Sunday morning we had a leisurely start on our way to the Schooner Race. For an hour or two, we wafted between close reaching and closehauled until the wind just gave out again, and then we motored the rest of the way to a quiet secluded anchorage. We spent the afternoon swimming and cleaning Grace's bottom to prepare for the race.

The next day dawned with light NW winds. We had a lovely 19 mile spinnaker run to our anchorage just a few miles from Baltimore. Suzanne helms while I trim the spinnaker and take pictures.

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Tuesday morning we picked our way out of the anchorage in the predawn darkness. We'd told the race organizers that we'd arrive at 9, and were 3 hours away. Three hours of motoring put us in our slip for the open dock portion of the race, where folks can come by and ogle the vessels and chat with the crews. We did some ogling and chatting ourselves and settled in. Wednesday was spent with more open docks, a captain's meeting about the race, and a parade of sail through the inner harbor of Baltimore. It was a challenging bit of fun sail handling in close quarters with so many schooners. It was good practice for Thursday's start.