Tuesday June 1, 2021.
Temp: 70/55, Humidity: 68/99%, Top Wind: S14mph, Precip-none, Miles Traveled: 74
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We slept great last night. No rocking and rolling, but just an occasional bump against the wall. We did see a big tow-barge go by after dark, but it really didn’t create much wake. This morning we weren’t in a ‘ before sunrise’ kind of getaway rush. The current was running pretty hard on our nose. The problem is that we can’t get a favorable current all the way through this canal (15 miles) AND all the way down the Delaware Bay (55 miles). We’ll be running over 7 hours, and the tide will switch in that time. So we figured we’d take some current on our nose here, then ride it down the bay as long as we could. By the time we got to the widest part of the bay, it might not be quite as strong when it switched against us again. So, we left our wall at about 6:30am and headed out.
We lost about 1.5mph for part of the canal, then only down 1 mph. When we came out of the canal and into the Delaware River, we instantly gained about 3mph and were going over 11mph now! Woohoo! And at this point, we were officially done with the Chesapeake Bay portion of our Loop. There were other places I had planned to explore in the Chesapeake, but weather had us spend more days in some places than planned. We did spend three weeks total, and explored several new places, and now we have a weather window to catch to move on, so it’s all good!
Not too far down the river is the Salem Nuclear Plant. It is the second largest nuclear power plant in the U.S. It can produce enough energy to power more than two million homes!
We didn’t step foot on land in Delaware on this trip, but we did tootle along in Delaware water every once in awhile. The state line goes right down the middle of the Delaware Bay, as does the main shipping channel. We spent most of the trip on the New Jersey side of the channel.
My weather planning paid off pretty well today! The water was really nice at the top of the bay. We had an ebb tide, and the wind was light from the south. We were traveling southeast, so we didn’t have a lot of wind or waves. There were several boats moving down the bay today.
There were a few boats that were moving faster than us, and at one point they were kind of closing in on both sides, squeezing us like a tube of toothpaste. So Captain floored it and we went fast for about five minutes just to get out of the way. Here’s the top speed with the throttles wide open. Weeeeeeeee! 28.2mph?!?! Holy Speedster!
There were a few light house markers in the bay. This one was the Ship John Shoal Light, which was placed in service in 1877.
I was trying to get a picture of this channel marker so that you could see how fast the current was running, but I wasn’t quick enough to get a good shot. But, we were still getting over a 1mph benefit.
This was our route for today, and all of the red lines are when we were going over 10mph. We were running our normal cruising rpm that generally has us going 9mph, so the current was good for at least one mph for a good part of the upper bay.
At one point, there was just a neat rainbow across the sky. We didn’t have any rain or precipitation, but the clouds had this pretty smile.
At the bottom of Delaware Bay, there is a channel that goes into Cape May. Last time we came through here was on a Saturday with a lot of fishing boats. On a Tuesday, it was much easier and quieter.
We got pulled into our slip at Utsch’s Marina (rhymes with crutches). It is a big working marina with lots of fishing boats, but they do have some transient slips. There is also a nice area available nearby to set an anchor out in the bay, but we always prefer to be tied to a dock. There were a few looper boats at anchor, and a few more boats at the South Jersey marina next door. As we were coming here today, I could see on NEBO that at least a dozen boats left Cape May this morning. They’d been sitting here for several days, just waiting for today and tomorrow to get out of here. Most boats want two consecutive days to make the 135 mile run from Cape May to New York, so today was their day to get outta dodge. Now there was a whole new contingent of loopers in town. We got a couple of text messages advising us that there would be docktails at 5:30 at South Jersey. Sweet! We’ll be there! When the weather is like this, with just one or two days a week that are good on the ocean, boats pile up here and then leave in a fleet. Then another fleet comes in, and leaves when the weather allows.
On the way to docktails, we got today’s flower portrait.
We had a really fun time visitng with old friends and meeting some new ones. Irrational Exuberence, Magic, Sabbatical, Island Girl, KayDee, Phantom, and Legacy were all represented here!
We weren’t sure what everybody else was doing for dinner- it kind of sounded like an Uber ride to an Irish Pub. We decided just to go next door to the Lobster House, and have what will probably be nearly our last fresh seafood dinner for awhile. It was good, but nothing like what we had at Schaefers!
Back to the boat, we’re thankful for floating docks. The tide was out, and our Girl was down the ramp. It was cloudy most of the day, and still couldy this evening, but no rain.
We didn’t even go into the town part of Cape May. It’s a really fun touristy beach town, but it’s about 1.5 miles from the marina. We wouldn’t mind being here for more than one day, be we don’t want to get stuck here for a week. Tomorrow’s forecast is THE ONE! It’s holding at the “less than 2 foot waves” prediction out on the Atlantic Ocean, with 5mph winds from the south. YAY! We are going to get up before Mr. Sunshine, and bid adieu to Cape May. 🥱😴. We need to sleep fast!