Annapolis may be known as the sailing capital of America, but it’s just as fun onboard a powerboat.

With each spring comes the opportunity for new adventure at Power & Motoryacht, and with it a brand new boat upon which to explore. This year’s company boat was a Cruisers 447 Sport Sedan, and as always, her delivery promised to be a unique experience.

Last year’s delivery gave me the chance to visit five southern towns I’d never been to; this year it was some favorite spots I’d visited many times. Last year I traveled the calm, shallow waters of the ICW; this year it was the much deeper and choppier Chesapeake Bay. Last year my crew consisted of my husband Chris and my friend and colleague Liz Britten; this year it was two of the newest members of the PMY staff. Two very different trips, both memorable in their own way.

When I finally found Office Ours tucked in the corner of the Annapolis City Marina, one of my crew, associate editor Jeffrey Moser, was already onboard fiddling with things, as he is known to do. We’d meet our new production coordinator Ryan Ciuchta in town once we’d settled. Ciuchta had moved to New York from Annapolis a few months earlier to join the PMY team and was in town catching up with old friends.

Although the marina was jam-packed, downtown Annapolis was quieter than usual. It was springtime, and the tourists had yet to arrive—even the usual stream of white and khaki uniforms from the nearby Naval Academy seemed to have disappeared. My cousin Tommy, in his third year at the Academy, later informed us the Academy’s spring formal had taken place the night before. Twenty-four hours earlier the same streets must have looked like a scene out of a movie, with midshipmen decked out in dress blues, their dates in beautiful formal attire on their arms. What a difference a day makes.

Things were so quiet, I could actually decipher our dinner conversation at the normally bustling Riordan’s on Market Place, which felt like a small-town pub where everybody knows your name. (Well, Tommy’s name at least, being a midfielder for Navy in a town that seems more than a little lacrosse crazy.) And there wasn’t even a wait to pick up a jug of my favorite beer from Fordham Brewery on West Street, a good thing since we had a lot of water ahead of us the next day and would surely be looking forward to a cold drink once we reached our next destination, St. Michaels.

I’m kidding, of course. St. Michaels is only about 25 nautical miles across the Chesapeake from Annapolis. But apparently to put out a magazine, some of the employees have to occasionally be in the office. So once we reached Baltimore, Ciuchta would have to trade places with creative director Aimee Colon and head back to New York. But first we had a few days to poke around the Bay, and Ciuchta was armed with local knowledge.

This article originally appeared in the December 2006 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.