Baltimore

Day #297; Loop Miles to Date = 4,014

Another milestone...on our way to Baltimore, we crossed over the 4,000 mile mark for our journey thus far! Wow...it has flown by...it is hard to believe that it adds up to this many miles when you are only traveling 30 to 50 miles per travel day. The good news is that there are many, many more miles to go!

We are now in Baltimore, at Anchorage Marina. We needed a spot to stop for awhile to take care of some things...most notably to make sure that we were on top of what needed to be done with our pups. We will spare you the details, but the good news is that we found a vet here that we really like, and he is going to perform some surgery on Kikie tomorrow. We have now learned that she has a large stone in her bladder that needs to be removed. The good news is that it is a rather routine procedure, and once accomplished, all of her issues should completely disappear. This will make both her and us a whole lot happier. We are glad we chose to figure this out here, and know that we will be here long enough to take care of any follow-up issues that might arise.

Additionally, this location will allow us to catch up with some additional family and some good friends. Already this week, Rob's roommate, Jeff, from college was able to join us for dinner. It was awesome to spend time together, and we hope to see him again while we are here. There are also some plans in the works for a small handful of Rob's fraternity brothers from college to make a road trip to visit us on the boat. We're hoping that they can pull it off, and look forward to some fun and frivolity!

We also have some nieces in the area who we hope to connect with (that's you Jenny and Gabi) and as well plan to have Rich and Verna come see us again from York (Rob's brother). On top of all this, Rob is planning a short get-away to play some golf with his golf buddies...in Colorado! This will be the first golf for him in about a year and a half, so expectations are rather low and he has been begging for more strokes all summer.

And now to the theme for this entry...the Baltimore Harbor. We are quite happy with our choice here for an extended stay, as it is very secure, has floating docks, laundry and ice nearby, and a grocery right across the street. We have no wifi at our slip, but other than this, it is close to ideal. But the water quality in the harbor leaves a bit to be desired...as to be expected in a harbor that is basically a "dead end". Fortunately they have these wild looking water borne machines that collect all of the floating trash and debris:

But unfortunately, the task is never ending, and these boats can't keep up with the influx of debris. It often looks like this around the dock:

Note on the right side of this pic...that's our blue bow right there.

The sorta good news is that it doesn't smell! It is mostly plastic bottles and Styrofoam cups and sticks and stuff. However...we unfortunately had a need to go swimming a couple of days ago. The good news is that the wind shift had blown all of this sort of stuff away from our boat when Rob decided to jump in. The short version of the story is that our air conditioning quit, and after more than an hour of trouble shooting and trying other solutions to the problem, we deduced that something was stuck on our raw water intake, preventing water flow to our a/c units. Which in turn means that they shut down and don't work.

So...the unfortunate solution ultimately was to jump in and dive under the boat to check to see if indeed this was the problem. Fortunately, it was a  quick swim, and the problem was solved once we found a black plastic bag stuck to the inlet. And as long as he was in the water, Rob was also able to check our prop and rudder zincs, and found both to be in good shape. We just hope that this is the only time we need to do this while we are here! A long hot shower was all that was needed to put this behind us.

Getting ready to get wet.



Now this is fun...

 

 

The culprit!