Oct 15 - Baltimore

Oct 21 - Added a couple of pictures -- This is one is of Bird tied up in from of Amistad -- kind of hard to tell, but that is Amistad in the background.

Oct 10 – Chesapeake City to Baltimore
It was another beautiful warm day and we were on our way around 9:00. There wasn’t much wind but it was lovely motoring down the Chesapeake Bay under beautiful sunny skies. It was warm enough for shorts and tank tops, which was great after weeks of long pants and sometimes even hats and mitts. The leaves are beginning to change and the shoreline of the Bay is really pretty.
The river up to Baltimore is very industrial with lots of factories and the girls were pretty skeptical about where we were taking them, but the Inner Harbour of Baltimore is great. We were tied up at the city marina by 4:30, right in front of the tall ship Amistad. We had a spectacular docking experience as Dave had to thread Bird ahead of a large tour boat, and around a power boat and then snug into a 45’ space in front of the power boat (we’re probably 43’ overall). There are three tour boats and two tall ships as well as a few sail boats and a few power boats tied up with us here at the small city dock. The Inner Harbour is a real tourist destination with two food malls full of restaurants and bars, a Science Centre, the National Aquarium, and USS Constitution (a boat that fought in the Civil War) as well as water taxis and 4 or 4 huge marinas. We are arriving here at the start of the US Columbus Day weekend so it is a very busy spot.

Oct 11 – 14 Baltimore
Another hot sunny day here in Baltimore. The Inner Habour is crawling with runners and spectators for the Baltimore Marathon and the other races for running day. Over 17,000 people were registered for the various races. We spent the morning doing school and getting the boat tidied. We decided that getting groceries was more important than doing the tourist thing today. After lunch we dropped the dingy down and Annie Kristen and I went for a 20 minute dinghy ride back out the harbour to little place where we could tie up the dinghy and go to the big Safeway store. It worked out really well and we got a big load of groceries, including all the fixings for Thanksgiving supper, but it took us most of the afternoon. While we were gone Dave bought Harbour Passes for us so we can see four different Baltimore attractions over the next four days. The first one was a trip up to the 27th floor of the Trade Center where we got a great view of the city. After we got back we had pizza for supper. The oven is not working that well and it is moving to the top of Dave’s list of things to look at in Baltimore. On Sunday, the girls got some school work done while Dave started to take the stove and oven apart. At 11:00 the girls and I went over to the Science Museum to take a look around before lunch. It was great being so close. We were able to spend an hour or so, then go back to the boat for lunch and to get Dave and then go back again. We spent the whole afternoon there. Amongst other things, we did an experiment that compared how well bleach, dish soap, household cleaner and disinfecting gel did at killing bacteria – surprisingly bleach did better than the disinfecting hand cleaner. On Monday (Thanksgiving) morning we discovered that the stove was leaking kerosene from one of the (irreplaceable) fittings. It’s not looking good for Thanksgiving supper… Dave took the stove out and took it apart again while the girls and I went to the aquarium. When we got back to the boat at lunch Dave had found a place within walking distance that might be able to weld the leak in the fitting for the stove… We’ll have to wait and see how they make out tomorrow, but in the meantime we only have out little microwave (and no stove, over, toaster, kettle etc. etc.) So much for Thanksgiving!! We went back to the aquarium and saw the dolphin show and spent the rest of the afternoon there. After the Aquarium Annie and I walked to the market and got a roast chicken and we had that with some rice and salad and topped it off with the Thanksgiving pumpkin Pie.
We started Tuesday off with a family walk to the place that was supposed to fix the store, but when we got there it still wasn’t done so we went to the Children’s Museum. It was a little farther from the boat than the aquarium and the science center (maybe a 12 minute walk) so we decided to go to McDonalds for lunch. After lunch Dave went back to the boat to follow up on the stove, and I took the girls back to the Kids Museum. We all got back to the boat around 3:00 and Dave had the repaired stovetop. We got the stove/oven back together by 4:00 and gave it a try. Now let’s remember it’s about 85° , and we’re on a small boat, and our turkey breast was ready to be cooked yesterday, so of course we started to cook Thanksgiving dinner! Actually, it worked really well and we had an awesome Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots, peas and pumpkin pie for dessert –in the cockpit where it was cool.