Baltimore and the Atlantic Ocean

Dateline: Heading out of Baltimore to the Atlantic Ocean
October 30, 2007 2005 hours

After departing Norfolk VA last night we made a left turn in Chesapeake Bay and headed northwest about 20 miles to the Patapsco River and into Baltimore Harbor. We tooled into town from the Cruise ship Terminal (which is in BFE) via shuttle to an area called Inner Harbor. Our shuttle driver showed everyone how he could get between three school buses and a walking path. We thought we were going to take out some kids for a few minutes but the bus driver just backed up and boom…we were in. We got off of the shuttle and were in downtown Baltimore. Baltimore is probably most-famous for being the site of Fort McHenry, where the American National Anthem was written during the War of 1812, for being the home town of Babe Ruth and Edgar Allen Poe. The Inner Harbor area also sports a collection of real cool historical ships including the USS Constitution from the 1800’s and the USCC Taney, which is the last surviving ship from the Pearl harbor attack, according to the sign posted along her rails.

Carol and I have to say this city really took us by surprise! The Inner Harbor area of Baltimore has to be one of the very best examples of what the public and private sector can do together. The Inner Harbor area was an industrial park and a slum in the late 1960’s. Today it is home to upscale stores, Camden Yard baseball stadium, and some seriously toney condos and homes. Everywhere we walked today smelled of money and success. We did our usual gig of hitting the streets with the camera and computer equipment, in order to update the blog and get a lot of photos. We traveled through Little Italy, Fell’s Point, East Harbor and other areas of the city. We were looking for an Internet café recommended by the locals, called the “Daily Grind,” and unfortunately we found it. GREAT little place full of college students and just laid back people who were very friendly, but this place has to rate as the WORST hot spot for wireless Internet on the East Coast. A simple 20-minute blog update took almost two hours because the wireless was up-and-down like a yo yo. So, we apologize if some of the photo captions are not spelled correctly or there are punctuation errors. We just ran out of time and patience. Also, as mentioned before, this will be our last blog update from the ship unless we have some extra minutes left on our Internet account on the Scurvy.

We finally finished with the blog and went walking around. We saw so many really cool places, including some really great Italian restaurants. It would have been nice to spend an evening here and sample some of the wonderful restaurants and local specials Baltimore has. Baltimore has a world trade center and unfortunately it was closed today but we got some great pictures of the building as well as the mirrors on top of the building (Steve almost stepped into the bay trying to get the picture of the mirrors). We also got some great pictures of the row houses in Little Italy (we have always seen these types of homes on “This Old House” and now we know what they really look like! Look for all of the pictures on the Google Picasa Photo Album. The most impressive building in the city is the Bank of America building. Steve took numerous photos of different parts of this building, which appeared to have been built about the same time as New York City’s Empire State and Chrysler Buildings. Unfortunately, for such a grand piece of architecture and masonry sculpting, we could find absolutely NO information on the building anywhere, so this will become an Internet research project for Steve. Finally it was time to get back to the ship so we boarded the shuttle, closed our eyes and prepared for the kamikaze drive back to the port.

This port was the most security conscious port we have been in, it included having a police dog sniff the perimeter of the boat, all of the buses and taxis coming into the area, mirrors under all vehicles, having a police officer board the bus and look at each person’s cruise ship card and a government issue photo ID and being escorted back to the terminal and the ship by our very own security guard. Finally we made it back on the boat and were shoving off we were escorted by two of Baltimore’s finest in helicopters. Not sure what the police budget is in Baltimore but if they do this for all of the cruise ships, someone is making some money! You ain’t in California anymore, Toto…

Here is a short video of our escorts:

Tonight we are once again outward bound down Chesapeake Bay, out of the Hampton Roads, and on into the Atlantic Ocean, where we will spend the day at sea tomorrow before reaching Charleston, SC, which is 527 nautical miles from Baltimore. We passed under the impressive Francis Scott Key Bridge and the Chesapeake Bay Bridges, but it was too dark to get any photos or videos. We are spending a quiet night in our “Stateroom” updating our blog, downloading pictures and generally taking it easy. We did hear about a tropical storm Noel that is off the Atlantic coast in the Caribbean. If any of you hear any news about the storm, let us know!

Until later, good-night from somewhere in the Chesapeake Bay.