Sighs of Relief

The big water is over! Well, for now anyway. Within a period of five days we:  finished crossing the Chesapeake Bay (Tuesday, June 3), crossed the Delaware Bay (Friday, June 6), and passed the whole of the New Jersey coast using the Atlantic Ocean (Saturday, June 7). We feel a huge sense of accomplishment, and I feel a huge sense of relief. 

We left Annapolis fairly early on June 3 to avoid possible thunderstorms predicted for later that day. The sun was shining and the water smooth. We arrived at our marina in Bohemia Bay, located a few miles from the west end of the C&D (Chesapeake and Delaware) Canal, about one hour before thunderstorms moved through. Our timing was impeccable!

Passing under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Entering Bohemia Bay Yacht Harbour

Wednesday was an easy cruise down the C&D Canal to Delaware City. The canal connects the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay.  It can be used by large commercial ships, but we saw just a few pleasure boats and a couple of fire boats.

Bridges on the C&D Canal

Delaware City was established in 1826 as a response to the building of the original C&D canal. It served as a center of commerce for the canal for a relatively short time--only until the current lock-free canal was dug to the south of town. Fort Delaware is in the vicinity and housed Confederate prisoners of war during the Civil War. Just south of town, Fort Dupont-now mostly abandoned-served as a military base from the 1800's through WWII. Delaware City has some lovely buildings, but is pretty quiet these days.

Downtown Delaware City

Canal House, circa 1829

Ruins of the battery, Fort Dupont

Boats in the marina along the old canal

Delaware City is, however, a great staging spot for cruising the Delaware River and Delaware Bay south to Cape May, NJ.  Tim, the owner/manager of the Delaware City Marina, provided fantastic assistance to boaters in picking the right day and time to make the trip. These bodies of water do not have much in the way of services for pleasure boaters, so the 50 nautical miles to Cape May have to be covered in a single trip. The waters are highly susceptible to the effects of wind and current--pick the wrong day and it can "beat up" a boater; pick the right day and time and the trip will be fast and pleasant. Tim held a weather briefing every evening to go over weather data points that helped us make the good day/bad day decision, and discussed the best departure times to take advantage of the river currents.

Thursday, June 5, would have been a bad day on the Delaware Bay, so we stuck around Delaware City until Friday, June 6. On that day the combination of the currents in the river and a light wind at our back gave us an amazing "boost." Our normal cruising speed is around 8 mph, but on Friday, with the same engine speed, we were traveling at 11 mph. We didn't have to dodge much commercial traffic, and covered in 6 hours what would normally take us 7 or 8 hours. Success!

Commercial boat passes nuclear power station on Delaware River

Cape May is at the very southern tip of New Jersey. It is "The Nation's Oldest Seashore Resort", is second only to San Francisco in its collection of Victorian homes, and the entire town is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Victorian homes, Cape May

One of the grand buildings of Cape May

Cape May Playhouse

Beach at Cape May

I guess it's good we were able to get a quick cycling tour around town, because as it turned out it was the only stop we made in New Jersey. One of the decisions that comes up when doing the Great Loop is whether to take New Jersey "inside" or "outside".  Although NJ has an ICW from Cape May to the Manasquan Inlet, it is not well maintained and gets very shallow in spots. Much of the recent advice has been that it is best to simply avoid the New Jersey ICW ("inside") and take the Atlantic Ocean ("outside") to New York City. Of course, the Atlantic Ocean route is more dependent upon weather. Well, we had a great weather window this weekend, so we decided to take advantage of it and do the entire New Jersey coast cruise in one day on Saturday--no stop in Atlantic City, no stop in Barnagat Bay, no stop in Manasquan. We left Cape May at 5:40 a.m.--the timing perhaps our only mistake, as we left at the same time as the dozens of boats participating in a shark fishing tournament.  Yikes--the wake was crazy!

Shark fishing tournament "shotgun" start

Twelve hours of gently rolling water later, a very happy Pat has the skyline of Manhattan on the horizon. We are spending a few days in New York and then I am looking forward to traveling some "smaller" water for a while.

Pat with Manhattan (barely) visible on the horizon

P.S. We have come to realize that this trip is not about challenging ourselves or exploring the U.S.  It's really all about finding ice cream. From Amelia Island to Jekyll Island to Beaufort to Hampton to Delaware City to Cape May, we seem to be on a quest to find the local ice cream shop, be it DQ or something else.

Cape May Dairy Queen

Eating "Potts" ice cream in Delaware City