Cruising the Chesapeake Bay, Part 2

Explanation of map found in the blog text below. Click on map for enlargement. Freedom's Turn will continue north to Chesapeake City then onto Cape May, NJ by May 29.

Solomons Island "Screwpile Lighthouse" displayat the Calvert Maritime Museum. The stilts are screwed into the muddy soil in the Chesapeake Bay which enables the lighthouses to be placed off shore.

Since the last blog, Freedom's Turn has taken us to the following ports on the western side of the Chesapeake Bay for a distance of 265 statue miles.

Portsmouth, VA May 11-12: Ocean Marine Yacht Center

Deltaville, VA May 13-14: Dozier's Regatta Point Marina

Solomons Island, MD May 15-18: Zahnizer Marina

Annapolis, MD May 19-20: Annapolis Yacht Club

Baltimore, MD May 21 to the present day of May 25- Baltimore City Docks

Well, it has been almost two weeks since we last published the Dismal Swamp blog and it's time to do another one because our friend Louis called and wondered if we were stuck in the swamp or have continued on!

Today marks our sixth day of a long Memorial Day weekend at the Baltimore
City docks in the Inner Harbor of Baltimore, Maryland. We are having a fabulous time.

Hank and Ann and their boat Queen Ann's Revenge is here also and we have enjoyed being with them.

The city docks are finger piers off of the wall and are offered to transient boaters on a first come first serve basis. The harbormaster's office and facilities are two blocks away, with just a small building at the dock for an attendant that greeted us and helped us tie up upon our arrival. The price to stay here is great, though, at $1.25 ft and $4 for electricity per night compared to the three marinas in the harbor at $3 ft and $12-15 per night for the electricity.

So we use our head and shower on-board. We are in front of a great visitor's center and we look out our windows and see a beautiful waterfront setting with museums, ships and skyscrapers. More about Baltimore in the next blog.

Our friends Jim and Sandy on Footloose went to another marina in Baltimore for a long term stay so they can leave their boat and travel to Texas to see their family. We met up with them here in Baltimore the other day for a stroll and an ice cream cone and said farewell, we'll see you again somewhere we hope!

Portsmouth, VA

We left the Dismal Swamp on a damp and cool day and traveled 35 miles to Ocean Marine Yacht Center Marina in Portsmouth. Charlie wanted to get fuel and have a pump out so we radioed ahead and the harbor master greeted us at the fuel dock. Freedom's Turn took 158.70 gallons at $1.81; the lowest price we have found, to date on the trip.

I got off the boat to stretch my legs and look around for a few minutes. That is when I saw a Navy ship with a number 67 on it across the harbor. To my surprise, Harbormaster John told me the ship was the Naval Destroyer USS Cole; the same ship bombed in a suicide attack in October of 2000 while it was harbored in the Yemeni port of Aden. Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed on that ship at that attack. These days the ship is getting fitted for a new bow shape for better displacement.

The USS Cole

We had planned to stay the next day so we got into our slip, tied the lines, put fenders in place, and hooked up our two, 30 amp electrical lines into our 50 amp splitter (we use this splitter almost every time) and plugged into the 50 amp shore power at our slip. For a 48 hour turn around, we did not hook up the water hose so we made it easy by just using the water from our tanks. Charlie checked the engine and it's oil while I did the laundry and some blog writing. A simple dinner eaten on-board on a chilly but cozy night and off to bed early.

The next day it was sunny and warmer. Jim and Sandy from Footloose joined us for a ferry ride across the harbor to Norfolk, VA. There we toured the Hampton Roads Naval Museum and the USS Wisconsin and ate a great lunch in a restaurant that used to be a church.

One of many great displays inside the museum.

The USS Wisconsin below

Just before entering the museum, Sandy and I got our picture taken in front of a mermaid statue. The mermaid is Norfolk's cultural icon. We saw many of them that day around the town; all different sizes and and colors.

The mermaid below was exceptionally unique.

When the four of us began our tour of the USS Wisconsin, I realized a blog story here so I asked questions to the the Navy Veterans who were the tour guides and took down notes.

The USS Wisconsin is an 887 ft long Iowa-class battleship. She is in what the Navy calls "inactive reserve status" which means she can still be commissioned for duty if the need arises but for the time being, she stays in the harbor and visitors can come aboard and see limited areas.

Launched December 7, 1943, the USS Wisconsin has six battle stars for service, from WW II and the Korean War and after being modernized in the navy's 600 ship plan in 1986, received a navy 'Unit Commendation' for service in the Gulf War.

The ship is painted with Measure 13, the veteran told us. "What is measure 13?" I asked. His answer: "The paint scheme that the Wisconsin currently wears." He explained that all navy ships wear paint schemes called 'measures', designed to make it hard for the enemy to recognize the ships. Measure 13 is the navy's normal peacetime system of peace gray. This paint is the least visable under the widest range of light conditions. How cool is this I thought?

After more of my questions and Charlie raising his eyebrows at me like he does, the man lead me into the museum for more about the ship. He told me he had been assigned active duty on the USS Wisconsin during the Korean War.

This photo below is of a shell from a projectile from the ship. It came from one of nine barrels that can shoot up to 2 projectiles each for a total of 18 all at once. Each projectile can travel 2,700 ft a second or 27 miles in a minute; three times the speed of sound, my veteran friend told me. I regret I did not write down his name for he was very knowledgeable and kind enough to answer my questions.

