We threw off the mooring line and were on our way to Baltimore by 11:00 am.. It's a 30 mile trip with winds predicted to be 5-10knots from the south. It ended up being a Hot, Hot, Hot day. Baltimore set a record at 95 degreees -- temps like this we thought we had left far behind on the ICW!
Ahead, we are approaching the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Quite a feat of engineering.
Once we arrived at the Baltimore Inner Harbor, our final task of the day was to find a place to anchor for the night. We had gotten some good tips from friends, plus we found Baltimore to be a very 'boater-friendly' town with a nice city dock and pier.
On the hook for the night.
Saturday, Sept 25
Up bright and early today because we are moving over to the Henderson Wharf Marina for the weekend. We can show up any time after 7a.m. and we want our moneys worth! Actually, this marina is quite a deal at $1.60/foot plus $5/day for electric -- all the other marinas I called were charging $2.50/foot plus $15/day for electricity!
We were hoping for a face dock (where we can pull up parallel to the pier, making it very easy to get on/off the boat). Instead we got what's called "a finger pier", meaning that we center Maja in a slip and tie her off to a fixed piling and the floating finger pier (aptly named because the "finger pier" extends only about halfway down our boat, not even reaching the gate in our lifelines). So entering/exiting the boat is a tricky affair of climbing over the lifelines and onto the dock.
But we're here! And our college buddy, Tom McNally, is waiting for us in the parking lot, with a car! Yahoo! We haven't seen Tom in several years, but when we heard that he moved to Baltimore, we put him on our list of key East Coast contacts.
Nothing beats spending the day in a new town with a local tour guide. We spent the day with Tom, driving around to see the sights and historical places of Baltimore -- shopping, wine festival, restaurants -- lots to do in this town. Tim Ryan ... Robert Ewing ... you should come to Baltimore and visit Tom! He's got a fabulous 2-bdrm apartment right off the harbor area. And ... he could find us a bar where we can watch the Vikings game on Sunday!
Sunday, Sept 26
Who cares if the game was Vikings vs. Detroit Lyons -- we won! The sports bar was playing the Ravens game on a wall covered with TV screens, and Tom had talked them into showing the Vikings game on one screen... down in the corner. But who cares, we got to see the game and Vikings won! It was a great afternoon of football, bloody marys, delicious food and good company. Nothing beats sharing Viking Sunday with another Minnesota native fan. Thanks Tom!
Sorry for the blurry picture ... but couldn't resist Viking fans in Baltimore!
Lovely day outside of the bar.
After the game, we were glad to be just a few blocks from Tom's apartment as we were beat from all the revelry ... if you know what I mean. We spent the evening raiding Tom's liquor and refrigerator and great collection of DVDs ... and his 2nd bedroom, as the offer to stay the night too good to resist!
Monday, Sept 27
Awoke at Tom's to a gray and rainy day in Baltimore. perfect day for a hangover.
Coffee and showers and fresh laundry later, Tom drove us back to the marina (oh yeah, we live on a boat!). Because of the rain and winds forecast, we decide to stay put for a 3rd nite at Hendersons, but also scope out another place to move Maja (aka somplace we can anchor, anyplace free). Much of the inner harbor is boat-friendly with one big anchorage but also several places to tie up at public docks.
So off we go on foot, to explore the area that already looks familiar b/c of our time with Tom.
Baltimore in a town with cool old buildings. Lots of history here.
Narrow streets.
The influence of water is everywhere.
Water taxi at work.
Like most of these older coastal towns, the military presense is evident.
There is also a huge commerical presense as well, especially in the rehabing of the inner harbor.
As is our custom when encounterning a Hard Rock Cafe, we order a shot of something at the bar in order to get our son, James, a souvenir for his collection. We've limited our contributions over the years to just HRC logo shot glasses. I'm sure his collection is packed away in boxes somewhere, but here's another one for you, JWK, because we love and miss you! Baltimore is as far north as we'll get in Year #1 of our sailing adventure in 2010!. Thanks for being such a loyal member of our fan club xxooo
On our way back to the marina, we walked by the City Pier and see a sailboat tied up. That was definitely an invitation to chat because we'd love to join them.. The couple on s/v LunaSea are from Ontario, Canada and just starting their liveaboard journey, just like us. They learned from some locals that it was OK to tie to the City Pier until Friday morning when they would start moving in boats for the Fun Festival to be held this weekend. Sounds OK to us, so we go back to Maja for our last nite in the marina.
For the first time since Hurricane Earl, weather has started to be a factor in our plans. We are waiting for a decent weather window to get Tom on the boat before we start our journey south for the season. We are expecting cooler, rainier, windy weather until Wednesday, when there should be one nice day before tropical storm weather moves in at the end of the week ... another thing that is altering our plans for the week. However, we love this town and would rather wait out bad weather here ... especially if we can move the boat to someplace that won't cost us $80/night!
