Baltimore

We are taking advantage of a brief break in the oppressively hot and humid weather by taking Breeze On to Baltimore Harbor. We left home yesterday morning and motored 54 nm in light winds, anchoring in Rock Creek, just inside the mouth of the Patapsco River. This morning we motored the remaining 9 miles to the Anchorage Marina, near Fells Point and the Inner Harbor. Along the way we encountered all manor of water craft: an unpainted metal boat that may have once been a military boat; a cargo ship carrying cars; tug boats; a pilot boat; two coast guard boats; and a barge with a crane. We passed under the Key Bridge and by Fort McHenry.

The Anchorage Marina is an enormous marina associated with a large townhouse complex. Most of the slips are private but a few are rented out to transients like us. It has floating docks (nice) with full fingers on each side of the slip (even nicer). There is a floating pool built into a dock a few slips down from us.

Today is George’s birthday so we went to the restaurant of his choosing, Blue Moon Café, home of the Bad Ass Breakfast. George had the Hobo Breakfast with scrambled eggs, hash browns, peppers, onions, and ham. I had one of their specialties, Captain Crunch French Toast. A reviewer on Yelp said it was life changing. It was beautiful and indeed delicious but I can’t say it changed my life. It took us about 20 minutes to walk to the restaurant in Fells Point. After we ate we wandered around the charming area of Fells Point before returning to the marina by walking on the promenade along the water. Next we took a swim in the pool to cool off.

During the past two weeks, while the weather was so hot, George was sanding, painting and polishing the boat. He didn’t plan to do it while it was so hot and had to break up the work so as not to be out in the sun during the hottest part of the day. After the work was finished Breeze On went back in the water two days ago. We brought her back to put her into her slip at a time when the wind was blowing 20 knots and gusting to 30. George made the first attempt to get her into the slip and then I took over. I tried about 6 or 7 times before we finally gave up and tied her to the wall. We have never had to do that before. I usually consider a crosswind to be the most challenging for docking but this wind was almost directly in the nose, pushing us into the dock. Even when I had Breeze On lined up properly a gust would push the bow out of alignment one way or the other and the bow thruster couldn’t counteract the strength of the wind. The wind diminished a few hours later and George got Breeze On back into her slip on the first try. I have now declared him the docking expert but he isn’t buying it.