Old Rosie was motor-sailing along nicely. Earlier that afternoon, Ben put up the main and mizzen sails and we headed south. I was surprised when two large tugs pulling barges travelled north between us and the shore; I thought they would be farther out, in the shipping channel. We were very happy that our buddy boat had the AIS system on their GPS chart plotter. Whenever a big commercial vessel or other registered boats having the same system were nearby, there was an alert on their GPS giving the name of vessel, location, bearing and speed. We pulled in behind the Thomas Leigh and as dusk turned to night, we agreed to make contact on our VHF radios at the top of every hour. In between times, Marcel would call us whenever there was a ship in the vicinity.
The moon was full. The air was warm.
Twice we could see fireworks way off in some town in New Jersey….we were travelling about 4 miles off -shore We kept the Thomas Leigh’s stern light in sight and their blip on our radar screen.
Atlantic City was a sparkling mass of lights and glittering casinos and high-rises that it seemed to take forever to get past.
“Thomas Leigh, Thomas Leigh… Old Rosie….go to 68.”
“How’s it going?”
“Going great. There is a tug and barge behind us, they’ll be passing us on our starboard side in about 10 minutes.”
Thanks for the heads up...talk to you in an hour…Old Rosie back to 16.”
“Thomas Leigh on 16.”
Those calls really helped the night pass. Ben and I would take turns lying down/sleeping/resting and steering. We snacked, we took our Lat.-Long. and plotted our location on the paper charts, we took some pictures….I sang to myself. At about 4:30 the moon set and it seemed very dark, but we knew that it wouldn’t be too long until sunrise. I was steering at this point, and gave the Thomas Leigh an extra half- hour call…
“Hi Cheryl, can you see us behind you?”
“Sure can!”
The sun came up, and at 7:00 we were motoring off the coast of Cape May; Ben took down our sails. We turned into the Cape May Canal and by 9:00 we were anchored by the Coast Guard Station. Time to go back to bed! As the afternoon wore on, we napped some more, and by evening, there were 12 boats anchored, all waiting for the sunrise and tide conditions to head through the Canal and up the Delaware Bay.
Delaware Bay to Chesapeake City - Sept. 12
The alarm went off at 5, and we pulled up our anchor at 6:00 to motor through the Cape May Canal, with Thomas Leigh not far behind.
In lower Delaware Bay I saw some dolphins… fins at least, that was cool. The lighthouses are different here than back in the Hudson River. The effects of the flooding in the north-eastern states continues to be obvious. We actually had to slow down at times as we maneuvered and dodged the logs, garbage, trees, stumps and branches through the muddy water.
This continued as we made our way through the C and D Canal (Chesapeake and Delaware Canal).
By 4:00 we were in the anchorage in Chesapeake City; it was made by the Army Corp of Engineers who also control the C and D Canal. There are lots of neat little shops and a great patio restaurant at the Chesapeake Inn. Monday night is half priced burger and beer on tap night…. Yummy!
The Canal Museum and the Office of the Army Corps of Engineers are on the other side of the anchorage. We were told that the C and D Canal is third in shipping tonnage in the world behind Panama and Suez Canals.
On Tuesday we went back to the patio with our boat buddies… for a "good-bye for now" dinner. It was August 10th when we first met in the Erie Canal. Since then, we had become close friends travelling down the Hudson, waiting out Hurricane Irene, then Katia, coming down the Atlantic coast and up Delaware Bay.
Now that we are in the Chesapeake, there are so many places to go and things to see. As Cheryl printed on the back of our parting gift, “Here is to parting ways, and crossing paths.” The plaque reads “NO HURRIES, NO WORRIES!” It will sit in a prominent spot in our wheelhouse.
Thomas Leigh…. we do hope we will meet up again soon. Fair winds!
No comments:
Post a Comment