Day 58 - Sun 24 May 2015
Docked - Delaware City, DE

[photo: one of the old buildings along the canal in Delaware City]

Each morning has been progressively warmer and calmer for the past few days. I got a text message at 0600 from Robert on Ariel to call him. We discussed the weather forecast that was now indicating that a run down the Delaware Bay on Mon may not be Ok after all. I concurred that the forecast had changed and did not look as good, but told him we were now committed to meet our dear friends Joan Marie and Alan at Delaware City.

After a simple cold cereal breakfast and fresh fruit, we cast of about 0740 and ran on just the port engine down the river at about 7 kts. We could have gone faster, but today was all about managing the tidal current to let it boost us along. A single-engine power setting that nominally gave us 7.0 kts was giving us more and more speed as we went towards and into the C&D canal, hitting a maximum of 9.5 at one point. Overall, the 39nm run took us almost exactly 5 hours.

There was not much exciting along the way, but the day was absolutely gorgeous and it was nice viewing the landscape and the homes along the way. As we got closer to the C&D canal, there was an increasing number of small pleasure boats out, but most were fighting the wind and waves by heading S. Our direction of travel for the conditions was ideal and we enjoyed it very much.

Not long after docking at 1230, checking in, and showering, Alan and Joan Marie pulled up almost alongside us on the road near the marina. We quickly gathered onboard, gave them a tour, and started catching up on things in person rather than the telephone and email. Learning that they had skipped lunch, I quickly defrosted some rockfish and fried up some spicy breaded bites with a dipping sauce that seemed to satisfy. They also consumed the last of our strawberry-rhubarb cobbler and pronounced it tasty.

After a few more drinks and lots of chat, we decided around 1630 to take a walk and find a place to have a simple supper. We decided on Lewinski's on Clinton (yes, that is the name), and all had fabulous meals. This is the second time I have ordered meat loaf in a restaurant since I can remember, and this one was really good. The others all had sandwiches that were also very yummy. We left there to walk back to the marina with full bellies.

We spent the next 2 hours chatting and drinking water, since it was a surprisingly warm and dry day. They left before 2000 with a 90 minute drive ahead of them. As they were leaving, we suddenly realized we had not taken a photo. We are so bad about that. They are great friends with whom we share a lot of memories from before Diane and I even met, so it had been a super friendship.

Clyde went for a short walk on the dock, but there was a lot of boat traffic passing the docks from the latecomers returning to the nearby boat ramp and some boaters walking back to their boats. In any case, both the no-see-ums and the mosquitos were out in force, so I scurried us both back to the boat. Clyde stayed out on the deck as he is somewhat impervious to the bugs, I suppose.

I will make the final determination tomorrow morning, but we really hope we can make it work to go down the bay tomorrow.