Jim and Charlie standing along side of the USS Wisconsin. You can see some of the the barrels on top of the ship here.

When the four of us left, we thanked our veteran guide for his first hand information and more importantly, for his service to our country. We are proud of our military and do not tell them sometimes.

Freedom's Turn and Footloose left the following morning in route to Deltaville,VA to spend two nights at Regatta Point Marina. It is commonly known as Dozier's Marina, named after the family that manage the marina. The Dozier family publishes a series of important chart books for boaters (especially Great Looper Boats) known as The Waterway Guides. This marina has everything we needed in the line of basics plus a wine and cheese reception for us, a courtesy car to use to go into town and even a price cut for dockage for Great Loop boats.

Before we arrived in Deltaville, here is another Navy ship photo taken as we are leaving the Norfolk harbor. I saw many a Navy ship in movies growing up but never in person that I can remember. My family used to go to the drive-in movies during the summer months and after the cartoons, we would watch WW II movies sometimes like"South Pacific". To see these big ships now, so big and powerful and in person, is something like I cannot explain. The opportunity here gave Charlie and I a chance to pause and think about all the work done for us by so many military behind the scenes for our national security.

Seeing the Navy ships coming and going

Deltaville, VA

In Deltaville we met up with our friends John and Ellie from Adios. We also met new friends Ann and Hank from Queen Ann's Revenge, and Mary and John from Legacy. Along with Jim and Sandy from Footloose, the ten of us went out for dinner. There were three orders of tomato pie shared, and boy was it delicious. The restaurant's name was Tobys and they came and picked us all up in three different cars and took us back!

A flaky pie crust, three kinds of cheeses, and lots of fresh tomatoes. I will have to experiment with making this when I get back to Okemos!

Solomons Island. I am checking out the time for the Episcopal service the next day at St Peter's, built in 1890. I walked there the next day in the rain but it was a good feeling to go. I wore my two piece boaters rain suit to church!

Solomons Island

At the mouth of the Patuxent River on the western shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay, there is a small island that is not seen on a land map as an island very well. It was named Solomons Island after Issac Solomon who established the first oyster-canning plant here in 1867. We soon discovered that this area was a recreational boater's hot spot and a place where we would take the time to finally eat some local blue crabs.

One hightlight was re-uniting with Jim and Lisa from Kismet and eating at Crabby's restaurant where patrons crack open the steamed blue crabs with wooden mallets and eat them right off a vinyl table cloth. Then they just throw the non- edible parts in their own table's bucket.

Before we decided to order them, Charlie asked our waiter all about them and then we were convince it would be another adventure, we said! It was lots of work hitting the shells. A roll of paper towels later, we paid an expensive $24 for such a small amount of meat; (six crabs). Then we sat back, sighed and said "here on Solomons Island we just had to try the blue crabs." We sampled our first steamed mussels as well. ( It was all very tasty.)

Charlie and I also met up with Judy and Les from the boat Voyager II and together we went to the Calvert Maritime Museum. No charge, the attendant said; it was National Museum Day!

Inside, we saw many great displays about the abundant marine life on the rivers the flow inward off the Chesapeake Bay such as the Patuxent. These rivers are noted as "estuaries" which are places where salt water from the ocean mixes with fresh water to provide a rich and complex environment for many kinds of wildlife.

We also learned about the Calvert Cliffs, the white sandy cliffs along the western shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay we saw coming into the island. Thousands of years of ocean water flowing in and out built up the cliffs which helped form the Chesapeake Bay. Numerous layers of sand, silt,and rock preserved an abundant amount of marine creatures from thousands of years ago. These cliffs have served as a major spot for excavation for many years and continue to do so.

Here is a woman on staff at the museum showing us a fossilized dolphin's skull that was just found recently in the cliffs. You can see it placed inside a custom sized mold; the third of a five step process. The first is the cleaning (they use dental tools!) Second, is gluing the parts together, third, placing the specimen in a mold, and the fourth stage is classification. (They can determine the age by the location within the cliffs) And last, storing it in an airtight container and placing it in a metal drawer.

Museum photo of the blue crabs. We discovered that they really are blue before they are cooked. (when we ate them they were bright orange!)

The male crab at the top has a T shaped design (upside down here)on his underside where the female, this one carrying her egg sac, has the distinction of having a redish tip on her front claws, kind of like red fingernail polish!

Our last night on Solomons Island, Jim and Lisa invited Charlie, Les, Judy and I over to Kismet, their boat, for grilled chicken. Jim and Lisa and Kismet will stay on throughout the summer on Solomons Island. So we thanked them for a great dinner and bid them a fond farewell. (never a good by from boater to boater)

On May 19 around 6:30 AM, Freedom's Turn and three of her boat buddies paraded away from Solomons Island ; Queen Ann's Revenge and Footloose (they stayed at a Navy marina close by) and Voyager II (at our marina). We were all headed for Annapolis, about 50 miles away.

Annapolis and Baltimore are such unique cities that they deserve another blog.

Until next time,

Hope all is going well for our wonderful family and friends.

Oh, and I'll call friend Louis and tell him the blog is done.

Sincerely,

Linda and Charlie