September 17th ..... Chesapeake City

Today we sailed.

We left Cape May an hour an a half after low tide and headed out the Cape May Canal which saves going around the shoals at the mouth of the Delaware Bay. The down side was that there were two 55 foot bridges and our mast is 54 foot tall... we made it, but not without few tense moments. The Canal is only about 4 miles long but saves about 15.

Delaware Bay is similar to the west end of Lake Erie... most of the water is 18 to 24 foot deep and the waves tend to be short and square. We had our foul weather gear on as well as our life jackets, as we cornered into the seas under power with about a two knot current in our favor. The mizzen and stay sail went up for stabilizing as we pounded to the north. After an hour or so we hoisted the main and rolled out the head sail .... and turned off the engine for the first time in a long time.

We had a great sail into the wind, and with the afore mention two knot push, were cruising along at 8 to above 9 knots for the better part of four hours. As the Bay became a river, the winds slacked and we were back to motor sailing for the remainder of our Bay Cruise.

About 50 miles up the Bay we hit the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal which is about 20 miles long and connects the Delaware Bay with the Chesapeake Bay.

Chesapeake City is about 14 miles into the canal and has a small harbor with too many boats.
We make our way in and found the last suitable anchorage... our friends Steve and Carol arrived about 20 minutes later, took a spin around and headed for the next anchorage about 8 miles away.

We find ourselves traveling in a loose knit group of about 12 boats.