Baltimore, MD

Last Friday morning (July 2), with gray skies overhead, we pulled up anchor in Church Creek and headed north. At 4:30 in the afternoon, under skies that were clearing, we entered the fairway of Anchorage Marina, Mantra's place whenever we are in Baltimore, and it felt like coming home. The dockmaster, Wayne, with two dockhands, was waiting to catch and secure our lines, greeting us warmly. That evening, we took the short walk to O'Donnell Square in the neighborhood of Canton and had dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants, Nacho Mama's. (Peter recommends the mango margueritas.)

View from Anchorage Marina

Parent and eight ducklings near our boat

The next day (July 3), we joined others here at the marina for the usual Saturday morning continental breakfast social, which is such a nice tradition. Afterwards, I did laundry and Peter started in on his long, never diminishing list of boat jobs. His current big project is wiring and installing a new autopilot. After my work, I walked over to Fell's Point on the Promenade. There was a colorful farmer's market in Broadway Square, and the area was thronged with locals and tourists filling the restaurants and bars. I was saddened to find that the little Fell's Point Visitor's Center and Museum is no longer there. A nearby shop owner, who sold an eclectic array of goods from around the world, informed me that the building in which it was housed had been sold and the museum was forced to close. Peering through the windows, I could see that everything had been cleared out of the interior, which had been a cordage factory when the area was an bustling port. I guess the site will become yet another bar, restaurant or boutique. It is a shame that only the facades and a few interior architectural details (plus a couple signs on the streets) are all that remain to hint at the significant history of this little peninsula, where shipbuilding, trade, immigration and the struggle of Blacks such as Frederick Douglass to gain rights and freedom all contributed to the fabric of this waterfront community. 

Actually, the most interesting observation on my outing was a nest in a tree by a small park. Alerted by loud squawking from above (I didn't notice the large amount of poop on the ground until later.), I peered and peered from various angles until I spotted the two juvenile black crowned night herons perched near their nest, which is a mish-mash of woody material about 18 inches in diameter. The birds leave the next after about 4 weeks but stay near it for another couple weeks until they are fully capable of flight. 

One of the two juvenile black crowned night herons

Heron nest

The other juvenile

That evening, Peter and I took our drinks to the end of C Dock, sat in comfortable Andirondack chairs by the water among other boat owners at the marina, and thoroughly enjoyed the live bluegrass music of the Mayo Family Band as we watched the sunset tinge the sky with various shades of red. The marina hosts a free concert every Saturday night during the summer for slipholders and transients, and the performers are always talented and engaging. (Yes, we love it here!)

The Mayo Family Band

Peter took time off on Independence Day. After breakfast, we set out to explore the waterfront and visit the Inner Harbor. From the marina, it is possible to walk on wide promenades all along the harbor. Of course, we paused to read signs and look at interesting features. We stopped at the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park. Unfortunately, the museum has not yet re-opened after closing for the pandemic, but we learned a lot from the outside signage and watched volunteers caulking the hull of an old wooden boat on the railway from the water. This location was the site of the Chesapeake Railway and Marine Dry Dock Company, a entirely African American owned and operated caulking and repair facility established by Isaac Myers and 14 other African Americans in 1866. At its peak operation, it employed about 300 workers.

Volunteers caulking a boat on the railway

Statue of Frederick Douglass

Historic ships on the pier at the museum

From the waterfront in the Inner Harbor, we spied a grand, impressive gold and bronze monument that we had never noticed before, glittering in the sunshine about a block in from the water. We discovered that it is a monument commemorating the Katyn Massacre in 1940. We knew nothing of this piece of history. On September 17, 1939, the Soviet Union began its invasion of eastern Poland. Between a quarter to half a million Polish soldiers and policemen were captured and interned, but most were released or escaped quickly. However, about 25,000 military and police officers were sent to labor camps in the western Soviet Union. In the midst of WWII, in April 1943, Nazi Germany announced the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest. The USSR was accused of massacre but denied any responsibility, stating that the Nazis were the culprits. It was not until 1990 that the Soviets acknowledged and condemned the killings ordered by Stalin and carried out by the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs). According to records,  officers, with their hands tied behind their backs, were placed one by one in sound-insulated cells and shot in the back of the head while kneeling. The massacre is named for the Katyn Forest where the first mass graves of the prisoners of Kozelsk camp were discovered, but the killing also took place at two other sites. Executed prisoners from Kharkiv were buried near the village of Piatyhatky and those from the Ostashkov camp in Mednoye. The massacre was conducted at night over 28 days in April of 1940. 

Katyn Massacre Memorial

The memorial statue in Baltimore reflects the strength of the local Polish-American community, who spearheaded the building of the monument. It is a stunning and evocative recognition of this little known war crime.

