The fancy condos and buildings above are directly across from the scenes below:
This trash catcher can't keep up with the junk in the water.....
But at midnight of election day we celebrated among the lights of the Inner Harbor while some bar blasted out "Joy to the world, all the boys and girls! Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me!" How appropriate! We were ecstatic and oh, so relieved!
On Wednesday we moved out of the Inner Harbor to a quieter anchorage a mile or so downriver. We stopped at the big marina there for water and a pumpout, and got into a fascinating political discussion with a delightful Israeli man who worked there. He let us stay on the dock for several hours while we took hot showers (aahhhhhh!) and did our laundry in the marina facility, and picked up a few provisions. The next morning we walked back downtown to meet with our consultant, Chris Gallagher, who is helping us with marketing the Turncouple patent. About halfway along the way, we smelled the most incredible yeasty cinnamon fragrance, and found it emanated from the Blue Moon Cafe. We had our meeting and did a bunch of errands, and walking back found the same awesome fragrance still wafting along the street 2-3 blocks in both directions from the restaurant. Of course Thursday morning we went there for breakfast - turns out this place is the Penny Cluse Cafe of Baltimore - a fantastic breakfast nook with huge 2-person cinnamon rolls that just melt in your mouth, in a tiny old building with very cool tinwork and ancient brick walls and a slate hearth - and a line of people on the sidewalk waiting to get in. The one woman working the tables was super busy - she had a tattoo on one arm of the memorable characters from Where the Wild Things Are, which must have been how she felt. To anyone traveling in or near Baltimore, stop for breakfast at the Blue Moon Cafe on Aliceanna Street - easy walking distance from both the Inner Harbor and the Baltimore Marine Center anchorage.
Ships from all over in Baltimore Harbor, anchored or at docks
For a while we were pretty land-based - we ended up motoring to Annapolis because the wind was negligible, and hung there on a hook for over a week, taking the opportunity to spend some wonderful time with cousins living in the area whom I don't get to see anywhere nearly often enough. I also watched the Annapolis Drill Team on Veterans Day - they were very impressive but so, so serious.
There is a wonderful chandlery called Bacon's in Annapolis - they have lots of pre-owned boat goodies, so of course we went for a walk in that direction. There we discovered a 2HP, 4-stroke Honda outboard that looked lightly used. Eureka! I've been wanting to trade our big inflatable and smoky 2-stroke motor for a sailing dinghy with a small, cleaner 4-stroke, so this looked like a perfect opportunity to take a step in that direction. (Jed, who loves the fast inflatable, generously agreed to this plan.) We had just sold Spellbound's steel cradle, which had been sitting in a field in Charlotte, VT for 3 years, so we decided to buy the Honda - very exciting. A Bacon employee even dropped it off for us at a nearby dock so we didn't have to lug it a mile in pouring rain. Immediately we put an ad for the inflatable and its motor on a website in Oriental, NC, hoping that we could coordinate the transition somehow - and we had 3 calls within a couple of hours. Unfortunately, the Honda stubbornly refused to start -we had to return it, and yes, they even picked it up for us! Oops - now what do we do???
Finally on November 17th we left Annapolis and sailed (yes, actually sailed) south down the Bay. It took us a while to get out of town, since we needed to pump out and most of the pumpout stations were shut down for the winter! We motored around until we found a marina that could do the job - they said we were the last boat of the season. Then we had to send mail, but the post office was on the opposite side of the creek from the marina we were at. So Jed nosed Watercolor up to a private dock at another marina, on the right side of the creek, and I jumped off the bow with our package to send. I walked all around the parking lot and discovered I was in a totally fenced and gated facility, so I had to go the the office and admit I'd jumped ship on their dock and would they please let me out and back in again??? Fortunately they were very nice about it but it's getting harder and harder to find places to get ashore - marinas are gated like so many developments are. One of the joys of being a vagrant.... By the time I returned our daylight hours were limited and the night was expected to be cold and blustery, so we sailed about 15 miles south to a beautiful anchorage on the Rhode River.
