Hi. I’m Carl Patty. I was born and raised in Oklahoma and have been living in Annapolis since 1992.

After serving in the Marine Corps and graduating from Southwestern Oklahoma University, I worked as a seismologist in Alaska and as a restaurateur, carpenter, and rancher in Oklahoma.

The best thing that ever happened to me was when my sister said, “Come to spend Easter with us in Maryland.” This was my first trip to the East Coast. I had never seen so much green or so much water. The first time I crossed the Bay Bridge, I said, “I would like to live here one day.” I never realized how soon that might be.

My sister had a summer home on Tilghman Island, where we spent weekends. The work boats, and skipjacks, and crabbers fascinated me. I had forgotten my camera, but picked up a sketchbook. As I got to know some of the watermen and other residents, they saw my sketchbook and said, “Paint my boat, paint my dog, paint my house.”

I was painting a fellow’s boat one week when a man invited me to sail to New York with him. I had been sailing around the ponds of Oklahoma since I was twelve years old, but this was my first offshore trip. It started my love affair with all sailing boats.

I knew a little about the Chesapeake from James Michener’s book, but when you have never seen it, you can’t picture how big it is or the beauty of it. The duck and geese migrations are just outstanding. More species of birds come down the East Coast than practically any other flyway in the United States. When you are 40-50 miles offshore between Newport, Rhode Island and Cape May, New Jersey, a little red canary will rest with you for awhile. Monarch butterflies will visit you, hundreds of them at a time. In the southern waters, the dolphins come up and do their jumps and spins, and you never know when you will run into a pod of whales.

The water is my life, and the Chesapeake Bay is the most forgiving body of water you can sail on. If you run aground, you are running on sand. I have probably spent between 750 to 1,000 days on the water, about 250 of them totally offshore, since 1992. I have covered at least 50,000 miles on the water moving boats up and down the East Coast. Still, there is nothing like coming back to this little town.

I first came to Annapolis when a friend said, “Come to Annapolis and house sit for us for a few weeks.” I did, and I fell in love with it. Another neighbor had a winter storage slip right next to mine. He said, “We are going to South America for a few weeks, and I have a dog that needs to be walked and a bird that needs to be fed.” Every morning I would feed the parrot, and walk the dog, and grab my bag of tricks, and walk across the bridge for breakfast at Chick and Ruth’s. At that point, I would look at marinas and buildings and decide what I was going to paint that day. I would find a place that was in the sun and out of the wind and would do my painting. This is how I fell in love with Maryland. I don’t have to be at City Dock, Middleton’s, or the State House to sketch them anymore. I have painted them so many times.

When my neighbor returned, I went back to Tilghman Island and brought my boat to the marina at the end of Burnside in Eastport. I could walk across the Spa Creek Bridge every day. It was a constant love affair with the city. I have never felt more at home at any place I have ever been.

We are blessed to have World Cup sailing events, the National Sailing Hall of Fame, and many people who are involved in boating and fishing. It’s a fantastic place to live and call home. I like looking around at the buildings, at the mortar joints and brick patterns of the historic buildings. Among the unique features of some of the older buildings are the chimney caps. The different designs that the old masons used were truly ingenious.

I guess the best thing about Annapolis is its people. They are friendly. They take you for who you are. I have traveled from Canada, to Mexico, to the Virgin Islands, to St. Martin looking for a better place to live, and there isn’t one. Annapolis is just a perfect town to be in. I can’t say enough about it.