Category Archives: Cruising Guide

Information for other cruising boats. Our experiences finding places to anchor, dealing with officials, provisions, etc.

Passage from Baltimore to Washington DC — Leg 1

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Thursday, September 18, 2025 — Eric has been worried about the transit that we we’re about to make to DC. One of his concerns was speed: we were going to be going upriver against the current. To help maximize speed, he wanted the bottom clean. Even though the bottom hadn’t been too bad the last time it was cleaned in Baltimore, the extreme amount of growth we’d gotten in Little Creek had Eric worried that there may be enough growth to slow Kosmos down.

Eric has been trying to get the diver to come to do another bottom cleaning for over a week now. The diver is very busy in general, and recently had some issues that caused him to be backlogged. The diver promised Eric that he would do the bottom this morning at 0530. Christi was dubious that he’d really show up, but we still got up at 0430 to shower before he arrived (we try not to run water when the divers are working).

We were not surprised when the diver cancelled. But in good news, we were completely ready to go at first light, which was 0620. First light didn’t mean good visibility, though. It was totally overcast, making it a very dark morning. The cloud cover was so thick that we couldn’t see any hint of the sunrise. 

As soon as we’d turned on the radio, we heard regular warnings to be careful near The Francis Scott Key Bridge as they were doing demolition work to the remains in order to clear the way for the construction of the replacement bridge. We were glad to hear they were finally getting started on a new bridge.

Looking back at the Francis Scott Key Bridge remains and Baltimore.

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Seeing Jeff Merrill in Baltimore, Maryland

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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.

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Breakfast at Simply Marie’s and the The Walk to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland

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Friday, September 12 — This morning, Eric ran all the engines and water makers. He also changed the filters in the black water and grey water vent loops. Those filters are immensely helpful in controlling odors.

Before leaving for San Diego, we’d eaten all the fresh food aboard, so we had nothing for breakfast. We went to eat at an iconic Baltimorean southern restaurant called Simply Marie’s Breakfast Only, which was located in a tiny storefront near the Canton ferry stop. The tag line was no frills delicious homestyle breakfast, and our experience exactly match the tagline.

We had to eat quickly since we were trying to catch the next ferry to Locust Point. At Locust Point, we disembarked and caught another ferry over to downtown, which was also free.

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The Washington Memorial in Baltimore, MD

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Tuesday, August 25 — We were heading back to San Diego soon, so we spent the morning and early afternoon doing chores and getting things ready to go. Keith also continued tightening screws around the boat. Eric ran the engines.

In the mid-afternoon, we wanted to go out, but nothing sounded good. There were still a few museums on the “to do” list, but none of us felt like going to a museum. We finally agreed on the Washington Memorial solely because we wanted to walk around, and we liked the idea of seeing the historic “wealthy” part of town. When we arrived, we were kind of surprised to see the Washington Memorial was in a roundabout in the middle of an intersection.

We found street parking easily just south of the monument. Here the meter was only $2.50 per hour, also with a four-hour limit. Each of the four streets feeding into the intersection had a park in their median. The monument plus the four parks together was called Mt. Vernon Place. Here were some shots of the park that we walked through on our approach to the monument.

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The Wharf in Washington DC

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continued… At this point, we were all hungry. Eric checked the map app and saw there was nothing other than snack stands in close walking distance. We continued on the loop, which became muddy and overgrown.

Near where we’d parked, the walking trail had been a little uneven, indicating that the sea wall had settled. Near the George Mason Memorial, the walking trail had actually been fenced off, with construction equipment behind the fence. A sign had said that the Tidal Basin and Potomac parks were created in the 1880s as part of a land reclamation project. The sea wall had deteriorated, and they were in the process of restoring the wall. There were quite a few geese on this side.

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