Baltimore!
As we were cruising up the river to Baltimore, we saw the
red/white/blue striped buoy that marks the spot where Francis Scott Key was on
a British ship while helplessly viewing the battle of Baltimore.
We heard the story, which I don’t recall ever
hearing before. The British had captured
and threatened to execute a doctor from Baltimore. Francis Scott Key, a lawyer, went out to the
British flag ship to plea for the man’s freedom. He carried letters from British soldiers who
had been wounded and treated kindly and skillfully by the physician. The British admiral received this information
favorably and was moved to release the American doctor. However, he told them that the British fleet
was about to attack Baltimore, and so he could not release them until they won
the battle and could take the Americans to shore. That is how Francis Scott Key came to be
present, on the British flag ship, for the duration of the battle. In Fort McHenry, we saw a video who portrayed
the moment after the smoke cleared in the morning – Mr. Key was able to see
that it was the American flag that flew over the fort, and he was moved to
write the words to our national anthem.
Fort McHenry was very interesting – we got a good grasp of
what life was like in the Fort and how the Battle of Baltimore was fought. The British ships couldn’t get close enough
to the fort, or to Baltimore, to do much damage. That was because our cannon balls would have
destroyed the wooden ships. The British
ground forces weren’t able to get into the city, partly because their ships
hadn’t been able to soften up the target.
Also, the citizens of Baltimore had desperately built earthen works
which also contributed to the defense of the city. The fleet and the ground forces had to
retreat! Yay us!
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| Our water taxi driver! |
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| entrance to Fort McHenry |
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| view of the fort buildings |
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| walkway inside the fort |
Fells Point
We chose to stay at a marina in Fells Point, the oldest part
of Baltimore. Interesting buildings and
restaurants – really old cobblestone streets make for challenging walking! Most of the buildings are 2-3 stories high
and very narrow with little or no space between them. Residences have their front doors right on
the sidewalk. Our marina was
Henderson’s. There are many folks who
make their permanent home on their boat in the marina, and many of them have
dogs. We love talking to folks about their
dogs and ours.
We had a meal in an Irish pub right outside the marina. The pub had a dog focus on their
interior. We loved this, especially with
our recent loss of our Max. There were
portraits of dogs hanging all around the main room. Their bathroom doors had an unusual way of
designating the male and female facilities…
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| no guess as to which gender goes here! |
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| Yep, this is for the males! |
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| reminded us of Max, gone to us now |
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| we liked all the dog portraits |
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| from inside the restaurant/ship! |
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| another view inside the restaurant |
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| Fells Point businesssi |
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| residences, very close together! |
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| beautiful church |
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| love this! |
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| pretty Post office |
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| more narrow residences |
Our good friend, Paul Foster, spent parts of two days with
us. He has lived in Baltimore all his
life, so he steered us to a couple of wonderful restaurants. One was a fabulous old Italian restaurant –
yummm! The other restaurant was built on
a piece of land that was triangular in shape.
Both inside and outside of the restaurant looked like a ship,
facilitated by the shape of that property.
Wonderful seafood – of course, being in Maryland, they served
crabs! We chose their special, which
included half a lobster stuffed with crab imperial. Delicious.
Baltimore has a wonderful method of public transportation, the
water taxis. It cost us $5 for a full
day’s pass – cool. We used it to get to
Ft. McHenry and also to the Inner Harbor.
The Inner Harbor is really set up for tourists – the National Aquarium
is there, several old ships to tour, as well as just about every restaurant you
can imagine and lots of shopping. We
didn’t actually tour the ships, because it was too late in the day. We will be back this way again, and will
definitely want to tour those ships. We
chose to pass on the aquarium. We
enjoyed the view of the city from the water taxi.
While in the Inner Harbor, we noticed LOTS of debris which was
in the process of being cleaned up by men with scoops, brooms, and trucks. There is a trash wheel, also called the
‘trash monster’, that normally ‘eats’ the debris that washes down Jones
Falls. According to the taxi driver, the
amount of debris (which was nasty looking!) was very unusual and caused by the
heavy rains for the past two weeks. This
should have clued us in to what we were in for as we left Baltimore to continue
north on the Chesapeake Bay. More on
that in my next article!
Looking back on our Baltimore visit, we were glad we chose to
stay in Fells Point. The area felt very
comfortable, everything close by, not as busy and congested as the Inner
Harbor. We would definitely stay there
again!
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| trash eater in the harbor |
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| view from water taxi |
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| love the name! |
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| cool redo of old industrial buildings |
Havre De Grace, Maryland, last stop on the Chesapeake Bay
Before I write about this lovely old town (whose name I still
haven’t exactly figured out how to pronounce…!), I have to write about our
journey from Baltimore.
