Shoes and Socks!

We have finally left Baltimore and boy was it cold, time to put on long pants and socks and shoes. It was around 8c degrees at 6:30am and still very windy. We motored out of the harbor and got into the channel to 20 knot wind gusting to 30 knots and 5 foot waves heading for Annapolis. It was a cold and very lumpy ride.

We arrived at Annapolis at 11am to attend our Rally seminar and we had the chills all day long. After the seminar we went into town by dinghy for dinner. In Annapolis where the road ends at the water's edge there will be a dinghy dock. What a great town! We walked around for a half hour before dinner and this is a really great town. We really half to stop here on the way back. This is the home to the Navel Academy. It was different to see all the cadets walk around in there Navy suites. We were in and out of Annapolis so fast we didn't take any pictures. We left Annapolis 9am to go to the other side of the Chesapeake with our friends from Cape Code Jack and Diane (just like the song) to St. Michaels. What a great small town. We went to the Marine Museum and out to the restaurant for crab.

Our friend Jack taught Laurie how to eat crabs and she had a great time.

 

Laurie is just loving this and having a great time.

All the towns here are small and unique and we are having a great time. So tomorrow we will head of to the Solomon Islands back on the other side of the Chesapeake.

Waiting for Mathew.
 

It's Saturday and we are still happy to be in Baltimore. It looks like we are in a great place until this storm passes. Nobody is sure yet if we will get any storm sure so we will have to watch what happens tonight and tomorrow. We have been escorted around the city by our new friends from Cape Cod, Jack and Diane, yep just like the song! Thursday we went for a 8 mile walk to go and buy some charts. We walked by Bill Cosby's apartment building. I waved up to him but I guess he didn't see me.

So Here's Interesting Tidbits!  (SHIT for short.

This weekend is called Fleet Week. Last night we saw the USS Zumwalt enter the harbor.

The Port of Baltimore will be the site of the Commissioning Ceremony for the most technologically advanced United States Destroyer in history. The Naval commissioning ceremony has been a tradition of all navies for centuries. The commissioning is the final act that marks entrance of a man-of-war into the naval forces of her nation.  When her commissioning pennant breaks to fly from the mast, USS ZUMWALT DDG 1000 becomes a proud ship of the line. We watched it come in last night. We could only see the wheel house but I hope to get some close up pictures when we leave the harbor. As we walked around down town we see Baltimore have a few ships permanently docked.

USS Constitution

USS Constellation, constructed in 1854, is a sloop-of-war/ corvette  and the second United States Navy ship to carry the name. According to the U.S. Navel Registry the original frigate was disassembled on 25 June 1853 in Goseport Navel Yard in Portsmouth V.A., and the sloop-of-war/corvette was constructed in the same yard using material salvaged from the earlier ship. Constellation is the last sail-only warship designed and built by the Navy. Despite being a single-gundeck "sloop," she is actually larger than her frigate namesake, and more powerfully armed with fewer but much more potent shell-firing guns.
The sloop was launched on 26 August 1854 and commissioned on 28 July 1855 with Captain Charles H. Bell in command. She remained in service for close to a century before finally being retired in 1954, and preserved as a museum ship in Baltimore, Maryland, where she remains today.

USS Torsk

USS Torsk (SS-423) is part of the historic fleet of historic ships in Baltimore  and is one of two Trench Class submarine still located inside the United States. In 1945, Torsk made two war patrols off Japan, sinking one cargo vessel and two coastal defense frigates. The latter of these, torpedoed on 14 August 1945, was the last enemy ship sunk by the U.S. Navy in world war II.

USCGC Taney

USCGC Taney (WPG/WAGC/WHEC-37) is a U.S. Coast Guard high endurance cutter, notable as the last ship floating that fought in the attack on Pearl Harbor although Taney was actually moored in nearby Honolulu Harbor not Pearl Harbor itself. She was named for Roger B. Taney (1777–1864).
She is also one of two Treasury Class (out of seven total) Coast Guard Cutters still afloat. Serving her country for 50 years, the Taney saw action in both theaters of combat in world war II, serving as command ship at the battle of Okinawa, and as part of fleet escort in the Atlantic and Mediterranean She also served in the Vietnam war, Taney also patrolled the seas working in drug interdiction and fisheries protection and participated in the search for Amelia Earhart.

U.S. Lightship Chesapeake

United States lightship Chesapeake is owned by the National Park Service and on a 25-year loan to Baltimore City, and is operated by Historic Ships in Baltimore. Since 1820, several Lightships have served at the Chesapeake lightship station and have been called Chesapeake. It was common for a lightship to be reassigned from one Lightship Station to another and thus "renamed" and identified by its new station name. Even though the "name" changed during a Lightship's service life, the hull number never changed. The U.S. Coast Guard assigned new hull numbers to all lightships still in service in April 1950. After that date, Light Ship / Light Vessel 116 was then known by the new Coast Guard Hull number: WAL-538. In January 1965 the Coast Guard further modified all lightship hull designations from WAL to WLV, so Chesapeake became WLV-538.

I DID NOT KNOW THAT!

