Day 256: Saturday, May 18, 2013

Port to Port: Baltimore, Maryland

Underway: 0:00 am      Motor Off: 0:00 pm      Miles Traveled: 0      Stayed At: Free Dock

Mile 38 to Mile 38: With no specific plans for today, boat projects ended up taking up a good chunk of the morning. While Cindy got her beauty sleep, I wandered around the neighborhood stopping to get a coffee and fill a couple bottles with water – one really hot – and came back, washed up, shaved and washed my hair in the cockpit while the world was still sleeping. The only activity was the vendors setting up their booths for the farmer’s market 20 steps from our back door (the closest yet – talk about being where the action is) and a few early morning runners jogging by. After being sure Cindy was still alive, I took a long walk over to the Canton neighborhood a mile and a half away to stop at the West Marine and Radio Shack. I also discovered a Safeway so I ended up hauling 6 bags of groceries home too along with a few parts I needed to install our new solar panel. Cindy was up and moving when I got back.

Since Slow Churn decided to leave us behind, we don’t have a mobile power unit available when we are at anchor or at free docks so adding a solar panel seemed like a useful idea. I decided to mount it at the stern on the back of the arch. Although this is a relatively simple project, it still takes longer to get everything hooked up than you think. About 3 hours later, I plugged in the main disconnect and voila, we have batteries being charged while we are just sitting here – and it’s not even sunny out. I can’t wait to see how well it charges in full sun. Hopefully we can continue to avoid paying $5-$8/day for electricity like a lot of these marinas try to tax charge. (Not if I can help it).

While working on the solar panel project, a woman on a bike stopped by to chat. We learned her name was Mary and her husband Dick drives one of the water taxis – he loves it so much he would do it for free but they pay him anyways. They retired early and are living on a nice trawler at a nearby marina at the moment. They have traveled extensively by boat over the years, up and down the coast, to South America, the Carribean, the West Coast and lots of places in between. We chatted for probably an hour and hope to get together later to learn more about their adventures.

Even though it was misting out in the afternoon, we decided to walk around the Fells Point neighborhood to take pictures and explore. The architecture here is amazing. Nearly every building has a history and you can see it in the beautiful exteriors. There are block after block of 100+ year old buildings all being used as businesses or residences. This is an old but very healthy community. We found dozens more restaurants, interesting shops and a bread factory outlet store that will be getting some of our money on Monday after we eat our way through some of the bread we already have. We couldn’t help but stand outside the vents by the sidewalk savoring the smell of fresh baked bread. I think we gained 5 pounds just standing there.

After a productive and relaxing day, we made BBQ sandwiches for dinner, worked on our route planning and blog and enjoyed the peace and quiet of a cool, overcast Saturday evening before crashing to ready ourselves for another day on the Great Loop.