Monday, May 26, 2008

Baltimore (Monday, May 26, 2008). Arrived in Baltimore on Sunday to ready ENDURANCE for our trip North. The weekend was well spent thanks to doctoral students Ellen Exner and John McKay; married on Saturday at Harvard’s Memorial Church with an afternoon reception at the Harvard Faculty Club in Harvard Yard. One of the most memorable of life experiences for those of us who are not Cabots, Lodges or Saltonstalls. Like a graduation at West Point (thank you Shon Williams), it is a reminder of both achievement and opportunity, if I may, in America (meaning, of course, the U.S., and not being so presumptuous as to exclude the other countries of North, South and Central America, where, unfortunately, opportunity is not so broadly available, but achievement is to be celebrated perhaps even more in light of the obstacles imposed by the West; meaning, in this instance, specifically the U.S. and other Western – meaning European – “powers”). But, getting back to Baltimore, …

Our first charter guest arrives at 1235. Audrey Hediger spent three days with us in the Piscataqua Triangle (Little Harbor, Gosport Harbor, York Harbor) last year. She has now signed on for the transit to Cape May. The plan is to leave Baltimore on Tuesday and overnight in Havre de Grace at the mouth of the Susquehanna River. This is, they tell us, the duck decoy capitol of the United States. Can’t wait to see the decoy museum.
From Havre de Grace we plan to take the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal which moves us from the Chesapeake Bay to the Delaware Bay. An overnight anchored in the Cohassey River will put us in Cape May on Thursday night. As they say, better to plan than to not even know you are lost.