Saturday morning, we slipped the morning lines to sail up to the Chester River. We were determined to get in at least a little bit more Chesapeake Bay cruising, and the Chester River looked like a great place to start. We raised the sails just past the mooring field and had a wonderful, fast sail back out into the Bay. There was a tanker that was approaching the Bay Bridge just as we would have been passing through, so we tacked around a bit to let it by. Once they were through, we rolled out full sails and took off. Windara is such a great boat on open ocean, but when we have nearly flat seas, she really shines – we were passing pretty much everyone else out there.
Once we got up into the Chester River, we rounded Eastern Neck Island, headed for Gray’s Inn Creek. It was a tack-fest, but with all the other sailboats around us, my inner competitor insisted on at least approximating racing trim. I was wiped out by the time we dropped anchor, but it was admittedly fun. We dropped the hook in a spot that was so quiet and undeveloped that it felt like being in a national park and launched Williwaw for a lazy meander up the creek. The next morning Chris took his paddleboard out before we weighed anchor for our next destination, Baltimore.
We’ve been having intermittent issues with our electronics as I mentioned, and on our way out of the Chester River, they went out completely. Chris was ready to go for a full-on replacement, but I wanted to at least try fixing it first – it’s not like I could break it worse. I pulled the connections at the back of the unit and there was some corrosion on one of them, so I hit both of the ones I was able to get off with some CRC electronics cleaner. It kind of worked, but not for long, so I figured the one that was seized in place was the issue. Chris managed to get it off, and it was badly corroded. After a bit of work with the cleaner and a toothpick, we plugged it back in and voila! Charts, GPS, AIS… even radar.
So far, we’d avoided Baltimore, but a few friends told us good things about the food scene and the area around the waterfront, so we decided to give it a shot. My only two impressions of Baltimore previously were the view from Amtrak and “The Wire” – so I had no idea what to expect but didn’t have a particularly high bar set. It was a little somber to come into the harbor past the remains of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and see the Dali at one of the shipping terminals on the other side, but fortunately most of the major wreckage had been removed by the time we arrived and the shipping channel was fully open.
We got a slip at Anchorage Marina, which we really enjoyed. Their slips have fingers on both sides, so it’s super easy in and out (although they’re pretty low to the water – I really had to work at it to get on and off the boat). But they have nice clean facilities, cheap laundry, great staff, and it’s in a great spot on the edge of the Fells Point/Canton neighborhoods. It’s also a stone’s throw from Safeway and West Marine, so we were able to provision and pick up a few things we needed for the boat.
It was Fleet Week while we were in town, and we arrived in time to watch part of the air show. The F35 was super cool to watch. Afterwards we decided to walk down to the inner harbor along the harbor walk, and while we didn’t get to do a ton of exploring, we did see enough to get a good sense of the place. I was nerdily excited to find Mr. Trash Wheel, Baltimore’s unique solution to trash mitigation in the harbor (he’s the OG trash wheel… now there are four). It was also cool to see the Constellation, especially since I’m currently reading “Six Frigates”, about the founding of the US Navy. I loved the Fells Point neighborhood… it reminds me of what would happen if Brooklyn and Boston had a love child.
We had a nice dinner at Thames Street Oyster House and loved both Cafe Dear Leon and Pitango for breakfast. Cafe Dear Leon had a line out the door (it’s so tiny, they only allow six people in at a time), but it was absolutely worth the wait.
We were both pleasantly surprised with how much we enjoyed our time in Baltimore and we found ourselves wishing we had more time to explore. But it gives us plenty to look forward to on our next visit.
As we left, we tried to get fuel but couldn’t find anywhere that was open, so we’ll just top off at the place at the beginning of the C&D Canal. We had a great day of sailing from Baltimore up to the Bohemia River, where we’d anchored after coming up through the Delaware Bay and the C&D Canal on our way south the first season with Silent Sky. It’s such a pretty little spot, even though Windara can’t get too far in, as it gets shallow quickly.
We spent the past couple of days at anchor – a nice contrast to our time in the city. We’ve been enjoying the quiet and taking the dinghy out to explore. We were treated to beautiful sunsets, moonrises, and more eagle sightings, and this was a wonderful spot to spend the last couple days of our southern cruising season. We thought about sticking around to head over to the winery across the Elk River tomorrow, but based on current forecasts, tomorrow is the time to go. I can’t believe we’ve already nearly come full circle again, and there’s always a mix of emotions knowing our final passage is ahead of us.
