Delaware/New Jersey

Friday morning on the 29th we left Annapolis early in a light fog; by noon we were coming off the Chesapeake Bay and entering the Elk River. The Elk River turns into the C&D Canal on the North end of the Delmar peninsula. The C&D Canal, the third busiest canal in the world, was dug in the early 1800’s to provide a water route between the Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware Bay.
We spent the evening at dock in the Summit North Marina in Bear, DE.

Saturday morning we woke at 3:00 AM for a very early departure. The tidal current in the canal and northern part of the Delaware Bay runs up to 4 mph as the tide ebbs and floods, so we needed to time our departure with the falling tide. Traveling with the tide we move at 10 mph, against it we go 2 mph. On the days trip of 60 miles you can see why we departed when we did.

That evening we stayed in Cape May, NJ at the South Jersey Marina. Cape May is a delightful little resort/fishing village on the southern end of the Jersey shore.

The town was founded in the 1630’s, in the early 1800’s it became a resort area for visitors from Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York City. Today the entire town is on National Historic Register as a Historic Landmark City. The town also hosts a fleet of the best maintained shrimp boats we have seen, all brightly painted.
As we entered the harbor we viewed the graduation exercises for the U.S. Coast Guard Academy located in Cape May.

Sunday, the 31st, we left Cape May and traveled in the Atlantic Ocean up the New Jersey coast to Atlantic City. We anchored for the evening in a small basin just inside the Absecon Inlet. We will be travelling in the ocean for the entire trip up to the New York Harbor because our mast height prohibits us from using the N.J, intracoastal waterway.