Annapolis By Water!

We had a blast at the boat show in October of 2021. It was our first time visiting Annapolis by water, and I can’t think it will be the last.

The pros:

Annapolis has the “cruisers need access to land” thing extremely well dialed in. Any street that dead ends on the water is, by law, public access for dinghies (12 feet long or shorter, 20 HP engine or smaller); many of those have actual docks where you can tie up with relative ease. There are supposedly 22 such streets/dinghy access spots, though finding an official list proved not easy. It made getting around very very simple: we could take the dinghy to the closest spot and walk, generally not more than a couple of blocks, to get to where we were going. A refreshing change from many other places we’ve been.

*The view from our mooring inside the bridge at Spa Creek*

You can pick up a mooring, if that’s your jam, for a fairly reasonable $35/night (showers included; pump out and water taxi not included). There are also a number of different anchorages to try. Be careful, though - there are distance limitations that seem to be pretty strictly enforced most of the time. Check the Harbormaster website for the latest updates.

Back Creek, to the western side of Eastport, is chock full of marinas, with a few city moorings and sporadic anchoring availability. It’s busy and also at the same time more residential: my guess is the vast majority of liveaboards in Annapolis live at a marina on this creek. You can get to Jabins yard with its myriad of services from this option.
Spa Creek divides Eastport and Annapolis proper, running along the Naval Academy and past Ego Alley. There’s lots of anchoring available in the very unprotected space outside of the Academy with less space once you go inside the Spa Creek bridge - but if you’re patient and keep going deep into the creek, you should be able to find space even in crowded Boat Show time. The creek is lined with residential homes and individual docks. This is prime mooring ball territory between the “Front 40” next to Ego Alley and then more inside the bridge, which complicates the anchoring scene.
Weems Creek is a couple of miles from Annapolis proper (Naval Academy area) but allows for more walkable access to amenities like grocery stores and bakeries in West Annapolis. I still don’t think you’ve got easy access to a laundromat or propane refills.

*approaching the Spa Creek bridge in the late evening*

Anchoring anywhere in Annapolis gives you access to showers at the Harbormaster’s office ($1 in 2021) and the laundry machines (1 washer/1 dryer in each of the mens and womens shower rooms; $1.75 to wash and $1.50 to dry). A pumpout boat will come to your boat ($5/tank); as of October 2021 the pumpout boat was operating Thursday-Sunday. Water is available from a tap at the head of Spa Creek (at Truxton Park), at Ego Alley, or with fuel purchase from Annapolis City Marina in Spa Creek or at the Port Annapolis fuel dock in Back Creek. I’d be very reluctant to run a watermaker in Spa Creek or Back Creek as there’s very little water flow in and out.

Many, many options for outdoor dining if that’s your thing. A couple of them (Bread and Butter Kitchen, Davis’ Pub) are even waterfront!

The cons:

Annapolis isn’t easy for things like groceries, propane, or laundry - unless you have a car. Friends did use public transportation to access the grocery store, but filling propane tanks would definitely be problematic even though there are a couple of places that will fill your tanks. We’re eternally grateful to local friends who essentially threw us car keys or picked us up to play taxi when we knocked on the hull.

The Harbormaster’s office can be hit or miss in terms of friendliness and helpfulness. We asked one person there where to get water; when we approached that very spot the next day, a different representative from the office yelled loudly at us that there was no way we could bring the boat there and didn’t we see all the “no docking” signs? (There are no such signs, for the record.)

There’s a lot we haven’t explored yet, including the Naval Academy. It’s fun to feel like we have a sense of the place, though, and we’ll definitely be back!