Fri, 05 May 2006 13:22:34 UTC
SLEEPY HOLLOW
Photos: ©Oskar Kihlborg
There are so many extremities to the life of an offshore sailor, one day the winches could be turned in the freezing cold and the next in sweltering heat, but not many of those transitions can compare to that made yesterday.
Annapolis, where the fleet arrived from Baltimore yesterday evening, is the antithesis of the world in which these sailors make their living. Now they find themselves in a sleepy, yet beautiful, hollow on America’s east coast.
If the people were any more relaxed they’d fall asleep. In fact as the boats arrived this evening, parading sails to team tunes, one man snoozed on a bench. He wasn’t a wino; dressed in a shirt and tie he actually looked more like a businessman enjoying a siesta in the early evening sunshine.
Just ten paces ahead a middle aged couple add a guitar beat to the background sound, standing on their boat and playing to the passing crowd. A family stands watching, their little girl singing along. This is hardly the rush hour you’d expect at 1700 on a weekday night. Neither is the single line of traffic, running directly through the middle of town yet hardly making a sound. It’s a quantum leap away from what can be expected in New York at this time of day next week.
The buildings are beautiful, but not spectacular. They stand assorted in neat rows, mostly built from red bricks. No coloured grouting to disguise their fabric, just brick. The American flags which invariably adorn the porches and terraces add a proudly patriotic feel. The Naval Academy adds to that impression.
Dotted between the trees around this small town, which houses just 37,000 people according to the latest census, are several wooden houses. It’s oh so very quaint, but again, nice. The fact there are few to no wind gusts this evening provokes the lyrically inclined to talk about a calm, contented place. “This place is great for relaxing,” Paul Cayard says.
The diners, bars and restaurants along the dock are colourful and diverse, themed in everything from 1970s rock to the mandatory Irish bar found in every country except Ireland.
One road leads through a leafy suburb to the Farr Yacht Design offices. Others lead to national parks, far away crab houses and golf courses. It’s not very Baltimore, a city as eclectic and vibrant as Annapolis is relaxed and tranquil. For some it could be like falling from Heaven to Hell, to others it could be an escalator in the other direction. For those undecided there is more than enough to do, and enough freedom to do nothing.
One member of the Volvo Ocean Race who can lay claim to being a native is movistar’s Jono Swain. He moved here as a 22-year-old in 1990 and stayed for 12 years, only actually selling his house last year.
He recommends visitors try the blue crab at Cantler’s Crab House. Failing that he says any one of the steakhouses are “great”, while for working up the appetite the state parks, barely half an hour away, offer the “ultimate mountain biking experience.” If the lure of the slow life is what draws you here then the golf courses about an hour up the eastern shore are apparently spectacular. On the whole he describes this place as “a fantastic place to live. It’s a bit different to the life we know at sea, but it’s fantastic.”
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