I mentioned the gross debris in the harbor in Baltimore, which
was washed down from the Jones Falls River and had overwhelmed the trash wheel
in the harbor. Well, that was NOTHING
compared to what we faced a few miles up the Bay. There were entire fields of floating grass,
logs (some as large as telephone poles), some logs that looked like big chunks
from someone’s firewood pile, lots of large sticks that were partially
submerged, plus at least 5 tires! Good
grief. Made for an interesting day’s
cruise. I was glad Dan was driving. Sometimes, we could weave between groups of
debris, but sometimes, there were fields where the mess went entirely across
our path. All we could do in those
instances was go to idle speed or even neutral, trying to just nose the logs
aside. A few times, we heard a dreaded
‘thunk’ on the side of the boat. We
don’t believe anything hit the props, and we didn’t notice any difference in
our maneuverability or speed. Fingers
crossed! As we got closer to Havre De
Grace harbor, there was no break at all.
Not to mention, that the channel coming into the harbor is very
serpentine with fairly shallow water on either side. Needless to say, we were very relieved to
arrive at the Tidewater marina. Very
nice young men helped us to dock. Turns
out most people arriving that day or the day before had no intention of leaving
until the mass of debris went further down the Chesapeake. This debris was also from the torrential
rains up in Pennsylvania. The
Susquehanna River’s dam, a short 2 or 3 miles up the river from Havre De Grace,
has 27 flood gates, and they had opened 20 of them! The towns above the dam had been experiencing
high flooding, and those towns were the source of the debris.
Havre De Grace is our last stop on the Chesapeake Bay. It is another charming older town. Looking into the history of the town, I found
that one big business has been the creation of decoys. The town is in tidelands and a major stopping
place for water fowl. There is an
interesting decoy museum there. It is
also located on a busy rail line. We had
dinner one night at a restaurant in view of the train tracks – there were fast
moving passenger trains that passed by every 5 minutes or so! Not sure, but we thought possibly the trains
could be carrying commuters from Baltimore, or even Washington, DC. Speaking of Washington, DC, one interesting
piece of history is that Havre De Grace was one of two locations that Congress,
in 1789, considered for the location of our nation’s capital!
I cannot talk about Havre De Grace and the Chesapeake Bay without mentioning Foster, a fellow looper who lives in the area. He is an invaluable resource about anything to do with the Chesapeake Bay, whether it be weather or places to visit. He and Susan were wonderful hosts to us there, ferrying us from the rental car return to our boat, meeting us for dinner in Delaware City.
We enjoyed the Tidewater marina. Folks were very nice, plus, they had a loaner
van that we used at least twice – very handy!
There are a number of challenges inherent in this method of
travel, where we are gone from home for weeks at a time and moving around all
the time. One is that I miss my Michigan
family so much! I have had to sacrifice
playing golf, having been accustomed to playing three times per week. I do enjoy playing (mostly badly, with
occasional exciting plays!), but I’m doing ok without my weekly golf fixes. To help with missing the family, Dan and I
struck a bargain: we would spend 6 or so
weeks on the boat, and then go home for a 2 week visit. We have accomplished this – it does help,
even though I still miss my family.
The visits home create another challenge in this journey on a
boat. That is figuring out the most
economical method for getting home and back!
I’ve described the couple of times we have moved our vehicles from one
port to another. This trip home in my
car is the last one, this season anyway, where we will have one of our own
vehicles. We used my car to return home,
and will have a one way rental for the return to the Kittiwake. For the next trip home, we will have cruised
the boat to a marina near our home in Michigan!
The other challenge is mail.
We enrolled with a mail delivery service, St. Brendan’s Isle, in Green
Cove Springs Fl. We forwarded all our
mail to them. When they get it, we are
notified by email. We take a look at the
picture of the outside of the mail, and decide if we want: a closer look (scan
the contents, please); don’t need it (shred it); hold for now; or, send it to a
place where we’ll be in a few days. It
has worked pretty well, even with the resulting delay in receiving our
mail. Many of our bills are online or
auto pay. Often, all we need from the
piece of mail can be accomplished by the scan.
We had intended to stay at Bohemia Yacht Harbor Marina, where
a ‘looper’ friend keeps his boat. We had
several packages mailed there to wait for our arrival. Unfortunately, turns out they had no space
for us at all. That’s why we ended up at
Tidewater, a few miles away. One use of
Tidewater’s loaner van was to make a trip to Bohemia to pick up our
packages. One package, though, some meds
for me, never got there. Oh well, just
something to figure out.
Another use for the loaner van was to acquire a rental
car. We used the rental car to make the
3.5 hour trip down to the Olverson’s marina where we had left my car. We were able to do that in one day. Now, we were ready for our trip home!
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