Kyle has passed and the weather gods are finally smiling upon us cruisers who have been sitting it out here for days (it will be 11 for me). Many boats arrived a couple of days ago seeking shelter, and by my last count, there were 17 boats anchored tonight where there were only 5 or so when I first arrived. It will likely look like a parade tomorrow as everyone takes off. I have talked to a number of them and it sounds like everyone is heading south with the geese. Today was actually quite calm wind wise, but the seas were forecasted to be rough through today, taking time to settle after the passing of Kyle (no, my brother Kyle did not pass out or pass away!)

As Maryann of Straight from the Heart said today, when you have no choice but to sit around with nothing to do, it is a great time to learn about "stuff" there didn't seem to be time to do before. Maryann and Don have been my mentors on many things lately (Don = mechanical and politics, even though he is wrong on the latter, and Maryann = weather as well as other assorted cruising things). I have been studying the many tools available on the Internet in order to better understand the weather, and Maryann and I have been talking strategy a lot about getting out of here and up the Delaware Bay to the C&D Canal. The weather forecasts are varying a great deal, literally hour to hour, and as of now, we are going to depart Sandy Hook tomorrow around noon and travel overnight to Cape May (120 nm). After arriving there, I will get some sleep and then we need some wind in our favor, anything other than north. We also need to time this with the tide, meaning we need to either depart Cape May Tuesday afternoon and arrive at the canal in the dark, or depart early Wednesday morning in the dark and arrive at the canal early afternoon. The latter is preferred, but it will depend on the winds. As of now, it looks like the wind will shift to the north Wednesday. We'll see ...

The destination following Cape May will likely be Delaware City on the east end of the C&D canal or Chesapeake City on the west end.