Tuesday, Sept 28.
The weather has become fickle ... sometimes rainy, sometimes clear ... not sure which way the wind will blow over the next few days. Today, however, the wind is blowing ~15 knots so we decided to wait until closer to sunset, when the wind should die down, to move Maja from the marina to the city pier.
Tom got us passes to the Baltimore National Aquarium so off we went for the day. It was wonderful fun to be a tourist in a city with so much of a story to tell. And we live on the water so the ocean is a source of constant fascination. It's an amazing aquarium .. worth the trip.
On our way back to the marina from the aquarium, we stopped by the City Pier and since "our spot" was still available, we asked the couple on Luna Sea to help us with our boat lines when we moved over. Sailors are always so gracious. Of course, they agree, even though they are to meet friends in 30 minutes, and it will probably take 45 minutes for us to get there!
Docking is always the hardest part. Whether you are coming or going, the dock always presents it's own set of challenges. First you have to fit in the space provided, and then extracate yourself from that same spot. We had discussed several plans for exiting the finger pier at Henderson's marina, all of which carried the risk that either our long bow sprit or dinghy hanging in the davits behind the boat will smack against the fixed piers on either side of us. Midst Dan's description of angles and leverage, my imagination goes wild with images of me jumping from side to side trying in vain to push this 12 ton boat away from a fixed piling!
In the end, it's the relationships that matter. We stopped to say goodbye to a couple in the marina who had helped us dock Maja on Saturday ... and of course they offer to help with our dock lines because all good sailors understand the helping hand of a person on the dock. So, off we go; pivoting just right and clearing all the crtical paths. We exit the marina, and go around to the next inlet where we can see s/v Luna Sea waiting to help with our boat lines there. Somebody says goodbye; someone else says hello!
Here we are, at the city dock. Just moving the boat is an adventure! Even if we only go 1 mile!
Dan's got to figure out new ways to securely tie up
Maja every place we go.
With all our work done for the evening, we realize at about 9pm, that we are now cuurently in the heart of the Baltimore Inner Harbor. We are on the City Pier and can easily walk to a gazillion cool places. This is a much better location than the marina, and it's free! Even though we've heard that the area is heavily patrolled, we still take all precautions when leaving Maja. We lock everything, and we put up the isenglass enclosure so that the cockpit is both protected from the rain, but we feel it also deters any one from just stepping aboard.
We are out on the town in minutes and find two bars with live music ... on a Tuesday nite! We settle on the Cats Eye Pub and dance until midnite. Good music and great fun, even though it was clearly a 'locals bar' and we were the strange old couple. Dan has this great slogan that I'm slowly adopting ... "I'll don't know these people and will never see them again. What do I care what they think of me?"
Wednesday, September 29.
Today is our best option for going saiing with Tom as Tropical Storm Nicole will clearly hit Baltimore on Thursday, and we have to leave the City Pier early Friday morning.
Of course, as luck would have it, by the time all 3 of us were aboard and ready, the cloudy sky had turned to more of a raining sky, so Tom didn't get very far once he got onboard. The lesson learned is that you need to go sailing when the weather is right, not when you plan for it! Our first Saturday here was clearly the one good day we had this week to take the boat out with Tom.
Ah well. It was a great way to spend a long lunch break with Tom!
The afternoon was spent preparing for Tropical Storm Nicole, which was predicted to bring lots of rain starting at midnite tonite and heavy winds thru Thursday. We did our usual storm-planning debate: should we run someplace saver or stay where we are? There are 3 creeks off the Patapsca River (which runs into Baltimore Harbor) that are described to have good holding in bad weather in the guidebook. We decide to stay. So we pull out every bumper and every extra line and chafting gear to double tie Maja to the pier. The winds shouldn't be as high was what we were expecting with Hurricane Earl, but we are much more exposed on the pier than we were safety tucked into the marina at Salt Ponds.
You get the point when there's nothing left to do. About that time, Tom called and invited us to dinner ... at a tapas restaurant, something new to us. What a feast we had ... followed by cheesecake and coffee at Tom's apt. We are definitely getting spoiled here. We got back to the boat just as the rain started to fall.
Thursday, Sept 30.
Well, Nicole has arrived. It rained as predicted all through the night, with no surprise leaks found inside Maja in the morning.
High winds, 20-30 knots. 7-inches of rain in some areas. Lots of flooding in Baltimore.
For us, the risk is that the water level will rise and wash over the pier. The water was about 3 feet higher than expected at high tide. Dan had to go out in the heavy rain and reset the bumpers because they were almost high enough to float above the pier.
What a wild day! Rain and high winds alllllllllllll day. This forecast was definitely right on!
We have a southeast wind, pushing us into the pier.
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| City Pier. Waiting out the rain. |
