Baltimore

1st swim in the Chesapeake, Sept 30th

When we left Chesapeake City we stopped for the night in a little anchorage just south +/- west (not sure) of the C & D canal called Still Pond Creek. Beautiful little spot but a bit tough to get into, dodging crab traps and also a narrow shallow opening.  After we scraped the bottom in what was suppose to be 7 feet of water we talked to a local who told us there had been some shoaling in the area. No harm done. Set the anchor and had a fabulous night. Went to shore by the coast guard building and went for a quick walk - country road. Most of the area is inaccessible to boaters but the same fella we had talked to earlier gave us permission to tie to his dock so we could go for a walk and check out the "community". We thought maybe that meant a store or two but it turned out to be a huge sub division of estate homes, oh well, great to stretch our legs. 

wildlife!

Still Pond Creek

It was a short run the next day into Baltimore Inner harbour.  Very busy entrance to the harbour with tons of commercial shipping and industry along the waterway. 

We spent a couple of days at the Inner Harbour Marina. Caught up on laundry and grocery shopping. We then moved off and anchored just outside of the Aquarium right in the inner harbour downtown. I thought it was going to be busy and load but for the exception of Saturday night, music and sirens, the nights were quiet and peaceful. At times we did feel like we were being invaded by dragons due to "Haven" swinging on her anchor we ended up in the boundary of a great little paddle boat business.

Also there was a tour boat that looked like a pirate ship passing us all day and night running the same act and music - we were thinking of testing our flare gun at one point. 

We followed the lead of other boaters and tied our dingy to the only little strip of wall that didn't say "no docking|", in front of the vessel "Chesapeake". We felt it was secure and did not have any troubles leaving it for the entire day on more than one occasion.

top of Federal Hill

From what we saw of Baltimore it is a very vibrant city that has put a lot of money and time into planning their waterfront. Amazing amount of history, fabulous architecture and great people.  Definitely sketchy areas that you wouldn't want to be caught in at night as well as one area we went through on the bus that you wouldn't want to be caught in during the day! 

Baltimore actually has a free bus system that runs four lines connecting the downtown area, how awesome. We managed to take advantage of 3 of the lines to get a peak at multiple areas of town as well as getting in lots of walking.. We visited Historic  Mount Vernon, Federal Hill and Fells Point area. The later is part of the original waterfront dating back to mid 1700's and is now a happening place with strips of little pubs playing live music. We took in a night of music in Cat's Eye Pub where I don't think they were concerned about max numbers of people. We also took in a bit of the Fell's Point Festival - street party -tons of people, food and live music. 

                                     

Oh, Al also managed to take the bus to have our propane tank filled, yaah.  

We totally enjoyed Baltimore but now it's time to make our way over to Annapolis for the boat show.

Between Baltimore and Annapolis we stopped for the night up inside Bodkin Creek. /Beautiful protected spot. Storm was due to hit soon (actual Tornado warning for the Baltimore area) so we stayed to wait out the weather playing cards and watching movies.  The rain fell all day and we did get some winds but nothing like what they were predicting. 

after the storm 

Off to Magothy River, talk to you soon.