After our dreadful weather greeting to Washington we were royally entertained and looked after by members of the Capital Yacht Club and also fellow visiting yachtsmen. All were friendly and helpful. We anchored within rowing distance of the clubhouse, which was just as well since the little outboard motor had given up. The adjacent Washington Marina was very helpful and managed to find parts for the carburettor, which Will fitted. It worked, and very well too, much to everybody’s pleasure and amazement. The parts department also found us some wheels for use on the dinghy for the Caribbean beaches and an inexpensive petrol driven water pump in case of disasters. It is great at washing the decks and the anchor as well. It pumps 46 gallons a minute!

The fish market was next to our anchorage, which is a channel between a long marina and a beautiful park created by dredgings from the Potomac. The park seems to be used for 24 hours a day by joggers, bikers, walkers and lovers. It is very like the park at St James in London (only bigger)! In the market we bought flounders (like sole), scallops (very inexpensive and small, but delicious), small crabs (ditto) and sea trout (which regrettably was a bit like harbour mullet!). Three out of four to make a gourmet dinner wasn’t bad.

Square rigged ships used to sail up the Potomac to Washington to trade their cargoes, but alas no longer. We did see one three masted schooner on our way out however. He also had difficulty with the nighttime opening of the bridge and he additionally seemed to have problems with the sand banks. We think he was going to come back down the river in the daylight since he was semi commercial. Nowadays a considerable number of helicopters fly over the anchorage all day long, including the President’s helicopter on its way to the White House.

We loved Washington. Despite the weather being hot and humid we explored quite a lot of the city. The boulevards are wide and tree lined and the Mall, which stretches the whole way from the Abraham Lincoln memorial to the Capitol (perhaps two miles), is over 400 yards (metres) wide and is parkland bordering with either water or grass. The Capitol is right at the centre of the city and is the American houses of parliament.

We were fortunate to meet Congressman Randy Forbes whose staff kindly showed us around the whole building. It is an impressive structure with a cast iron dome. There are numerous paintings and statues in the building representing the great orators and events of the past. The one of the King of Hawaii (USA’s 49th State) weighs a considerable amount and is tucked behind a column (not because he was King but because of the weight we are told). We actually stood at the very centre of Washington D.C. in the lower floor of the Capitol with Bob and Cheryl (some would say the centre of the Universe!).

Most Americans we have talked to seem ashamed of their present imperialist foreign policy, which seems to revolve entirely around oil. Will has pointed out, however, that most British have been ashamed of the own imperialist past for much longer, and that American backs will no doubt get broader with time!

It is an interesting fact that the World War II memorial was only erected in Washington within the last four years, by George W Bush. It is a simple but effective area of fountains and colonnades at the opposite end of the lake of reflections from the Lincoln memorial. Lincoln was the president of the United States during their civil war. He was very unpopular during his presidency, but, having been murdered whilst watching a play at the Ford Theatre (we saw the outside), he became an American Hero. His memorial includes a statue of himself seated in a large chair. The whole likeness is about 100 feet tall, towering over the visitors below and has a magnificent view of the Washington memorial across the reflecting pool.

To the right of the reflecting pool is the tidal pool on the banks of the Potomac. This is where the Jefferson Memorial, another beautiful building is situated.

The museums are free (except for the museum of spying) and are a great credit to the country. They were started in the mid nineteenth century with a gift of about £750 000 from Mr Smithsonian, a British businessman! The Americans have taken this gratuity and turned it into 18 extremely interesting and popular museums and galleries and a small but very effective zoo, which has two giant pandas sponsored by Fuji Film and chewing away on bamboo donated by a generous benefactor. They eat shoots and leaves. (Susan is always telling Will to put more commas into sentences but we will probably leave this one as it is)!

We were exhausted by our excursions around the museums although happy that we saw so much culture together for the benefit of the general public. The museum of American History entertained us with stories of the immigration into the Untied States and the way in which the hard work was rewarded with material goods. There were two steam engines in the museum. One was sent flat packed by George Stephenson to America and assembled by a man, who knew nothing previously about steam engines, in five days. They also put a bogie on the engine to stop it falling off the rails. The engine actually still works and was taken for an outing in the 1970’s. There is an interesting film about it shown at the museum with all the passengers dressed in period costume. The second locomotive from the 1950’s, a type 1401, weighs 260 Tonnes and is the archetypal American steam engine with bells and whistles everywhere! There was a greyhound bus in the museum that Will was positive was the one he boarded during the late sixties on his way from Niagara to Winnipeg. There were life like models of people from the various periods alongside the exhibits and even some mannequins dressed in rock and roll style in an open top 1960’s Buick. They looked as if they were having fun!

