Epic 686 Lawn Casting - Post Linner

We drove out to Eastport in Annapolis to eat at the Boatyard again - Marlon had asked for some of their fried chicken fingers for his birthday meal - twist my arm!!! We ate "Linner" there (Lunch and Dinner, but closer to lunchtime) - the raw oysters were marvelous as always;) Right after eating, I asked La if I could take just a few minutes to cast this rod/WF6 line. I had cast it this morning, but since I was on the street in front of our house, I was being ginger with the line. This was in front of a school that we park by everytime we go to the Boatyard. I saw it this morning while casting and I was witness to it again this afternoon - THIS ROD IS WONDERFUL!!! I can cast close in with minimal line out and 50 foot casts are not hard to push out. I can see my loops flying through the air and I can feel the load/unload cycle - very nice indeed!!! I'm not a very good caster. I still get tailing loops every so often and my form needs some work. With that said, this is another one of those rods (and line combinations) that makes me look halfway decent - I'm a believer in the Epic 686!!!

More Holiday Boat Parade Pictures

La reminded me she took the time and effort to send me more of the pictures we (she) took and that I should at least have the common courtesy to post them for all of you kind folk to see and enjoy. Please see these pictures and enjoy them ;) If we had our liveaboard now, our light display would have had Santa in board shorts getting barreled by a mellow, tropical tube - giving a resounding shaka the whole way! Soon enough. In the meantime, enjoy these pictures and check out the videos on the web of the entire proceedings. Happy Holidays!!!

Annapolis Boat Parade

The real reason we drove out to Annapolis was to watch the Holiday Boat Parade. So right after stuffing our faces at the Boatyard, we walked across the street and watched the boats strung up with lights strutting their stuff. This only served to makes us want to get our own boat sooner. Looks like I'll be looking for an overseas job to pull in the big bucks faster... or I can buy a lotto ticket before Tuesday. I don't even need to win the big one - we just need $1 million... (close your eyes now and imaging Dr Evil curling his pinky to the corner of his mouth and cackling in a most evil way). The cold and the rain made our stay short, but probably for the better (or we'd be going to the boat loan shark shop). To warm up again, we found a new (to us) coffee shop - Ahh Coffee - a good cup of joe.

Annapolis Fall Boat Show 2013

It's that time of year again!!! The Sailboat show is back in town! Where last year was a glance at what these boats are magnitude wise, our objective this year was to really get to know the nuances of these sailboats. La and I spent the better part of 13 hours taking in the multihulls in excruciating detail. I'll post separately on the three that really took our attention, but these random pictures are some of the others on display that caught my eye for various reasons. Especially the ocean rowing hull, the mini transat, the wooden sailing canoe, and the inflatable skiff (and you know I am a sucker for inflatable watercraft). There will be several posts from yesterday, so for those of you that couldn't make it to the show, grab some popcorn and get ready to read.

Sunday Morning in Annapolis

For the semi-annual East of Maui Windsurfing Swap Meet. Not as many people coming out this time - and it didn't seem like much equipment was moving around. The Bisgards came up to check out the equipment. Dan Stoddard also came over to check out the deals on SUPs. Trevor Mathis came to round out the Dive Side (minimum four to splash). And after a bunch of socializing, we left early to check out the waterfront. Lots of cool stickers and nautical fare... but the best part was eating lunch at the "Boatyard"! I really wanted to eat the half rack of baby back ribs and crab macaroni and cheese... but instead I opted for a salad. I had a pseudo physical on Friday and the doctor basically said I'm fat, I eat like crap and I don't exercise enough. Maybe the Navy should hire more people to balance out the workload so I can exercise more, get rid of my stress and not be fat. And while they are at it, the government should learn to set better goals for itself (like not letting sequestration happen, and working together to put a budget out) so the workforce doesn't get stressed... I'm just saying... Anyways back on topic - Sunday was a nice day getting together with friends, even if we didn't sell anything this time!

SUP Herd Thinning and the Good Grog

This was a busy (in a good way) Father's Day weekend. Saturday saw us picking up a Bass for Marlon (he'll be taking lessons this summer), washing both vehicles and dropping off the Starboard Blend in Annapolis as it got sold! If I didn't just buy the Hatch reels, I'd be getting a Hooked SUP - but that's okay - I've got a couple of Hatch reels. I will most likely get a Bak Flip for the truck so I can keep stuff locked up in the bed and a front mounted 2" receiver hitch. These couple of mods will make the truck super versatile - carrying stuff up front (bike racks, T-mount for the kayak, cooler basket with surf rod mounts) mostly and having the ability to keep the bed secure from prying eyes and hands. Well with the traffic the way it was on Saturday evening on I-495 North, we didn't get to Annapolis until 1900. We dropped off the board with it's new owner and went over to Eastport to grab some food. We settled on the Boatyard - pretty cool place and the food was great! And so was the beer. Nothing like good grog ;)

Skunked!!!!

So we did break out the fixed line flyrods and tried our luck. First we stopped at the Kent Narrows bridges. We didn't see anything so we kept on moving. We did settle for the dock we previously fished at Annapolis - nice sunny day but we didn't get one bite! I think I've been fishing three times this year so far and I have not gotten the time of day once... I'm going to have to do something to change my catching streak - maybe burn some flies as a sacrifice???? The pink and purple flies were given to Noe by the Casting for Recovery crew at the CCA event - I won't burn those (Noe won't let me). The mini gurgler inspired me to cut some sheet foam...

Annapolis Sailboat Show

So this was one of the reasons we went to Annapolis yesterday. We are scoping out the live aboard catamarans to see what we would like to target in the future (3-10 years from now). We also checked out the Island Packets - nice boats all around! Between La and I, we didn't converge to a singular solution - she loved the Leopards and I had a leaning towards the Antares; but there was no question the Gunboat 66 was the sweetest boat at the show. I'm pretty convinced the Farrier 44SC is still the boat for us, but being able to get a feel for the size and space of others did help answer a lot of questions for us.

Annapolis EOM Swap Meet

We got up early yesterday and loaded up the truck with the boards/stuff we didn't need and made a run at selling them at the East of Maui Windsurf/Surf Swap Meet. La loves yard sales and true to form she had fun at this one too. We sold four boards and a bunch of equipment everything but one windsurfer - this made a huge dent in displacing the cost of the Big Tuna Kayak we bought about a month ago and opened up the space for the kayak. La actually got reminiscent when some of the boards were sold - parts of our lives together leaving our grasp - enough mushy talk. Funny how the finite space in a garage can drive your weekend activities - not the fun part necessarily, but the reorganizing, the procurement and selling of equipment. I have literally spent the entire last four weekends either organizing the equipment in the garage, sorting through what boards to keep and what goes on the culling block, driving interstate to buy and sell stuff and going back home to rearrange again. I think we are very close to steady state now. With all that action going on, we did find a couple of hours to go fishing yesterday - on the kayak. We caught two - only two. A front was moving in fast and I think the barometric change had something to do with the activity level. All in all a great fun day!!!