Chesapeake City

Waking up this morning we were greeted by a wonderful red sunrise, hmm “red sky in the morning sailors take warning”……. A quick check of the bad weather seemed to imply that it was coming a little earlier than expected so not wanting to be caught out in strong winds with the shallow waters of the Delaware river we decided to speed things up and leave a ½ hr earlier. We could not get in touch with Greg and Debbie to let them know of our leaving earlier until just before weighing anchor but they weren’t far behind. As it was, we had a fabulous time and managed to sail the entire 16 nm without a tack at 6-7+ knots.

We passed Salem nuclear power plant before going into the C&D canal. As you can see, there is quite a crack in it, I’m sure I also saw Homer peering out one of the windows J

 Here is a picture of the entrance to the canal and the first bridge to pass under. There are no speed limits on this canal (unlike the Cape Cod canal) so there can be any manner of boats passing you. When we looked behind us we saw this bemammoth ship coming toward us to pass, egad how would he fit! As it turned out there was plenty of room and the strange part was, that he threw out virtually no wake, unlike the small motor boat that was following him doing the same speed – go figure.

We stopped at a free (yes free!!!) overnight dock at Chesapeake City, which is run by the town. It was a bit hairy coming in as the current and strong winds were pushing us away from the entrance and we got to within 6” of touching bottom. We made it to the dock ok after a second turn as I wasn’t happy with our positioning. We were just getting settled when Greg and Debbie started to make the entrance turn but the wind and current carried them well past so they found another dock down river to temporarily tie up to. They tried again a few minutes later and were successful and are tied up behind us.

The harbourmaster has allowed us to stay an extra day at docks, as tomorrow is still very windy and rainy. The nearest grocery store is across the main bridge over the canal and about 3 miles away so he said he would drive us there, what a blessing!

Heather and Debbie went with him as he only had a Prius and it would not fit all of us.

The town is very quaint with lots to do and see in a very small area, including a canal museum that we will visit tomorrow.  There is a big fibre store that we went into (Kathy you would love this place) and Heather has made arrangements to go to a

3 hr crochet class that the owner will teach – it will be a one on one class.

This evening we ran into a fellow Canadian that is on a Hunter 45 and heading south, we all brought our suppers over to his boat and had a wonderful meal and get together.