There are many different types of interactive computer screens in all the Smithsonian museums, which make for very informative and entertaining visits. One particular setup in the museum of the American Indian had four computer screens in front of 150 small exhibits in a glass case in front of the visitors. By touching the computer screen one could view the history and composition of each artefact and also view the back and sides of the objects. We discovered that a painted hard hat from one tribe, who are now renowned and revered steel erectors, has a naked lady painted on the side not generally viewable by the public. Another fact put forward in the Indian museum was the way that the Europeans were able to take over the Americans, which were pretty fully populated at the time Columbus ‘discovered’ America (the Bahamas and Hispaniola really, since he never set foot on American mainland soil). The Europeans brought diseases with them, waited for the indigenous people to die from them, and then took over the land with a little help from guns and the church. There seems little doubt that the Europeans would not have expanded into America without the help of smallpox and influenza.

The museum of Space and flight was very complementary to our visit to the Kennedy Space centre and we were very impressed by the exhibition showing how the Wright Brothers invented powered flight. They first experimented with kites in their local park and then with much larger gliders on the sand at Kittihawk. They made a number of original aeronautical discoveries, including correct wing camber and lift and the use of a wind tunnel. The fact that they hand manufactured bicycles helped with making a lightweight and balanced aeroplane. They also, with the help of their bicycle shop employee, Taylor, produced their own engine for the plane. We came away with no doubt that the inventors of the power aeroplane were American! It was also very interesting to note that from the first powered flight in 1904 to the first landing of a man on the moon was less than 65 years. A piece of the Wright brothers’ first plane was taken to the moon on the first landing by Armstrong.

Although there was only one picture by Leonardo da Vinci in the National Gallery there were four Bottecellis, ten Rembrants, four Van Goghs, five Gaugins, one Reubens, three Constables, two Joshua Reynolds, a Raeburn or two, and Manets and Monets round every corner. There were some excellent paintings from the American School culminating in Whistlers double life size portrait of his patrons wife ‘study of a lady in white’. This is viewed through about four galleries and creates a stunning impression. The special exhibition was by Gilbert Scott who painted 100 portraits of George Washington. Most of them seemed to be in the gallery.

We found some kindred spirits in our passion for the museums and galleries in Bob and Cheryl who were visiting Washington, and were living aboard their CT54, Calypso, which was also built in Taiwan and had much the same rig as Atlantia. They kindly entertained us to dinner and leant us some charts of New York and New Jersey, which we will return when we see them on our way back down the Intracoastal Waterway in the Autumn (fall, here!) at Brunswick. They also introduced us to Trail Mix. Mixed fruit and nuts with M&Ms (smarties) interspersed! Very tasty.

We also have to thank the hospitality of Joni, John, Bill Barr and Tom McGinn from Arabella II who kindly lent us his car to go to Safeway for stores. A brave man! There were countless others who made our time in Washington so enjoyable, it really is a friendly and interesting city.

Our way back down the Potomac was uneventful although we did call in to see George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon. You will recall he led the rebel army that led to the break away of the American Colonies from Britain. He certainly came over as a fair, intelligent and capable man. A General, Estate owner and the first President of the United States. There were a large number of visitors besides ourselves to the estate, which was run by Washington as a farm. He was an efficient farmer as well as an astute politician, but the estate is now run by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association, an equally revered astute, and capable body. They have owned the property since 1958 and obviously have an eye for business as well as history! The estate now farms people! At very reasonable rates, of course.

We met Woody MacLean at Annapolis on the Chesapeake Bay. We had had a splendid beat up the bay, which is really a very long estuary with rivers flowing into it. We anchored in a secluded bay with Woody’s boat the only other inhabitant. We were surrounded by trees and were privileged to watch deer, raccoons, muskrats, turkey vultures, bald eagles and ospreys play around us. On our last day we saw a snapper, a local turtle, swimming by the boat.

We totally failed in our quest to obtain another wind direction and speed, gauge to replace the one that ceased functioning in the lightning storm. We traced two second hand gauges but neither seemed to work for us. Additionally the Americans now require propane bottles to have an overflow release valve, so we are unable to have our British or Spanish gas bottles filled. We may have to but yet another type of propane bottle and regulator!

Annapolis is the Capital of America yachting even though they don’t have a lot of second hand autohelm units! It is a little like Ryde in Kent and is very proud of its heritage going back to the mid seventeenth century. It is a pretty place and the Annapolis yacht club is very grand. They were pleased to welcome us as temporary members. They dry sail about 20 Etchells and 30 J 24’s. There are hundreds of boats in the large marinas dotted around the creeks. It must be an impressive sight to see them racing at weekends. Regrettably we never did.

We passed out of Chesapeake Bay at the North end into the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, having passed under two forth road bridge look-alikes which span across the bay (only twice as far as the Forth Bridge!).

It was Canal day wand we were surrounded by a hundred powerboats going up the canal at break neck speed. Atlantia seems to be admired wherever we go, and some Harley Davidson bikers stopped for a chat when we fuelled up with diesel half way through the canal. We may have inspired another ‘Easy Rider’ Film!

We will tell you about our trip down the Delaware River and up to Atlantic City next time we write.

Suffice to say the weather has been pretty bad and we are now waiting for the fog to clear at Atlantic City before we sail up to Sandy Hook and New York.

We enclose more of Susan’s snaps. We are sure you’ll like them

Love from Atlantia