From there, we walked along the water, past the Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse, which used to be located at the mouth of the Patapsco River, to the Historic Ships of Baltimore. Two of the them are currently opened for visitors, the USS Torsk and the USS Constellation. First, we went on board the submarine Torsk, built for action during WWII. On patrol off Japan in the summer of 1945, it torpedoed one cargo vessel and two coastal defense frigates; the latter of these was the last enemy ship sunk by the US Navy in the war. The Torsk continued service through the mid-1960s. 

Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse

With a length of 311 feet and a beam of 27, the interior is quite large, although every space is utilized, including pipe bunks above the torpedos. Peter was fascinated by the opposed piston diesel engines, the electric generators, batteries and electric motors. (I barely understand all of these things.) She had a top surface speed of 20.25 knots and could travel as fast as 8.75 knots submerged. However, she usually cruised underwater at about 2 knots, which allowed her to stay submerged for 48 hours, when the batteries would be depleted. She carried 28 torpedoes and had six torpedo tubes in the bow and four in the stern. The 10 officers had very small private cabins, and the up to 71 enlisted men were crammed into three tier berths or slept above the torpedoes forward and aft. The only area that seemed somewhat spacious was the four-table mess hall. Photos from the Torsk's active service shows sweaty men, referred to as sardines, without shirts working in close quarters--but sometimes smoking cigarettes! 

Peter studying the equipment

Aft torpedo room

Torpedo going into the tube

Galley

Peter caught looking cute

USS Torsk exterior

Forward torpedo room

Two torpedoes with a berth above

Opposed piston diesel engine

Looking through the hatches from forward of the galley

Mess hall

After touring the Torsk, we had lunch on the waterfront and then went on board the USS Constellation. This wooden sloop-of-war was built in 1853-55 and named for the retired navy frigate USS Constellation which had been broken up in 1853. This later led to some confusion. When she became part of the fleet of historic ships the city of Baltimore and the organization that maintained Constellation promoted the ship as having been the 1797 frigate and even rebuilt sections of the ship to resemble the earlier vessel. There has been much controversy, as some maintain that parts of the original 1797 frigate were used for the sloop-of-war (and therefore it is a reconstruction, not a new ship). Forged documents and inclusive Navy documents from the time make things murky. However, currently, for the record, the vessel is considered a mid-19th century ship. She was the last sail-only warship built by the US Navy.Constellation is 181 feet at the waterline and 199 feet long overall. She has a beam of 41 feet at the waterline and is 43 feet across at her widest point. Her maximum draft is 21 feet at a full load displacement of 1400 long tons. There are four decks four decks to explore aboard the sloop-of-war, each one distinctly different from the next. The top deck, or spar deck, is where all the sailing operations took place. Directly below the spar deck is the gun deck, which hosts the ship's main battery of guns, the captain's cabin and the galley. Underneath the gun deck is the berth deck where the majority of the crew lived and socialized. Down one more ladder is the ship's hold, where food, water, ammunition and gear for a crew of up to 325 was stowed.

The ship's crew usually numbered 21 officers and 265 enlisted men.  The officers had cabins nestled against the starboard and port sides of the gun deck in the bow, all of them opening onto the spacious dining hall, which also served as a meeting and work room for the officers. The room was also used to entertain dignitaries when the ship was in foreign ports.

The men lived and slept in a large open area in the center of the berth deck. Each morning, they were expected to take 7 minutes to get up, get ready for duty, roll their hammocks and stow them in special compartments along the outside of the top deck. Groups of these hammocks were then covered with canvas, adding to the bulwarks which protected the men during battle.

In her original configuration, the USS Constellation was armed with a battery of sixteen 8-inch shell-firing guns and four 32-pounder guns mounted on her gun deck in the main battery. On her spar deck, she carried a pair of chase guns; a 30-pounder Parrott rifle was placed in the the box and a 20-pounder Parrott rifle was in the stern. She also had three 12-pounder boat howitzers. Interspersed among all these armaments as well as all the other decks were signs explaining where she was stationed and what action she saw during active duty, her construction, and the individual lives and careers of some of her officers, particularly during the U.S. Civil War. (For me, a day well spent is one in which I learn new things.)

USS Constellation's gun deck

Berth deck

Rigging

Hammocks were stored under the canvas to provide bulwarks

Captain's cabin

Officer's cabin

Captain's toilet and bathtub

Captain's dining room

Bowsprit

V-berth for an officer

After our visits to the ships, we walked back along the waterfront to Anchorage Marina, stopping briefly at a playground where we placed large percussion instruments and hunched over to walk through some structures. 

