Sunrise on Sunday, September 14

Sunday through Tuesday were quiet days overall. We’d intended to make a three-day trip to Washington DC on Monday, so we spent Sunday getting Kosmos ready for sea. We also went to Safeway to stock up on passage foods. Since the choices for passage foods at Safeway weren’t great, we went for an early dinner at Verde, and each got an extra to-go pizza for the passage. While we were eating dinner, Eric pulled out his phone to check the weather and saw that the forecast had changed dramatically. A storm was coming on Tuesday, so we decided to postpone leaving until after the storm passed. Twilight on Sunday:

We don’t think we’ve mentioned this yet: Eric had ordered a new exhaust elbow for the wing-engine that had arrived a few days ago. On Monday, he decided change the elbow. Once he began working on it, he realized the elbow couldn’t really be separated from the rest of the exhaust; the whole exhaust fitting needed to be replaced. So after cleaning up in the engine room, he spent some time trying to hunt down the full exhaust fitting replacement part. He found it at a supplier in Annapolis and made arrangements to pick it up when we go in Annapolis for the boat show.

Eric also rinsed the boat down as there was a film over her, likely exhaust from the various factories in the area. The film rinsed away pretty easily and didn’t require scrubbing. We suppose the film has been settling onboard the whole time we’ve been in Baltimore, but up until now, it has consistently rain, so the film hadn’t really built up.

On Monday, Keith also officially started 8th grade, so Christi and Keith spent the morning doing school. Here is a little video of our new friends hanging out around Kosmos.

Monday was a gorgeous day. In the afternoon, we all wanted to get off the boat and enjoy the weather before the storm hit tomorrow. However, none of us was feeling very good. We suspected we were all fighting a cold. Every September, we go to Ruth’s Chris to celebrate a special occasion. Even though it wasn’t the correct day, we decided to go on Monday and celebrate early. Ruth’s Chris was located downtown, next to the USCG Taney. Between the grocery store and Verde, we’d walked 5-miles on Sunday and, since we weren’t feeling good, no one was up for another big walk to downtown, so we took a ride share. As always, the food was incredible.

On Tuesday, it rained all day, just as the forecast had promised. We laid low onboard. The rest was good for us; we were all feeling back to 100% normal again by the end of the day.

These interesting sculptures were in a little park area outside the restaurant.

Wednesday was a more exciting day. We were thrilled to get a visit in the morning from Jeff Merrill! Jeff was the salesperson who sold us Kosmos. Jeff had put a lot of work into making sure that, as new boaters with very big plans, our boat was properly equipped so that we could succeed. He also taught us a lot and helped train us on how to use the boat. He also joined us on our first Panama Canal transit. We probably would not have accomplished the circumnavigation without his wisdom, knowledge and help.

Jeff has left Nordhavn and now has his own brokerage, JMYS. He was in the marina to help a new owner move his boat to another marina. Needless to say, Jeff was an important person to us and it was wonderful to see him again! Since we all live in Southern California, it felt weird to coincidentally happen to see one another on the other side of the country!

In the evening, we had dinner with Jeff at a restaurant called Sabatino’s, which opened in Little Italy 1955 and was now run by the fourth generation of the same families that originally began it. Little Italy was near Fell’s Point and the Inner Harbor, but it was a longer walk than we wanted to do, so we caught a ride share. For reference, the Star Spangled Banner Museum was on the edge of Little Italy.

The food was great and the portions were generous. We caught up on one another’s lives since we’d last seen each other and Jeff told Keith stories of Eric and Christi’s early days as boaters.

After dinner, we walked around Little Italy and the Inner Harbor. It was already dark so we couldn’t effectively take photos, but here are a few photos we took of the areas at other points in time.

It’s funny how life turns out sometimes… we had been so frustrated about not being able to leave Baltimore on Monday, but now, after seeing Jeff, we were thrilled that we hadn’t missed him.