From Cambridge, we sailed to Annapolis where it all began.  This is where we purchased Troubadour and lived on her last fall until we sailed to Hampton.  On our way there we heard several shout outs from the Coastguard.  As you may know, there are three levels of threat and they are, in ascending order:

1)      SECURITE, SECURITE, SECURITE

2)      PAN PAN

3)      MAYDAY

Normally we hear “SECURITE” messages all day long but we heard quite a few “PAN PAN” messages on this trip.  Then we came across a situation ourselves.  We sailed up onto a smaller craft, a Flying Scott sailboat, which was swamped with water.  Two men were aboard and we circled them several times asking if they needed help but they couldn’t hear us over the wind and our engine.  At first we tried to tow the boat, hoping that the bailers might drain the boat.  Ultimately, Troubadour is not much of a tow boat and we hoped a power boat would come along and take over.  Not only would it be faster for them but we were on a schedule to get to Annapolis.  Finally, they decided the boat should be abandoned and come aboard Troubadour.  We tossed them a line and they followed it in the water to our boat while Graham got the ladder ready.  They were shivering pretty badly by the time they were resting in our cockpit because they had been in the water awhile.  Not a whole lot of body fat on these guys either to keep them comfy.  Matt reported the abandoned craft to the CoastGuard and we took them to shore.  We found out a few days later that they did recover the boat but that it had drifted five miles.

Finally to Annapolis, we met up with our friend, Jamie there for his fourth visit to us during our travels.  We returned to Davis Pub for their crab dip and then anchored out for what we thought was the hottest night on record.  Little did we know what the next night would bring.  Now I will let Jamie take over, for he is a far better writer than I.