of thousands of visitors when docks adjoining docks suddenly become submerged and exit routes to dry land become limited. Finding accessible exit routes is like finding your way out of a boat-lined maze.

I grab hold of the backpack on Ian's shoulder and hang on as he leads me through the maze and we weave our way through hundreds of boat-gawkers. Everyone is pretty calm, considering the docks are literally sinking beneath us. We head alongside the Passport sailboats - my fave!

Cream-puff pics from the Passport yacht website

If I had an extra few million dollars lying around, this would be my next sailboat. A Passport 54.5.

Triple spreader, two staterooms, two heads, linear galley and gigantic main salon.

Finally, we're on dry-ish land and the show organizers decide, for safety reasons, to close the show early. We look behind and see the swell of people scrambling to get 'out' of the show area.

Roads around the show have been closed and we watched the water's progress while waiting in line for our bus to take us to the parking area at the Naval Academy. Cars were prohibited from accessing the show and we were thankful that we decided to take advantage of the show's parking bus. What an adventure! It was our first time at the boat show and I know for certain it won't be our last.