Left Delaware City at 5:35am to be able to take advantage of the strong currents going with us while traversing Delaware River and Delaware Bay.
The Delaware River goes south about 15 miles and flows into the Delaware Bay. As we travel south, New Jersey is to the east and Delaware is to our west. We are traveling just outside the shipping channel and are really moving at 10.9 knots. That is three knots faster than we normally travel, as the outgoing tides are pushing us along. Nice to have Mother Nature helps us save on fuel. The Delaware River is about 8 miles wide so there is plenty of room for the freighters and the pleasure boats. So far, we have not encountered any commercial traffic, but there is a large freighter behind us that will eventually pass us as they travel at 14 knots.
The Delaware Bay proper varies from 23-29 miles wide and 26 miles long. There are five lighthouses on the Delaware marking the shipping channel. We went by Ship John Shoal Light and Brandywine Shoal Light.
There is also the Cape May Point Lighthouse on the southwest end of the Cape May Peninsula.
We are traveling with five other boats that left Delaware City Marina as we cruise today. We all took slightly different routes, but we could see each of them the entire trip. Of course, we radioed each other to compare notes as we traveled.
As we got closer to Cape May you could see the beach and it’s dunes, along with some homes. There are also lots of small boats taking advantage of the fishing banks and wrecks closer to shore. We also saw the car and passenger ferry leaving Cape May for Lewes, Delaware.
Our target today is the Cape May Canal which cuts through the south end of the peninsula and leads to Cape May Harbor where we will anchor.
At first the canal passes beach dunes and woods, then the canal becomes dredged with an earth berm lined with rocks on each shore. Homes are all along this part of the canal. We passed under two bridges and a old railroad bridge which is not in use anymore, as we made our way down the canal to our anchorage in the harbor off the Coast Guard Station.
After anchoring, we launched the dinghy and headed into Cape May. We found there is a free jitney which will take you to the high spots of the area. Having first secured a city map we took off on foot to view the beaches and the Victorian homes for which the city is famous. Cape May has always been a town where those in the city could escape the heat and enjoy the beaches. It is one of the oldest resort towns in the US.
We found a fun bakery and then had to have a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup cookie from the Peanut Butter store. We really spoiled our dinner!
Had a pretty sunset.
Bill had to ham it up for you as he returned from a fellow Loopers boat at sunset.
June 5.
We woke up to a thud on our boat and then knocking to find that a sailboat had gotten tangled in our anchor rode. We rafted the sailboat to us til we could size up the situation. After a few false starts and lots of help from the fellow Loopers on Pivot we managed to develop a plan. Of course the wind was blowing 15 knots plus to make things more interesting.
The first plan was to detach the anchor chain and move our boat and reattach the chain to get the chains untangled. That plan worked, but our anchors were positioned poorly so the sailboat could not readily retrieve their anchor. After much discussion it was decided that we would detach our anchor chain yet again and tie it to a mooring ball and move off our position so the sailboat could pick up their anchor and move to a marina. We then had to pick up the mooring ball and retrieve the chain and reattach it to the boat. We cheered when the sailboat was able to retrieve their anchor and we were relieved when we successfully reattached our chain. As we were pulling up our excess chain we pulled up a horseshoe crab. He was hanging on real well, but a nudge with a boat hook sent him back to his briny home.
Needless to say we were a both tired after that process. We managed to stow everything away and the we took a nap! Life gives us interesting challenges!
