9. Atlantic City to Baltimore

Roman was left alone in Atlantic City and made his way down the coast in Moya Mreeya to Cape May, up the Delaware River to the C&D Canal and then onto Baltimore in the company of C-Drifters, Superior Grace (Peter and Sue out of Thunder Bay) and Cambyration. He waited for me right in Baltimore Harbour until I arrived on Oct. 25. Roman says they had some spectacular sunsets and he took several fantastic pictures which we are sharing with you.


Mine was an exhausting journey as first my friend, Olia drove me to St. Catharine’s (left at 10:00 a.m.) where my friend, Tanya had lunch ready for us. Tanya then drove me to Buffalo (left at 12:30) to catch the 2:15 out of Buffalo. Thank you so much both of you!


I had several adventures along the way. First the plane was late and we arrived in Baltimore half an hour later. I had checked my suitcase, the size of a carryon, and when we got to Baltimore it did not come off the baggage carrousel. Customer service could not locate it and suggested that I wait until the next plane comes in from Buffalo and my suitcase should be on that plane. They kept checking some sort of list whenever someone reported a missing suitcase. While I sat waiting I observed a steady stream of people from all different flights looking for their suitcases. My suitcase did come on the later plane 3 hours later. Then there was a 40 minute wait for the shuttle bus to the harbour. It was close to 7:oo p.m. by then.

There were 9 of us on the shuttle and the driver was to stop at different places along the way. It is actually a great system as you can book the shuttle to drop you off at hotels or even your home. Unfortunately, the poor driver (we all thought this must have been his first day) did not have a clue where anything was and relied totally on his GPS to show him where to turn etc. We went past one of the hotels three times and each time, he would stop the car and re-programme the GPS for the address to go around the block! When I booked, I was told that it would take 25 minutes to the International Harbour Plaza Hotel that was half a block from where Roman parked the dinghy. The 25 minute ride turned into 2 hours before I got to the hotel where Roman had been waiting for me since 4:00! There were three of us going to this hotel and wouldn't you know it, we were the last three off the bus.

The port of Baltimore is well designed and very pretty at night. The waterfront has been developed to encourage use of the waterfront with many tourist attractions such as the aquarium right at the water’s edge. All four boats had dropped anchor right in front of the aquarium. It was only a 2-3 minute ride by dinghy to a free dock.

The port of Baltimore is well designed and very pretty at night. The waterfront has been developed to encourage use of the waterfront with many tourist attractions such as the aquarium right at the water’s edge. All four boats had dropped anchor right in front of the aquarium. It was only a 2-3 minute ride by dinghy to a free dock.

You can see how close our boat was to the dock. The building behind with the wings is the aquarium. I wish our Toronto waterfront was as inviting.


The other boats that had travelled with Roman had left earlier on in the week to Annapolis and Roman was anxious to leave so we left early the next morning. It had been in the high 70’s and sunny the entire time I was away but it turned cloudy the day we left and and it rained on and off the entire trip to Annapolis. The beauty of having a pilot house is that we were indoors all the way. The only uncomfortable part of the trip was dropping the anchor in Back Creek, Annapolis and that was for Roman only as I was inside steering. We rested the entire next day as it continued to rain and rain.