The Great Fish Die Off and The Chesapeake and Ohio (C & O) Canal National Monument, Maryland

Friday, August 22 — As predicted, the hurricane passed on Wednesday night/Thursday early morning with little effect on Baltimore. Conditions were more severe in Norfolk, so we were glad we’d moved. Yesterday was another cool day, with 10-knots of sustained wind with occasional gusts in high teens, no rain, and temperatures in the 60s. 

Yesterday morning, the alternator belt that Eric had ordered arrived, and he installed it right away. The one he’d ordered was 1/2″ less in diameter than the belts he’d been using, and he was pleased to see that it was a perfect fit! There was just enough room left for adjustment. He also ran main engine and cleaned one of the sea strainers. Surprisingly, it was clean. We were worried they’d be muddy and full of creatures like they’d been in Little Creek.

In the early afternoon, we went to Sprouts, which we knew had some particular items we wanted to stock up on, and then to Target for a more general stock up. In the evening, we had dinner an Italian restaurant in the neighborhood called Verde. They had Napolese style pizza, which was our preferred type of pizza. The cheese was made in house, and it was amazing.

This morning, we walked up to a foul odor. There were thousands of small dead fish floating in the bay!

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Life in Lighthouse Marina and More Exploring Canton, Baltimore MD

Tuesday, August 19 – There was a hurricane coming. We’d expected the weather to be hot and humid, but it wasn’t; the temperatures outside were idyllic. The hurricane was causing giant waves at the beaches. Baltimore was a good hour drive from the beach, so Kosmos was totally safe. Eric wanted to drive out to the shore to see the waves, but we were told that was a bad idea as the beach areas were prone to flooding. So instead, we took advantage of the coolness to get some chores done.  

Eric and Keith cleaned waterline with a brush, cleaned rust stains off the hull/decks, took off secondary alternator belt in anticipation of replacing it, and changed one of the vent-loop filters. Eric went out to get our empty propane tank filled and then to an auto parts store to pick up the replacement belt. They didn’t have the one he wanted int stock, and he wound up it ordering online. While Eric was out, Keith worked on tightening the screws on deck. Christi cooked, cleaned, and did laundry.

Today is a good day to talk about life in the marina (literally, not figuratively). The thing that we will probably remember most vividly about Baltimore is the bubbly water.

We know it looks like rain, but it wasn’t. According to our neighbor, the various industries in Baltimore dumped hydrocarbons in the bay for hundreds of years. The hydrocarbons now come back up as oily bubbles. While the bubbles never really go away, there are significantly more at low tide. Our neighbor explained that the lower the tide, the more pressure on the ground, and thus the more bubbles that come up. The bubbles are stinky, too. At low tide, it smells bad and there is an oily sheen over the water. At high tide, it smells fine and the sheen vanishes (for the most part).

We would have thought the oily water and noxious air would have killed off all the creatures, but life seems to be thriving around the marina. We’ve seen lots and lots of crabs swimming in the marina and have seen some fish jumping out of the water now and again.

There were lots and lots of ducks, geese and other birds around.

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Replacing Anchor Chain Markers and Exploring Fell’s Point, Baltimore, Maryland

Monday, August 18 — Today there was no rain in forecast, but it was ominous outside. It was 73-degrees Fahrenheit, a strong, cool wind and very grey skies. Eric decided it was a good day to redo the chain markers. Over the years, we’ve tried an assortment of ways to try to mark the chain at every 50-feet so that we knew exactly how much chain was out. We started with paint, which flaked off quickly. We tried plastic inserts next, but they popped out pretty fast. We then tried colored zip ties and colored tapes, but they tended to break and fall off after a while.

A while ago, Eric had found some plastic inserts that screwed in, and he was hopeful that the screw would mean they would stay in place and not pop out. We hadn’t put them in yet because we needed the right kind of dock – one with a pole at the end that could handle the weight and one long enough to stretch the chain all the way out. This was the spot. We carefully lowered the anchor and placed it on the dock. Then we let out all the chain, winding it up and down the length of the finger.

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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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