Hunker Down!

We are going to hang around Baltimore for another week until hurricane Mathew passes buy. We were going to leave tomorrow to go to Annapolis to the boat show but there's no anchoring balls left so the smartest thing to do is stay put here. Last Wednesday I changed the alternator and it seems to be working ok. We haven't been out in the rain so we don't have any pictures so today will be
                                     So Here's Interesting Tidbits, SHIT for short
When we sailed into Baltimore harbor and passed the Frances Scott Key bridge we noticed a marker buoy painted with stars and stripes.

 This is the very spot that Frances Scott Key was a prisoner on a British barge. As the British attacked Fort McHenry during the war of 1812 he saw the bombardment of the fort and saw the flag still flying. Of course this is when he made up the song the Star Spangled Banner. He didn't write it then of course but later, because the British wouldn't give him any paper and pencil!!!

Fort McHenry

 

I DID NOT KNOW THAT!

 

Problems Again

We arrived in Baltimore last Tuesday and we liked it so much we decided to stay until Saturday. As we left Saturday morning we could smell rubber burning. It wasn't me it was the alternator again. So back to the anchorage to make arrangements to get a new alternator. To avoid burning up wires and equipment on the boat we decided to have the boat towed to the closest marina. So here we are waiting again. Sunday I called Doug in Kingston who I bout the alternator from and he answered the phone (on a Sunday morning). Doug took all my information and would get things moving on Monday. Today is Tuesday and I received the new alternator at 9am. I could install this myself but I would like to get a mechanic to look at this and find out why this new alternator burned out. So last week we walked around Baltimore to see the sites. Around the water it's very nice.

There's lots of cobblestone streets 

Also here's two bar's next door to each other. I'm not sure if this is an Entrance and an Exit !

 

We also had a few pirates pass by our anchorage

 

And now it's time for more "So Here's Interesting Tidbits" that's SHIT for short.

If you were following the Blog you will remember we were in Harve De Grace. Who has ever heard of Harve De Grace USA? So here's some interesting facts (and this is good shit) Harve De Grace trace it's roots back to 1608 when Captain John Smith explored here and found a group of Susquehannock Indians. 174 years after that Marquis De Lafayette proposed to build a city here called Harve De Grace after the city in France where he was from Harve. Harve De Grace means "City Of Mercy" Of course in the war of 1812 the British came and burned down the city. Some guy named John O'Neil tried to stop them but failed. But he became a hero of the town and he was given the job as the Light House Keeper at Concord point.

In 1789 the nation was considering two places for the nations capital and it was Harve De Grace and Washington. After a vote that was a tie the speaker of the house decided it would be Washington.

 

I DID NOT KNOW THAT! 



 



 

Here she is, the birthday girl!

Laurie turns 27 today.

Happy Birthday Laurie

We have found some great anchorages.

We left Harve De Grace Saturday morning and mad our way to the Sassafras River. We found a great spot just down the river about a mile and dropped anchor. We got into the dinghy and went ashore for a walk along the beach.

When we got back to the boat we relaxed and watched the Bald Eagles fishing. That night we were treated with a harvest moon.



Sunday we made our way to Middle River and then up Frog Mortar Creek. We dropped anchor just off the end of the runway of Martin State Airport. Finally we had some rain, it rained all day so we stayed another night and had a great sun set.

Marina and cottages 

Runway at the airport 

We left Middle River and arrived in Baltimore around 4pm and found a great anchorage across the street from the Safeway store. What luck! Here's some pictures of our anchorage.

Two U.S. Navy cargo ships across the river. 

We will stay here for 3 or 4 days.
So I'm sure this blog is getting boring!. Pictures of water, boats, trees and more water. We thought we might start something different. We have been to a lot of places and are going to see many more, so we want to share the information that we find out about these places. We will have some information once a week and we will call it ;
"So Here's Interesting Tidbits"
 which spells S.H.I.T. We have accumulated a lot of S.H.I.T. lately so we want to pass some of this on to you. If you were reading the blog earlier when we sailed down the Delaware Bay we stayed behind Pea Patch Island across from Delaware city. Fort Delaware is on the Delaware River and is famous for a civil war prison. It was recommended the that a fort be built here to defend Philadelphia and New York cities. When the civil ware broke out they built wooden barracks to house the confederate prisoners. Many prisoners died there and the last prisoner was released in 1866. When we met Steve in Harve De Grace he asked us if we heard and noises from the island. It is said that it is haunted.
More S.H.I.T
Crab Pots!
We didn't understand how grabs can be in fresh water because when you go up the rivers here the water is fresh not salty, so this is what we found out. This area catches Blue Crabs and the Blue Crab relies on the mixture of the salt and fresh water to survive.
Stay tuned for more S.H.I.T. next week!

Back in Fresh water.

Today we are in Harve De Grace M.D. and so they have a lot of fresh water coming down stream. It seems very different to be in fresh water and have tides. So we are here for 2 days stocking up.
For your viewing pleasure I put together a little video of some of the sunsets we have seen so far. It's nice to relax at the end of the day and watch the sun go down.