May 21: Chesapeake City, MD

On Wednesday it was a short ride up Back Creek to sleepy little Chesapeake City which is the western entry point to the Chesapeake and Delaware canal. This canal passage way changes the distance between Baltimore and Philadelphia by close to 300 miles for commercial ships headed north. It was dug by hand in 1824 and included 3 locks. It is safer in storms than the Atlantic and is the busiest canal in the world. We saw ocean going freighters, huge barges and pleasure craft all making way through the canal. We arrived at the free city docks in wonderful sunshine, and took our bikes out for a tour. We saw the Lock House that was built in 1894. It had a tall wooden waterwheel 38 feet in diameter that was driven by two steam boilers. The water wheel operated until 1927 when the canal was widened and deepened so as to no longer require the lock. After visiting the lock house, I had a 5 mile ride along the top of the levy and saw many blue herons (or maybe just the same one over and over!) as well as a huge orange freighter from Hong Kong.

We had a delicious dinner including perhaps our last taste of cream of crab soup at the Bayson House near the docks. This three story frame house, built in 1824, is the oldest house in town and overlooks the canal. It was a delight to walk through the house and imagine the lives of the people living there when the canal was new and it was a hub of activity. There were luscious blue purple butterfly flowers out front that made me miss mine at home.

May 21: Havre de Grace

All I can say is that the sunshine is certainly fickle. We cast off from Baltimore around 10:00 AM Tuesday in the cold and pouring rain. We took a few pictures of Fort McHenry as we headed down the Patapsco River, and noticed that you could see your breath as we sat in the unheated upper deck. I had a fleece jacket on under the blanket I had brought up from below.

It rained all the way to Havre de Grace, a small hamlet at the mouth of the Susquehanna River. Havre de Grace was two votes short of being selected as our nation’s capitol in 1789 when the legislature made the selection. It is strategically located – currently two highways and two train tressels cross the Susquehanna River there. In the afternoon it cleared up and we rode our bikes to see the Lock House built in 1840 for the Tidewater canal. There was a wonderful wood plank promenade built along the waterfront over natural areas where I enjoyed taking pictures of the stately blue heron on the rocks. We saw the white conical Concord lighthouse there, it was dedicated to John O’Neill, a local hero from the War of 1812 and the first keeper of the light there.

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.

May 18 (Sunday): To Baltimore

With the prediction of thunder storms and high wind for the afternoon, we changed our plans for this morning. We got up early this morning and took the narrow channel out through the rock jetty at Rock Hall to make the run back to the Yacht Center in Grasonville. Bob and Penny took us in their car to the Kent Island Methodist church.where the youth minister brought a message for their young people on the characteristics of Faith (comparing faith to various games and toys). This was a friendly church, and it was a blessing to be there this morning. I took a picture of the wonderful farming scene we passed along the way as we dashed back to the boat just as the rain began. Bob and Penny headed home after a quick lunch with us. We were hesitant to proceed to Baltimore, but the wind calmed in the late afternoon, and we decided to brave the trip. Luckily, it seemed the storm was running before us and the Bay was calm until we met a deluge just in the outer harbor of Baltimore. This is where the huge seagoing vessels were moored with all their commercial goods in transit. We also passed some major gray Navy ships with massive loading ramps and a large Red Cross vessel.

We cruised under the Francis Scott Key Bridge which marks the location where Key was imprisoned aboard a British warship during the British attack on Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. This was the event that inspired the writing of our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner – which I sang as we came by the fort and saw the American flag flying there. We are docked at the inner harbor just under Federal Hill and it is just beautiful. We are directly across the water from the architectural wonder of the National Aquarium and next to the Science museum (where you can see the dinosaurs through the multistory glass window at the end of the building). I guess I will be able to sleep tonight!

May 17: Rock Hall, MD

Tom and I had a rush around day on Friday getting ready to meet my brother and sister-in-law for their weekend visit. We had a flash back to when we were first married by going to the laundry to wash clothes and dashed out to get a pizza before putting the clothes in the dryer. With the props newly tuned, the boat back in the water and the frig full of food, we were ready. Bob and Penny Friday made it over the high bridge into Grasonville and we set off to Rock Hall just north on the Eastern Shore. We tied up at Rock Hill Landing and had a great dinner overlooking the bay at the Waterman’s Crab House.

