Welcome to Baltimore, Maryland

continued… By midnight, the wind had picked up and there was a small bit of wind chop, but other than that, all was the same as last reported for the rest of the night. This was the sunrise on Sunday, August 10, 2025, as were approaching the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

And here was the view as we went under the bridge.

We approached the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which was on the outskirts of Baltimore, at around 0930. We were shocked to see that it hadn’t been rebuilt yet after it was destroyed a year and a half ago when it was struck by a cargo ship that was leaving Baltimore. This 2-minute video explains what caused the power failure that led to the crash — it was such a tiny thing! It was a stark reminder to us about how fragile boat systems can be.

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Keith’s Perspective on D & D Camp in Virginia Beach, VA/Le point de vue de Keith sur le camp D & D à Virginia Beach, en Virginie

This week has been fun. On Saturday, we went to lunch at a Japanese restaurant, then went to the beach with Blue Heeler. The temperature was amazing, it felt like San Diego. For dinner, we went to a restaurant called Longboard’s, which is just across the river. On Sunday, we went to First Landing National Park with Blue Heeler and went for a three mile walk. We saw some big spider webs and a snake. 

Cette semaine était amusante. Samedi nous sommes allés à un restraurant japonais, puis allés à la plage avec Blue Heeler. Le température était trop bonne, ça ressemblait à San Diego. Pour le dîner nous avons mangé à un restaurant qui s’appelle Longboard’s, qui était de l’autre côté de la rivière. Dimanche nous sommes allés à First Landing National Park avec Blue Heeler et allés faire une promenade de 3 miles. On a vu des grandes toiles d’araignées et un serpent.

Longboard’s
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Adios Norfolk!

Saturday, August 9 — Directly northeast of us, just across the bridge, was a place called Cova Brewing Co & Coffee House that we’ve been meaning to go to since we arrived. We were told they sold only coffee and beer, though sometimes they’d let a food truck onto the property so people could buy food while they hung out.

Seating was outdoors, with a large grassy area, lots of tables, and even a fire pit. In the evenings, it was packed with families.

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Murder Mystery at The Thoroughgood House in Virginia Beach, Virginia

The sunrise on Wednesday, August 6 was blocked by the clouds, but had a neat golden lighting effect.

It was a mellow day. Eric and Christi took care of chores while Keith went to camp, then after camp we ran some errands to prepare for our upcoming passage. One of the errands was a trip to Trader Joe’s in Virginia Beach to stock up on passage food.

On Thursday, it was cool and windy in the morning. We needed to put in sweatshirts to go out! However, the cool didn’t last long. By late morning, it was hot and humid again.

In Deltaville, Eric had noticed that the power supply to the radios wasn’t properly secured. There was only one screw in them, and they did move around when he pushed on, which meat they’d moved in big seas.

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Historic Fort Norfolk, Norfolk, Virginia

The day that we went to the game store to play Magic the Gathering, we saw a flier for an upcoming Dungeons & Dragons one-week half-day camp at the store. Keith had gone to a D & D camp while we were in San Diego and he’d loved it. He asked if he could go to this upcoming camp, so we registered him for it. Camp started on Monday, August 4 and ran from 1000 – 1400. While Keith was gone, Eric and Christi did chores around the boat, then ran errands after we picked him up. We had dinner onboard, then went over to Blue Heeler for games in evening. The duck was performing for us while we played.

On Tuesday, the sunrise was almost apocalyptic. This was as dawn was beginning to break.

The clouds just kept getting redder and redder, and looked like this as the sun rose above the horizon line.

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