If you’re in Annapolis for the show, or cruising on the Chesapeake at any other time at all, you can broaden your horizons by making a stop in Baltimore. The scene there is very different from the one in Annapolis, or in the little gems of St. Michaels or Oxford on the Eastern Shore. After all, Baltimore (pop. 576,498) is a major urban center; it’s also one of the largest working seaports on the east coast.
But Baltimore also has great facilities for recreational boats, and it has a lot of nautical history to offer, all in or within walking distance of its Inner Harbor, plus museums, restaurants (think steamed crabs), pubs, boutiques, and a major league ballpark nearby.
Baltimore is an eight-mile run up the Patapsco River from the Chesapeake. The channel is well-marked (for commercial shipping) but it’s not particularly wide, so you have to be wary of the traffic. You’ll first cruise under the Francis Scott Key Bridge and past Fort McHenry and large marine terminals and several first-class marinas and the Fells Point area on our starboard side. Then you’ll enter the Inner Harbor with more marinas and attractions, including the Historic Ships of Baltimore, the National Aquarium and the Maryland Science Center. A short walk takes you to the Port Discovery Children’s Museum or to Camden Yards, home of the Baltimore Orioles.
On your way in, just northwest of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, you’ll pass a red, white and blue nun buoy with a field of stars marking the spot where Francis Scott Key wrote the Defense of Fort McHenry poem on Sept. 14, 1814, as the British bombarded Fort McHenry for 20 hours straight during the War of 1812. The buoy marks the spot where Key was on a boat as a prisoner of war, and where he saw the flag still standing through the night. His poem, of course, became the national anthem.
The Inner Harbor houses a collection of four historic ships, and a relocated 1856 lighthouse with terrific views. You can explore the gun deck and the captain’s cabin on the USS Constellation, built in 1854, next to the USS Torsk, a submarine that patrolled off the coast of Japan in the Second World War. The Pride of Baltimore is there, a reproduction of the city’s legendary topsail schooners, as is the Lightship Chesapeake that marked the entrance to Chesapeake Bay for many years.
For a change of pace, you can take a 30-minute walk along the waterfront to the revitalized Fells Point area, for its collection of shops, markets, bakeries and restaurants of various stripes.
Read more: http://baltimore.org