What a lovely day we had in Rock Hall on Saturday. We visited the Waterman’s museum – a restored waterman’s house, and the Rock Hall Museum which was two rooms in their Municipal Building, filled with interesting relics from the watermen’s life and work collected by a local family. The museums really showed off the evidence of hard work and ingenuity of this working life style, including the little house barges that the men would tow behind their fishing boats when they were too far away to go home at the end of the day. There were pictures of their families coming to visit them on the water but also the picture of loneliness and grueling days.

We wandered through various shops, and finished off the afternoon with a visit to the soda fountain at Durding’s Store. This store has been in continuous operation since the early 1900’s, and they served cokes and sodas all hand mixed from syrups and seltzer water. The walls were the original beaded paneling and the ceiling was old timey pressed tin. It was a luscious step back in time and we all sat on the red topped stools at the marble counter and sipped wonderful concoctions. We found a nearby church, Rock Hall United Methodist, built in 1835 which is in walking distance where we will worship tomorrow. We got back to the boat in time to set up the GPS on my laptop for our back up navigation system and grill chicken out for dinner. Wasn't it fun to watch the Preakness horse race on TV? We celebrated "Big Brown"s amazing victory.

The sunset was a beautiful end to the great day.

We had a great trip to Phoenix, the green desert - weather much different than the Chesapeake Bay. Even with temperatures 19 degrees below average, the days were in the 80's, and they had not had any rain since February. We had fun seeing the Diamond Backs baseball team play with Randy Johnson, their 6’10” pitcher, getting the win in their beautiful Chase stadium. We also saw the Pueblo Grande archeological dig showing how the Hohokam lived in the valley with their amazing hand dug irrigation systems from the Salt River dating back to 450 AD. We also had a lazy afternoon on a bass boat on Lake Pleasant. A couple of folks caught striped bass, but all I caught was a tree branch... it really put up a fight though! IBM had wonderful motivation sessions where we heard from Sam Pamisano, our President, and Frans Johansson, the author of the Medici Effect, and 2008 Grammy winner and civil rights activist Angelique Kidjo. Angelique Kidjo is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and has become a spokesperson on African child-labor issues and an advocate for the children who have been drugged, kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers in African wars. She is also an amazing vocalist and she and her band performed for us. Talented Leann Rimes, country and pop musician, gave us a closing night concert including some of her original songs, for a sweet end to a memorable event.

On our return to the east coast, and with TNTY in dry dock having its propellers “tuned”, we spent the night in Annapolis, Maryland.

May 11: Mother's Day

Our visit to Saint Michaels was lovely – I recommend it to all boaters. When we cruised into the harbor yesterday, there was clarion music wafting over the water from one of the local churches playing “Fairest Lord Jesus” – such a welcome. I had a special Mother’s Day with a card, gifts and telephone calls from my wonderful daughters. After breakfast we walked down Mulberry Street and saw the “Cannon Ball House”. This old brick house on St. Mary’s Square gained is fame during the War of 1812. During an attack by the British a cannon ball came in through the chimney rolled down the stairs and out the front door. We attended the morning worship service at St Luke’s, and found the second story sanctuary with antique stained glass windows, dark ornately carved pews, and a huge pipe organ. Since it was Mother’s Day, Tom and I thought a lot about our wonderful mothers and what a wonderful influence they were on our lives – how very blessed we are. I also really missed being at home at Trinity today.
After church we cast off, cruised by an old schooner in the harbor, and headed up to Grasonville arriving early afternoon. This is where we picked up the TNTY’s in the beginning and we returned to The Narrows restaurant for a late lunch including awesome cream of crab soup. Later in the afternoon, the bottom dropped out of the sky and the torrential rains started. Wow! With wind speeds over 25 – 35 MPH on the Bay, we are so glad to be safely tucked in at Grasonville.

Tomorrow Tom and I head for Phoenix, Arizona, to attend the IBM Corporate Technical Recognition event while the engines get tuned up at The Yacht Center. Maybe the weather will improve as well.

It is interesting how different the presence of sea birds is this morning. Maybe it is because we are docked next to a 40 ft low-slung sail boat with a navy blue hull – that is a sail boat with not one, not two, but three large owl mannequins hung in its rigging. Owls are bird predators and a common way of decreasing the bird population. We even had owl statutes mounted on the IBM building when I worked on Six Forks Road in Raleigh. Anyway, contrasting that to being tied up next to the fish factory in Reedville is a pretty significant contrast! So there are no birds this morning and it is raining, but hey, we had breakfast overlooking the yacht basin on Solomons Island (by the way, apparently the name is Solomons – not possessive so there is no apostrophe!)

