We’re in Maryland!

Welcome back and thanks for coming along for the journey.

Our stats for today… Today was the 3rd day of our adventure at sea.  We have traveled 210 nautical miles since leaving Long Island at an average speed of 5.2 knots.  I consumed 1400 calories of peanut butter filled pretzel nuggets today(with a whopping 2300 mg of sodium!)

So long, New Jersey…  Buh Bye, Delaware… We are now in Maryland!

We left our slip in Cape May at 7am and motored through the Cape May Canal into the Delaware Bay which greeted us with a 15 knot breeze and some rolling lumpy waves.  But the sailing was amazing!  For a few hours we were flying up the bay with speeds up to 9 knots but after some time, the breeze died down to about 6 knots and after a while of moving at less than 4 knots I decided we needed to motor sail to ensure that we would make Chesapeake City by sundown.  So for a few hours we cruised up the bay burning diesel and making noise…  But at least we were moving along nicely.  Mavis has a single 28 horsepower diesel engine for propulsion that sips about three quarters of a gallon of diesel per hour at my cruising RPMs.

After about 2.5 hours of motor-sailing the winds came back and we were able to sail the rest of the way to the C&D Canal.  It was during this sail that Mavis got another flying visitor.  A huge dragonfly flew into the cockpit and landed on my camera.  I picked up my camera and brought him to Cindy who played with him for about an hour before he flew off, unharmed.

Heading north up the Delaware Bay you enter the Delaware River…  You really don’t “enter” the river… The bay just sort of “becomes” the river.  There’s lots of commercial traffic here including huge tanker and container ships heading to and from Philadelphia.  Today we were passed by the Maersk Winnipeg and the SCF Provider.  Needless to say, we got out of the way.  The shipping channel is a narrow lane that runs generally north and south but there’s plenty of water for boats like Mavis in the rest of the wide bay.  So that’s where we sail, leaving the deep water channel for the big boys.

The Maersk Winnipeg
SCF Provider
PSEG’s nuclear power plant on Delaware River. You can see it for miles and miles. We passed right by. Why am I glowing?
The charming little Ship John Lighthouse on the Delaware Bay

The C&D Canal runs between the Delaware River and the Upper Chesapeake Bay and today it was probably transited by 100 or more sailboats all starting the fall migration south.  This was very different for me because the last time Mavis did the canal (in the opposite direction) we literally saw ONE boat during our entire trip.  The canal is about 14 miles long and sailing is not permitted while in the canal… So more motoring.

We arrived in Chesapeake City and were pleased to find only a handful of boats in the little anchorage here.  We dropped our hook and Willow jumped in the dinghy for a much needed visit to shore where she found REAL GRASS to run around in and to do her business.

Speaking of business…  We had a bit of a hard time today getting things done while transiting the Delaware Bay because there was no mobile data signal for long stretches.  We’re hoping for better connectivity on the Chesapeake and the Intracoastal Waterway.

That’s all for today.  I wasn’t feeling very much like writing but lots of people are asking to be kept updated…  So I sort of forced myself to get some news out.  I think it’s a good practice to write everyday.  So keep reading and I’ll have to churn out more.  It won’t all be exciting, or funny, or particularly inspired or meaningful.  But hang in there with me and I’m sure there will be some gems.  I promise.

Goodnight!