Peter in a willow tunnel

Around 7 p.m., our friends Steve and Suzanne, who live here, came by to drinks. Joining us a bit later were there daughter Anna and her partner James. They are all deeply involved in marine activities. Steve is a certified captain, and he and Suzanne run a non-profit organization taking local kids out on the water to learn to sail. Anna is a rigger and James works in marine electronics. Before sunset, the six of us walked to another marina nearby and boarded their 36 foot Sabre sailboat Condor. 

James, Peter, Suzanne, Steve and Anna

With very light winds, we headed for the Inner Harbor, where we floated around and waited for the lighting of the new Domino Sugars sign on the south shore of the harbor. Domino Sugars is the last major heavy industry site in the Inner Harbor; it has been processing raw sugar there for over 100 years. The original lighted sign high above the facory had fell into disrepair and was dismantled. The new sign is lit with LED lights, and people in Baltimore welcomed back this iconic symbol.

Inner Harbor at sunset

Fireworks in front of the Domino Sugars plant

Domino Sugars sign

I was too tired (as I was on Saturday also) to blog, and I had to get up early the next morning for another day of being a tourist. On Monday, July 5, without Peter, I left Mantra at 8:15 a.m. and walked the nearly two miles to the National Aquarium. I spent 6 full hours there, reading every sign, of course, and doing the interactive activities and, most of the time, enjoying the amazing life before my eyes. The exhibits include a enormous pool dotted with coral heads in which swims fish, rays and sharks from the Indo-Pacific basin. Some of the pool is shallow, allowing close up views of creatures looking down on the surface, and the deeper parts can be seen through windows on the lower level. The blacktip reef shark is the highlight of this exhibit, but there are 69 different species. Some of my favorites were the reticulated whiptail ray and the harlequin tuskfish swimming among a variety of colorful angelfish, wrasse, triggerfish and other species.

Blacktip reef shark and reticulated whiptail ray

At the living seashore exhibit featuring 150 species, including plants, from the mid-Atlantic, I was able to touch the top sides of jellies and rays and horseshoe crabs. I learned about how the horseshoe crabs differentiate by gender and how they mate. (The females rule!) In an exhibit devoted to habitats in Maryland, there are crabs, terrapins, frogs and other creatures. The Amazon River Forest revealed secrets of the stages of seasonal flooding, when the waters can rise 10 to 40 feet and support an incredible diversity of animals, including fish that feed on nuts and seeds. In the exhibit, there are a number of turtles (including one of the largest in the world), snakes, frogs in addition to fish and rays. 

Red and blue macaw

Blue crowned motmot

Poison dart frogs

Poison dart frogs

Another large exhibit area features coral reefs of the Atlantic and the Pacific, including Atlantic puffins and pastel to neon anemones. I really enjoyed looking at all the fish I normally see when I am snorkeling in the Caribbean or in Hawai'i. Larger fish can be found in the Atlantic Coral Reef exhibit, a 13-foot high, 335,000 gallon tank bordered by a spiralling walkway from which nearly 100 species of fish can be observed as well as bonnethead sharks and eels. 

Anemones

Further on in the aquarium is Shark Alley, where sand tiger sharks, sawtooth sharks, sandbar sharks and nurse sharks as well as large, shiny crevasse jacks cruise by. The aquarium has terminated its dolphin shows, but it is still possible to walk by the huge performance pool and watch these mammals swim and, without prompting, play with beach balls. The staff are in the process of acclimating them to be released in a sanctuary on the mid-Atlantic coast. Jellies were the next creatures on display, and th exhibit provided information on them as competitors, predators, prey and invasive species, all of which was fascinating. 

Moon jellies

Moon jellies

Pacific sea nettle

Atlantic sea nettle

Blue blubber jelly

Jellies mobile

Jellies mobile

Finally, I visited the exhibit area featuring life from a northern Australian river gorge, which experiences annual drought and flooding (the Wet). Over 70 species, many unique to Australia, are housed there, including snakes, turtles, crocodiles, lizards and free-flying birds. 

Six hours had passed since I entered the building, and my brain was over-saturated with information and I was thirsty. (Luckily, I had stashed two cheese sticks in my little purse, which sustained me.) After purchasing a refreshing Diet Coke from a 7-11, I considered getting a bus back to the marina area, but I ended up walking. There was a good breeze mitigating the temperture in the mid-80s. My legs and feet were tired, and I threw myself on the sofa to rest upon arriving at our floating home. 

I cooked a delicious dinner of pasta al fredo with mushrooms, but otherwise I was too exhausted to do anything else--such as write a blog entry. It has taken me all morning and part of the afternoon to compose this lengthy summary of our recent activities. The rest of the day will be spent getting groceries from the Safeway across the street from the marina. I was planning to clean lines on deck, many of which have not released the green pollen which accumulated in and on them while Mantra was on the hard for a year. However, it is extremely hot today (temperature, 93; heat index, 104), so that job might wait for cooler morning hours. I may have to indulge in the pool at the end of C dock instead.