We Have to Get Off the Boat | When Boat Projects Wear You Down
Two years of refit work finally caught up with us, so we went looking for a hike. What we found wasn't rugged, but it was exactly the break we needed.
Two years of rebuilding ROAM, and we thought we'd be thrilled to spend our days finishing projects and getting the boat ready to cruise. Instead, we're tired. Genuinely, stir-crazy tired of boat projects that never fully end, and we needed something bigger than our usual evening walk around town.
So we went looking for an adventure. It took us two tries to find one — and along the way, we learned something about what we actually needed.
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Two years of boat projects finally caught up with us, so we went looking for a hike. Here's what we found instead — and why it was exactly right.
What Happened
Our first attempt sent us by kayak to the boat ramp at Truxtun Park, a stretch of green space right behind our anchorage. We found trails, but they turned out to be short, paths through what felt like people's backyards, ending at an unremarkable building and a stretch of asphalt after about ten minutes. The park itself is genuinely nice — a pool, tennis and pickleball courts, a playground, a boat launch — but it's a city park, not the wilderness escape we were craving.
We tried again the next day, this time aiming bigger. We dinghied to Quiet Waters Park, one of the largest parks in the Annapolis area. Our dinghy was too big for the park dock, so we anchored it offshore and used a kayak to get to and from land — a small adventure of its own before we'd even started walking.
Once there, we discovered the "trails" we'd hoped for were actually wide, paved, fully accessible paths. Not the rugged hike we had in mind, but we kept walking anyway, found the South River overlook, ate a packed lunch, and spent hours just moving through a beautiful day together. We covered a few miles, saw butterflies and bees working a flower, and didn't think about a single boat project the entire time.
Why It Matters
We're calibrated for a very different kind of hike, and that's worth naming honestly. Twenty years in the Pacific Northwest set our expectations at old-growth forest, real elevation, scrambling, and an all-day expedition that ends with beer and pizza because we've burned 5,000 calories. Annapolis was never going to match that, and holding it to that standard would have guaranteed disappointment. Recognizing the mismatch let us enjoy what was in front of us instead of measuring it against a completely different environment.
The goal wasn't difficulty — it was distance from boat projects. We didn't succeed by finding a grueling trail. We succeeded by leaving for an entire day, the longest stretch we'd been off the boat in a long time, with zero projects following us around. That's a different kind of win than the one we set out looking for, and it was the one we actually needed.
Two years of refit work leaves you more depleted than you realize. We expected to feel sore the next day from the walking. We didn't — which was its own small signal about how much our bodies and minds had been running on refit-mode tension rather than genuine physical exertion. Stepping fully away, even without an intense hike, was enough to reset us.
Not every good cruising day involves the boat at all. Sometimes the best thing for the boat, the relationship, and the whole project is getting away from all three for a few hours and just being two people in a park.
Related Episodes
Our time in Annapolis is covered more broadly in EP77, our cruiser's guide to the city.
What Comes Next
With a full day off the boat behind us, we're headed back into the ongoing project list — but with a clearer sense that stepping away deliberately. We're also starting to gear up for the 2026 Annapolis Boat Shows! We're putting together a preview episode to help you navigate all the changes this year.
