May 19: Baltimore Inner Harbor

Visiting the Baltimore Inner Harbor was really a treat; beautiful views of the water, historical ships and city lights. I recommend it to all boaters! Back in 1904 there was a fire that burned all of the warehouses and buildings surrounding the Baltimore harbor. Since then the city of Baltimore has intentionally restored the waterfront in a systematic and creative manor. Circling the harbor, you can see the Seven Knoll Lighthouse (moved from the entrance of harbor in 1997), the Tandy Coast Guard Cutter (only ship surviving the attack in Pearl Harbor), the National Aquarium, the WWII submarine (with big teeth painted on it like a shark), the Chesapeake Lighthouse ship (with the light still operating), the Pratt Pavilion (full of shops and restaurant), the USS Constellation Sailing Ship, and the Baltimore Science Museum. Wow!

The weather today was cool and sunny and we had a nice walk around the circular waterfront to arrive at the National Aquarium. On the way we saw a strange contraption cruising the harbor - it has a grill and a conveyor belt in the water collecting trash. Pretty smart! We had a wonderful time investigating the Aquarium this afternoon. Let me say first of all, for those who know I love the NC outer banks, that the aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores has equivalent exhibits covering the NC waters as this one and is a lovely place to visit. What I enjoyed the most about this aquarium was the dolphin show, sitting on the fourth row because the first three rows were the “splash rows”, we saw the 5 Atlantic bottlenose dolphin play with their trainers in a huge aqua pool with glass windows behind overlooking the harbor. Most of those dolphin were actually born at the aquarium and have never been in the wild. Tom’s favorite was seeing the 4-5 foot green sea turtle in their huge tank. The green sea turtle is the one we saw laying her eggs on the NC beach one early summer night years ago, and it looked just like this one. This one, however, had been rescued, and had lost one of her front flippers so the Fish and Wildlife Commission granted permission for her to live at the aquarium as an “unreleaseable” animal. I also enjoyed the exhibit on Australia which was a multistory glass trapezoidal pavilion on top of the building where we saw the bearded dragons and the emerald doves. The exhibit on frogs from all over the world was also amazing as you saw the diversity in size, coloring, body shapes and toxicity. There was also an amazing live coral exhibit.

We dined tonight on eastern NC barbeque and slaw served up on our aft deck overlooking the harbor. The cuisine was thanks to Bob and Penny and we were happy to have our feet up after the afternoon’s long trek.