Thomas Point Light
The bluster waited 'til morning, but the cold settled in - the Lying Thermometer said 40 when we arose at sunrise. The overstuffed yellow bear re-emerged from her lair, along with a big red beast that was Jed with layers of wool and fleece under his foul weather gear. The north wind built as we left the anchorage - by 9:00 we had the genny out and were flying southward at 6-8 knots. In spite of the cold the day was gorgeous and we made great time, sailing into the Patuxent River in the late afternoon and motoring to a very protected anchorage behind Solomon's Island. Just as the hook settled, the phone rang and we were greeted by the very welcome voice of our son Topher calling from Budapest!
The next two days were much the same - clear or mostly clear skies, cold brisk NW winds, and great speeds. Brown Pelicans began to appear, along with the beautiful Gannets which make spear-like dives from great heights and disappear into the water, bobbing to the surface after a few seconds. The Brown Pelicans also make wonderful dives, but they don't go below the surface - at the last minute they open their wings and stop the plunge so their big bills fill up with water - and hopefully fish. Our third night out was spent in Reedville on the Great Wicomico River, where we caught up with Jim Godwin at last.
Our acquaintance with Jim Godwin is a story in itself. In 1998 Spellbound was in a slip on Tangier Island, a tiny island in the middle of the Chesapeake where the language spoken is almost Elizabethan English - the residents were British Loyalists during the Revolutionary War and to this day are almost a world unto themselves, mostly crabbers. Anyway, tied up next to us was a sailboat called Gandy Dancer - of course we were curious and asked the owner what that meant. He explained that a gandy dancer is one of those little railroad maintenance cars that is moved by levers pumped up and down. Gandy Dancer's owner was Jim Godwin. He had to return home to Reedville on that cold, rainy, miserable Sunday morning. We'd been hesitant to leave because the weather was so nasty, but he called us on the radio from partway across the Bay and said it wasn't too bad, so we peeled ourselves out of the pilings and set off west. By the time we reached Reedville we were truly cold and soaked - my hands were so frozen I couldn't even hold a line. Jim, who had stayed in touch via VHF radio, gave us directions to a mooring behind his house, but we got lost and just anchored so we could shut down - we had no heater at the time so we lit the oven and huddled over it until we thawed out. About 7:00 p.m., for some reason I can't explain, I turned on the VHF, and there was a voice calling "Spellbound" - it was Jim, out looking for us in his truck! He met us at a landing and drove us back to his house, where we took hot showers and were served hot tea by Jim's wife Lou. What a blessing!! We've been back to Reedville several times to look for them and thank them, and we've seen Lou once, but this is the first time we've actually seen Jim and had a chance to explain what a wonderful rescue that was.
We left Reedville mid-morning after our visit with Jim - the temperature was noticeably warmer with the wind on our beam, and we decided we could make it the last 60 miles to Norfolk. Watercolor romped along at 6-7 knots with the gulls and terns and Gannets and Brown Pelicans, until late afternoon when the wind disappeared - we were about 10 miles out of Norfolk at this point so we fired up the iron genny (motor) to get us the rest of the way, anchoring in Hampton Roads next to the bridge tunnel about 7:30.
Wolf Trap Light
The best position to be in, in cold weather, is steering the boat. The body keeps warm because it's always rocking from side to side to remain upright as the boat rolls, and we wear our NEOS (New England Overshoes) boots over deck shoes to keep our feet toasty. Jacket hoods up keep the cold wind from roaring down our necks, and side curtains on the dodger provide a small sheltered place in the cockpit. The hardest part is keeping hands, holding a stainless steel wheel, from going numb. We can't run Mr. Heater under way - the tip-over shutoff works too well - so the person off-watch has a difficult time warming up even in the cabin. There's always a quilt or two on our bunk.... In spite of the chilly temperatures, our sail down the Chesapeake was sunny and glorious and enjoyable, and we're glad we decided to do day sails rather than an overnight.
