We left beautiful Chestertown on Monday, September 25 by 7:50 a.m. to get to Baltimore in time to avoid the rain predicted for the afternoon. It was a chilly and overcast day and we spent some of our cruising time down below. We arrived in the big port of Baltimore six and a half hours later passing some of the huge ships docked there.
We really like staying in Baltimore, particularly at Anchorage Marina which is a dockominium and where we usually rent dockage from private individuals at killer rates. It’s a very well managed marina with great slips and docks, a large modern clubhouse where it’s easy to receive mail and packages. The marina sits on the beautiful red brick lined waterfront in Canton where we can walk to almost everything. Safeway, West Marine and a variety of pubs and restaurants are just a few blocks away.
Every time we walk up towards the marina office, Archie has to stop by this machine for his treat (and for which we require him to do a trick)!
From the marina we can easily walk to historic Fell’s Point where there is a great farmer’s market on Saturdays and lots of good restaurants. Our plan was to be here for almost three weeks before heading back to Delaware City where we will winter Zendo.
This day also happened to be my birthday so after making a Safeway run, Jonny made a delicious dinner of rib eye steak and even had a piece of birthday cheesecake with a candle in it for me to make a wish on! We had a week of celebratory events planned so this was just the start of the celebrations.
The next day was Tuesday and our friends, Addie and Lange, were due to arrive that afternoon but their stand-by status (as airline employees) had them arriving late. So Jonny and I went to his favorite pub just two blocks from the marina called Lighthouse. This is a actually a liquor store with the most amazing selection of liquor, wines and beer. It also has some food including a great deal on Taco Tuesday - three delicious tacos and a pint of beer for $10! This is also one of Archie’s favorite places to go (as you might remember from the last time we were in Baltimore)!
Addie and Lange arrived later that evening for their annual tradition of joining us, wherever Zendo happened to be, to celebrate my birthday. We had lots of fun showing them around Baltimore which surprisingly to us they hadn’t visited previously (though they have been almost everywhere else in this big wide world)!
We checked out a few pubs with them (all were old and somewhat historic - some good and others worth a pass).
We visited the American Visionary Art Museum which we knew they would love. It’s full of quirky art from unknown artists. They wanted to take me to dinner but we kept ending up at funky pubs instead!
Jonny and I were committed to managing a MTOA booth at Baltimore’s annual Trawler Fest so on its first day I skipped out on him and Addie and Lange took me to lunch at a classic southern standby in Fell’s Point called Miss Shirley’s Café. They left on Thursday headed to Bethesda to visit their daughter for a few days and I volunteered with Jonny at Trawlerfest signing up new members for MTOA.
On Friday night, Jonny had arranged my birthday present which was a cooking class at a cooking school next to Lighthouse Canton Liquor Store. We had a great time that evening with the chef and about 20 other participants (all of them much younger than us). The theme was Alsacian cooking and since we had visited Alsace many years ago we were excited. It was a very fun evening. We made some delicious food and got a couple of new recipes. One of them, apple strudel, Jonny tried his hand at the following week.
On Saturday, I got my next birthday present with Stephanie who arrived for a quick two day visit. She had asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I told her the only thing I wanted was to see her, so she made my wish come true. But in addition she arranged for the two of us to have massages which were just wonderful! Afterwards she and I went out to lunch together while Jonny kept working away at Trawlerfest! That evening the three of us went to dinner at a terrific Basque restaurant on the other side of town called La Cuchara. We had lots of delicious tapas and enjoyed our dinner immensely!
Stephanie left on Sunday and we took the day to recover from a whirlwind week. The following week was more mundane with Jonny concentrating on fixing one of our air conditioners that we feared needed replacing, Fortunately, Woody, our ace AC mechanic lives on his boat just a few slips down from us on the dock. He guided Jonny through removing the AC (an arduous process) and troubleshooting the situation only to discover that we just needed to replace a wire that had a bad connection. What a big relief! This small fix saved us a few thousand dollars!
Jonny had fun with the (somewhat delayed) Father’s Day gift that Stephanie brought for him - a sous vide machine. He bought pork chops and made a fabulous dinner for us of sous vide pork chops with mushroom sauce and cabbage. We’re looking forward to more such meals in the future. He loves all his cooking tools!
We have also been waiting to hear back from a Cummins mechanic because Jonny is still having a problem with the timing on the engine. Finally, on our second to last day and after several delayed appointments the Cummins mechanic came and spent several hours onboard troubleshooting the issue. It turns out that we will need to have the injection pump re-timed which we can’t do until the start of next year’s cruising season.
In the meantime, we had a nice surprise in that our friends, Ken and Fred, who are on their way back to Miami after completing the Down East Circle Loop were going to be at Anchorage Marina for a few days. They took the slip right next to us. We bought Zendo from them ten years ago and we have been friends with them ever since. It was great to hear about their trip and to compare notes since the Down East Loop was our first big trip on Zendo.
We went with them to a local pub called Mahaffey’s where we had really good burgers. The following night they invited us for dinner aboard Freestyle. Fred made pork chops and sauerkraut and Jonny made the apple strudel from our cooking class. A fun evening was had by all.
That day we had gone for our flu shots along with the Covid booster and the new RSV shot. By the next day I had come down with a bad cold and within two days, Jonny had one too. So although we wanted to invite them for a bite onboard Zendo, that wasn’t going to happen. We’re just glad we got sick this week and not the week of Stephanie’s wedding!
Our dock was particularly busy one day and it turned out that the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race was taking place and a number of boats were docked at the end of our long pier. Jonny went to check them out but I was still under the weather and missed it.
As we started to feel better it was time to start a little advance prepping to get the boat ready for the winter. We took down all the Stratoglass on the aft deck, washed it and put it away while Archie napped on the foredeck.
Later on we rewarded ourselves by having dinner at Thames Oyster House. We had an elegant and delicious dinner including many of our favorite seafood dishes and some interesting new ones as well. We had a lovely walk home along the waterfront.
On our last day in Baltimore we took Archie for a long walk along the waterfront and stopped for croissants at our favorite bakery in Fell’s Point called Pitango. Jonny had been spoiling me this visit by bringing croissants back for me in the mornings I chose to linger in bed with my coffee!
But this morning I was more energetic and snapped some pictures on our walk including this imposing statue of Frederick Douglas, a Maryland native.
Later that day we did more boat chores and Jonny picked up some more groceries, though we are trying to finish the food we have on board. On the last evening we ate leftovers of the internet sensation Marry Me Chicken that I had made for dinner earlier in the week. Jonny had an MTOA board meeting on Zoom and afterwards we had a quiet night. We planned to leave early the next morning to start making our way to Delaware City.
