Sailing Encore

We left the anchorage on St Mary’s river very early Friday August 28th and motored up the Chesapeake.

Vernon is ready but I need some coffee and a serious hair cut!

We motored all day and anchor in Weem’s Creek next to Annapolis. To get there we had to get under another 75 foot bridge. I will share the video later in this post (content R rated). This is the prettiest anchorage we have been in the whole trip, including Mexico. Very green with pretty homes and boats. And quiet and peaceful. We decide to spend two days there relaxing and drop the dinghy in the water to putter around the river and go ashore for brunch the next day. We didn’t quite fill the water tanks and run out of water – but that’s okay… we use the water maker to make more. We move the boat to the bay outside Annapolis and dinghy ashore for another tour of the town and some more crab cakes! Then take off on August 1st for Baltimore. Approaching Baltimore we come upon the Star Spangled Buoy. This is the spot where France Scott Key penned the lyrics to our national anthem. He was being held on a British ship that was bombarding Fort McHenry during a battle of the War of 1812.

He saw the very large American flag flying from the fort and was inspired. We saw that flag in the National History museum in DC. It was huge.

We take a slip at Anchorage Marina along the waterfront. This city is very historic as a bustling industrial port for tobacco export, sugar and flour granary and ship building in the 18 and 19th centuries. As manufacturing declined, the warehouses along the waterfront sat vacant for a while, but have been renovated as high end homes, apartments and lots of restaurants.

The Inner Harbor has an aquarium, maritime museum and multiple old ships, schooners and a WWII submarine.

We get an all day pass on the water taxi and ride it around the harbor taking in the sites. We have lunch at one of the hundreds of waterfront restaurants and enjoy the local crab dishes. We walk to see Edgar Allen Poe’s gravesite.

He had a home in Baltimore and married his 13 year old cousin here. At the age of 40, he died a mysterious death after being found delirious on the street in Baltimore.

We went to the evening Orioles game at downtown Camden Field. The Orioles lost, but we got to see a Detroit grand slam and have hotdogs and peanuts and crackerjacks!

We rented a car to drive north to the countryside in Pennsylvania.

We tour all around the area surrounding Lancaster, PA and see the Amish farm lands. Now these people dress plain and have simple ways but I saw “Witness” with Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis and they certainly know how to bring on the heat.

If you have not seen this movie, do so. It is well done and is a great depiction of the Amish and the countryside- which is beautiful! Then here is the thing— as we are driving around we are going through towns called Fertility, Intercourse, Mountville, Cockeysville, Bird in Hand and Blue Ball. I am not kidding, check the map. I am thinking, they may not have electricity so no t.v., but they keep busy. They all have 5 or 6 kids! To show you Vernon and I still got some heat have a look at this video…. (and pardon our French)

We enjoyed walking the city and seeing the sites. And Vernon celebrated his 68th birthday with steak dinner and key lime pie.

We have studied the maps and readied the boat- making sure to fill the water tanks! And now that our ducks are all in a row…. we will head north tomorrow to the top of Chesapeake Bay to the C & D canal where we will get to Delaware Bay and continue on to Atlantic City.

Till then!

Terri