Finally the concert was over and we could start in earnest loading food and clothing. Clothes are actually a problem because we need warm clothes for the north (we still needed to be in Connecticut for Christmas) and cooler clothes for the hot weather in the Caribbean.

The railroad bridge was open as usual, but we remembered the time we heard a warning from the Canal Control that it was about to close (for an excursion train, we think). On our appeal the Control Officer said he would hold it open for us, so we steamed through as fast as we could, in front of a locomotive stopped only inches (it seemed) from the end of the tracks.

We went on down Buzzard's Bay and stopped in a little cove we have used before that is beautifully sheltered from the north and had a very quiet night.

We stayed until Anne had to leave, which was a good idea, as the weather was not really very good. Long Island Sound, shallow as it is, can develop a nasty chop if the wind and tide do not cooperate. We left Guilford on the 30th, after a snowstorm and just as the river was beginning to freeze.

There was still a good sea running, so we decided to pull into New Haven to wait it out. We had intended to spend at least part of our Connecticut time in New Haven, but the city's charge for the use of its dock is so out of line that we declined.

I was a little concerned that the Cape May Canal might have suffered from Sandy, but we saw no damage there and it certainly does cut off some distance. We had a nice peaceful run up Delaware Bay to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.

We had dinner in the bar of the Chesapeake Inn, where it was happy hour and oysters were half-price, so Barbara had oysters and I had a burger, and we watched a little football and talked to the other people, who were mostly local.

Baltimore has done a very good job of making the Inner Harbor, which is no longer commercially viable, into an attractive area that is used constantly by many many people.

Our way took us by one of the earliest attractions of the harbor, its collection of historic ships. Constellation is a veteran of the War of 1812, Chesapeake is the lightship that used to mark the shoals off the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, Torsk is a WW II submarine, and Taney, a retired high-endurance Coast Guard cutter, is said to be the last survivor of the Pearl Harbor attack.

We heard Bermuda Radio talking to the famous training ship Christian Radich and Monday morning she arrived in the harbor and berthed at Penno's Wharf, about where we were berthed last spring. She is quite a sight to see. Her young crew bustled about the main deck getting lines out and attending to fenders while her cruise passengers were confined to an upper deck and out of the way.

We had heard that our usual berth was ready for us in Dockyard, and the next day we took in our lines about 13:00 and headed west to the other end of the country.