September 17, 2019 Tuesday

When we finally got up and ready to leave the anchorage two of the boats that were anchored near us had already left and the last of the three was heading out of the harbor. We quickly got the anchor up and headed out. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing 20 knots from the north-east and we ran straight into a lot of waves as we left the harbor.

Soon stuff was flying around down below but not much we could do about it now. After we got in deep water, we turned to the south which put the wind and waves on our tail. Even though we didn’t leave the anchorage until ten in the morning it would still turn out to be a very, very, long day.

All day we fought with the waves from the following sea, making steering Monarch a full body experience. The autopilot is of no use in this type of confused sea. We had failed to lift the dinghy up onto the deck so it was exposed on the davits hanging off the back of the boat. Luckily, despite getting hit by numerous waves the dinghy managed to survive the trip.

The wind was predicted to calm down a little and it did, going from 20 knots down to 15 knots but soon it was back up to 20 knots. Coming into the Delaware Bay we had a two-knot current coming out which added to the confused seas.

Around six in the evening we pulled into the calm of the harbor of refuge at Lewes Delaware just inside Cape Henlopen. The harbor was protected by the cape from the east and from the north by the breakwater built back in the 1700’s. We had been monitoring another sailboat, ISail2, all day on AIS that had been anchored not far from us in Atlantic City and we beat them into the harbor. When they arrived, we called them on the radio to compare notes on making it through a long hard day and agreed to try and meet up in the morning.

After one of the loveliest sunsets we have had in a while we went below to have dinner and contact our friends that live in the area to see if we could arrange a visit with them.