5/26/18: Holy sunshine, I need to quit waking up at 5:00 already! Ahh, its just as well today. We decided to get with it while the weather was good, and make the 62 mile trek down Delaware Bay to Cape May, New Jersey. It wasn’t looking like there would be a perfect time the have both the wind and the current be in our favor. So let’s just go. By the way, Island Girl’s engines are starting up just fine now. I think the mechanic got the air out of the fuel lines or something, because all seems to be functioning appropriately. That makes the crew down in the engine room happy. 😉 The sun was out and the wind wasn’t bad. Good bye Delaware City.
The current did slow us down a couple of miles per hour. Dang. When you drop from 9mph to 7, that’s a big percentage decrease! We like it when it goes the other way in our favor! So, we decided to go fast for awhile. If we’re going to lose 2 mph, it might as well be against 20mph and only 10% of our speed, instead of going slow and losing over 20% of our speed. There wasn’t much to take pictures of along the way. It’s just a big body of water, with Delaware on one side, and New Jersey on the other. There were a few lighthouses out in the middle of the bay, marking shoals. This is the Ship John Shoal Light. It has been here since the 1870’s! There were a few fishing boats out around it – notice how tiny they look!
At one point I realized we were in a new state – New Jersey!
It didn’t take us long to run the 62 miles…. especially when we left the dock at 6:20am and we went fast most of the way! At the bottom of Delaware Bay we entered into the Cape May canal. It is a 2 mile canal that takes us into Cape May, without having to go around the point and out into the Atlantic and back in.
This canal was full of activity! First, a whale/dolphin/bird watching boat came out, then a few sport fishers, then a ferry, more sport fishers, and day boats. Happy Memorial Day weekend!
We got all settled into our slip at Utsch’s Marina (rhymes with crutches) by 11:30. This is a very busy marina! Most of it is full of fishing boats, which makes sense. It is a great location to go into the bay or out in the ocean. There isn’t a whole bunch of foo-foo resorty stuff here. It is a working boat yard with a tackle store that has piles of fishing gear. And some of these fishing boats come in and go out at all times of day or night.
We saw a few other looper boats that came yesterday, and a couple more came in after us. We are docked right next to Ron & Karen on Kara Mia. It is a beautiful 43SS Carver, and it can go really fast – like 30mph. They passed us in the Chesapeake a couple of days ago. But they hit a log somewhere along the way, and they suspect that they hurt one of their props because they’ve got weird vibrations at various speeds now. The yard here pulled them out, and sure enough there are some prop issues. So they pulled the props, then plopped them back in the water and a little guide boat brought them to their slip. With the holiday weekend, it will be a few days before they get their props back on. Bummer. Herb on Phanthom is here, along with Rick and DeeDee on Rejoice. So we all got together and went to the Lobster House for dinner.
It is just across the parking lot from the marina, and it is HUGE! I think it stretches the equivalent of a block. There was all kinds of outdoor “window service” take-out seating, a raw bar, seating on a boat moored along the sea wall, numerous different dining rooms both upstairs and downstairs in the building! It was a maze to try to find each other inside! The boat seating is actually a 130’ Grand Banks Sailing vessel!
This was the oyster shucker at the Raw Bar for the outside seating. They had lots of fresh seafood, and some really big cold water lobster.
We had a really tasty dinner – everyone said everything was so good – the scallops, lobster, crab, muscles, escargot all got gobbled up at our table! It was a fun dinner getting to know each other.
Tomorrow’s (Sunday) weather doesn’t look great. The next leg of our trip is one of the open water adventures that requires waiting on the weather. We get to go out in the Atlantic Ocean for two days. 😳😬 There actually is a New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway for the first 100 miles, but it is not well maintained. There are a lot of shallow areas, and you must really time everything with the tides if you draft less than 3’. It isn’t advised as a viable route for drafts over 3’. We draft more than 3’9” when we’re full of fuel and water, like we are now. So – we need to go outside into the Atlantic Ocean like nearly everyone else. It is about 135 miles from Cape May to New York Harbor, so we will split that up into two days. There’s really only two good inlets from the Atlantic to duck into. The most likely itinerary is to go about 45 miles the first day and stop in Atlantic City, then go 90 miles the second day to New York. The other option is to go 100 miles on the first day to Manasquan, then 38 miles to New York on day two. The choice depends on the weather. If you have one really good day – like Tuesday looks for us this week – you pick that one for the long day. Then we look at Monday & Wednesday, and pick our route based on which day looks best for the short day. We’ll keep watching the weather. There are another six or so Looper boats in the nearby South Jersey marina that we know of, plus the six or so of us here at Utsch’s – so about a dozen boats waiting for weather. Phantom says he is going tomorrow. Nobody else is going tomorrow. What is he thinking?!
Hi, Ned again from Seattle. We were gone for 10 days on Rt 66 Oklahoma to California in a rented car. Caught up with your travels upon return home. Love reading your daily updates. Wondering how you boated Annapolis to Delaware City. Looking at your routing and cannot see a water route.
Was raised in NYC and NJ, spent many summers on Long Beach Island. Wave to Barnegat Light for me when you go past.
Hi Ned! Right -the travel map only draws straight lines. We went up the Chesapeake Bay and up Elk River to the Chesapeake & Delaware (C&D) Canal, across to Delaware City.