It was very grey on the Bay today. Crossing the water, we discovered a huge refinery port rising out of the mists. Oil ships could unloaded in the Bay, and the fuel pumped through tunnels to storage tanks on the shore. We made it up the Miles River to St Michaels by early afternoon and the sun and the Hooper Strait Lighthouse greeted us there. This charming little port was founded in 1677. Across the waterfront, there are flags from all the ACC Schools – I am not sure why, but they were a happy welcome. We spent the afternoon walking around the town and visiting the Chesapeake Bay Maritime museum. It gave information about the log canoe sail boats that are unique to the Bay area as well as discussion about all the contention over the Bay. There are continuing squabbles between commercial fishing and pleasure boats, but also between oyster watermen who drag a dredge versus those who use tongs to manually harvest, between Maryland and Virgina, and between sail boats and motor boats. There was lots of focus on sharing the bay for the best of all. It was fun that there was an exhibit showing how watermen would put the “peeler” crabs into a trough to save them until they “molted” so they could have the soft shelled crab to sell. Fun because we saw the real thing when we were on Tangier Island at Mr. Park’s Marina. It was a beautiful walk back to the marina. We found St Luke’s Methodist church where we will go to worship in the morning and the Tarr House built in 1667. Dinner was at the Crab and Steak House – excellent food.

May 9: Solomons

It is wonderful to be back on the boat. We could hear the rain last night giving that gentle rhythm that makes you glad you are snuggled up in a dry warm place. We had a breakfast of strawberries this morning under low hung gray clouds and glazing off across the dappled gray water. You can see sea gulls, classic gray and white, skimming over the water in search of their breakfast. They are laughing to each other because they like the rain. There is a fishing boat docked just beyond us with a seagull riding in the crow’s nest at the top of its net rigging. It is a very peaceful, beautiful scene.

Gallant Tom drove back to Kilmarnock to return the rental car and when he returned we moved the boat to the fuel dock. The diesel fuel price gauge said $4.15 a gallon. At the dock, a fisherman in white rain gear aboard the Janet, small fishing boat behind us, was culling his catch from his nets. The small fish that were culled are eaten by seagulls, crabs and otters. The fuel dock was next to the “processing” building, and we saw several fishing boats pull up. The dock master said that the motor we could hear running was the vacuum system that vacuumed the fish out of the boats! So these men had been out fishing and were delivering the goods by 10:00 AM.

On the NOAA website, the weather looked pretty iffy... thunderstorms in the bay and strong winds; but we had a reservation at the marina in Oxford and decided to proceed leaving about 11:00 AM. We made good progress through the middle of the day but by 3:00 PM we had slowed to a crawl with the waves just pounding us out in the Bay. At that point, we decided to head up the Patuxent River and take shelter at Solomon’s Island. We found the T-head at Zahniser’s Marina and had time for a quick, 3 mile ride around the island waterfront. We saw the University of Maryland Chesapeake Biological Laboratory and the high Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge as a backdrop to a wonderful classic red farm barn by the river. It was a nice ride even though it was overcast and misty. We made it back in time to wash two loads of clothes, take a shower and walk down to the Dry Dock restaurant overlooking the marina. It was interesting to hear all the sailboat wind chimes clinking in the wind. The seafood dinner was delicious overlooking the marina and we are hoping for better weather tomorrow.

May 8: Back to Reedville, Va

We enjoyed the weekend at home and got to see Dr John and Betty Durham at Trinity receiving the Heritage award. It was great to see Julie Anna and check off a few things that needed to be done, including participating in IBM’s Women in Technology conference at RTP. Then I spent this week in Los Angeles along with around 3000 IBM’ers for our leadership conference. I had the opportunity to drive by Wisteria Lane (Desperate Housewives set) at Universal Studios one evening and am attaching the picture of me with Tom Hanks in his Apollo 13 outfit.

I also saw these amazing Jacaranda trees – totally engulfed in purple blossoms. It was a good trip, but it is good to be back. I already miss our puppy dog, Sidney, who is now visiting with Julie Anna.

In the meantime Tom has eaten twice at the Crazy Crab and ridden the tires off his bike. He thought the seafood was great but was disappointed that they charge extra for hushpuppies here (Boy, we love NC). He made a trip to the gate of the Menhaden plant where he discussed fishing with the guard. The guard who grew up here had never been to the museum in Reedville, so Tom held his own on information. He came to pick me up at the airport in Richmond tonight after finding a bike shop to replace his tires. On the way back to Reedville, we went through West Pointe and drove over the White Stone Bridge (no we were not in New York, these were the Virginia versions). Tomorrow, weather permitting, we head North.