Day off in Balt'more

Right now I'm enjoying a day off in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The last couple of days have been real adventures. I'll spare some of the details involving our dockage in Essington, PA, and leave that to Carl, my husband, and now my weekend "chase-car driver."

The paddle from Essington, PA, started off early, around 6am, to take advantage of a swiftly flowing outgoing tide, and under the threat of thunderstorms. Distant rumbling served as a motivator better than any cup of coffee to get me paddling as fast as possible down the Delaware. Being alone in this busy, industrial part of the River further jacked up my adrenalin, and in about four hours I later I found myself at the mouth of the C and D canal. There my luck turned, as I quickly discovered I had made an error in tide calculation. The tide in the C and D (Chesapeake and Delaware) canal is not governed by the Delaware Inlet, as I had thought, but rather by the Chesapeake Bay. The tide I was looking forward to riding in to Chesapeake city was incoming from the Bay, not incoming from the inlet. So I slogged it out for 12 miles against a fairly tough current. It was not, thank goodness, as tough as fighting the current in the Point Pleasant canal. It was tough enough, though, that a little motor boat behind me, engine loudly straining against the tide, never did catch up to me. That was a bit amusing. I was pretty happy, given this discovery concerning the tides, that no one had joined me for this portion of the paddle. Boy, would they have been mad at me!

Andy Upp, dockmaster of the Chesapeake Inn Restaurant and Marina, graciously allowed me to store my canoe there overnight. Unlike in Essington, getting on the water at 5am was not a problem....(ya'll will just have to wait for Carl's blog to hear about that escapade!) Wearing my night-time reflecting running vest, I paddled out in the morning under cloudy skies and foggy-ish conditions. Visibility was limited, but nothing like what I'd experienced in NE waters. Still, I was pretty intent on crossing the shipping channel to the Aberdeen side of Maryland rather than waiting until further south to do so, where the bay is wider. Fortunately for me, all was quiet as I paddled by the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. Still, crossing my first bit of relatively open waters, I had to rely on the GPS and my sketchy dead-reckoning, as the land in front of me was lost in the mist.

After paddling by Aberdeen, the fog made way for dark skies. It only got worse as I paddled by Pool's Island. Pool's Island apparently has the Poolis' (sp)family graveyard by the lighthouse, and it is only visible at low tide, according to Dr. Bernie Kalpers, of the United States Power Squadron, who I met in Baltimore. Too bad I was close to the mainland, and it was high tide, and I was too intent on making as much time as possible. It would have been cool to check that out. As I paddled past the island, it started to rain, thunder rumbled loudly, and I could smell an acrid, almost electric odor in the air. I don't know if this was from the boats, or if this was my over-active imagination, but it did add to the tension I was feeling, especially as boats zoomed in from across the bay to get back to harbor. Soon I was pretty much alone on the bay. Just as I finished paddling past the island, and almost came to the point of land I had my eye on, I decided I better not chance it. I turned around and paddled into the strong North wind and chop, going toward the river entrance. Once at the mouth of the river, I felt the push of the outgoing tide.

I sat there a moment, taking stock of the situation. It seemed the storm was moving north and west, going to the "safe harbor." It would be over me if I tried to paddle to any dockage up river. It looked as if the skies south and east of me were clearing, or rather, they didn't look as dark as what I was paddling in. So once again I paddled back south, going past Pool's Island for the third time. So I basically added about 2-3 miles to a 50 mile day. But it was worth it--to keep going. Once I hit the point of land I had my eyes on, I paddled across fairly open, rolling, water to an island made of dredge spoils from the Baltimore Harbor. The sun was out, the sky was blue, a complete and polar opposite to the weather by Pool's Island. Everyone and their mother seemed to be out in the cove by the dredge-spoil island. As luck would have it, not only did I have a nice following wind at my back going south on the Chesapeake, but once in the Baltimore Harbor the eastern aspect of the wind helped push me in, too. It was a good day to be on the water! Let's hope the conditions hold.

After an event planned for Tuesday, at the Baltimore Aquarium, it's off to Annapolis, where I'll be staying with my paddling/windsurfing cousins. Outdoor adventures come naturally to the Putschers. Their mother, my dad's oldest sister, was once dared to climb the water-tower in New Brunswick, where she attended Douglass College. So she did, at midnight, all dressed in black. Last year, during my Chincoteague to Ocean City, MD, leg of the trip, my cousins Andrea and Laurie Putscher joined me on the water, and ended up paddling in the dark past the inlet (all the while still wearing their sunglasses). It must be something in the genes!

Actually, I owe my existence to my Aunt Dot. When my father was younger, and living in S