We spent two days in picturesque Cape May, waiting out the predicted southerly gale, before setting off again. During this time, some odd jobs were done on the boat, and we got our warm clothes washed and dried. Ferdi and I rented a car and went to nearby Atlantic City, the city on which the game of Monopoly was based by a jobless salesman in 1935. We visited one of the huge casino's for which the place is famous (both Donald Trump and Sol Kerzner have interests here), but after losing a couple of dollars and deciding we had had enough of glitz and bright lights we headed back to our marina.

On Wednesday, 17 December, Strider at around 1pm pointed south again. This time I made sure everything on board was safely secured, but the Cape May inlet was kind to us on our way out and we got through without much fuss. It was a relatively uneventful night, much warmer than the leg to Cape May (minimum around 3°C). This time we had the wind from behind but not enough to make much difference. We could raise the sails only for a short while. However, we still made fairly good SOG (speed over ground), around 6 to 8 knots. It was an overcast, foggy night, so no moon and stars, and it wasn't always easy to spot other vessels (not that there were many). On one of my watches (the weather allowed us two hours each this time), I was jolted out of reverie by a dark shape that suddenly appeared metres from Strider on our starboard side - we only just missed a completely unlit marker beacon about 6 Nm from the Delaware coast! We watched our radar screen more closely after that.

Late the previous afternoon we had put out a line trailing behind the boat - using an inner tube (purchased at a cycling shop in Bristol - our version of "haasrek"), line, leader and a rapala - but unfortunately the fish weren't biting.... so shortly after sunrise the captain concocted a fabulous risotto for breakfast. He had a hard time of putting it together however, since the early hours brought a quartering sea which produced a corkscrew effect on the boat, uncomfortable to say the least for anyone below deck.

Around lunchtime on Thursday, we pointed Strider eastward and entered Chesapeake Bay. Once inside the bay, it took us around three hours to reach our destination, Tidewater Yacht Marina in Portsmouth on the Elizabeth River. The Hampton Roads inside the Chesapeake is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, so Ferdi steered us most of the way in order to stay out of the way of barges, naval vessels, freighters and several small fishing vessels. We motored just outside the designated channel, which took us though the Chesapeake Bay bridge-tunnel, which heads under the surface through the bay, leaving an opening for boaters. At one point I was steering but handed over to the captain since this inexperienced crew member felt decidedly uncomfortable with the massive US Navy ship flanked by two accompanying smaller vessels seemingly bearing down on us from behind. We geared down to let it pass and eventually followed it down the Elizabeth River at a safe distance until it turned into a mooring at the naval base to our port side (the 4 300 acre Naval Station Norfolk is the biggest in the world).

We arrived at our marina in the late afternoon. Upon approaching our mooring, our beloved Strider was as wilfull as her namesake back in Wilderness - she flatly refused to engage in reverse gear, which led to an almost close encounter with a moored neighbour. Fortunately, thanks to Wimpie's quick action with the roving fender and bar a negligable scrape, there was no damage all round and we docked without further incident. The next day we had to look into the cause of the gear malfunction however - always something on a boat!

The Tidewater Yacht Marina is near the location of "Mile Marker Zero" which is considered to be the gateway to the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). Since we are planning to continue our voyage along the ICW for some part of the way (at least to Cape Hatteras), this is the perfect spot for us to regroup and make use of local knowledge of the route ahead.

The Elizabeth River separates Portsmouth from Norfolk, and Friday we took the ferry across from our marina to Norfolk, where Ferdi and I visited the battleship USS Wisconsin, the biggest and last battleship ever built by the US Navy - it once carried a crew of 2 700 sailors! It was commissioned in 1944 but is now in the Navy's inactive fleet. This 887 ft, 57 000 ton vessel was last used in 1991 in Operation Desert Storm but has also seen active duty in WW11 as well as the Korean War. Seeing those teak decks (6 acres in total) put quite a few things in perspective for Strider's crew!

The best part of Portsmouth/Norfolk, however, is the weather - we're now wearing half the layers of clothing we did three days ago and everyone's mood is noticeably lighter. The temperature is comparable to that of Cape Town in winter.