Sunday-Tuesday June 5-7:  Out of the Chesapeake and into New Jersey

     We left Rock Hall very early Sunday morning.  We’d had a great meal with Denny and Laura at Waterman’s Restaurant, and afterward ice cream from The Scoop.  Such a treat all the way around.  It was sad to say goodbye.

     Those thunderstorms that had been predicted still hadn’t materialized, but today the air was heavy and the skies were very gray.  We wanted to get to the mouth of the Chesapeake & Delaware canal before anything hit so we left around seven for the quiet run up the Bay.

     Dan’s friend & fellow tug captain Joe sent us a message saying his tug was en route from Philadelphia to Richmond, and currently was entering the C & D canal.  We were ready with the camera when it appeared on our horizon.  Dan called on the radio, but Joe was off watch then, and probably sleeping.  

Joe's tug & barge.

     We dropped the hook in the Bohemia River, which is off the Elk River, which leads to the entrance to the C & D canal.  The thunderstorms were gathering in force in the West.  Joe texted us to tell us the tug had diverted to Baltimore to ride out the weather, and that it was raining quite heavily.  Warnings were broadcasted every fifteen minutes on the radio.  We were ready when it hit, about six in the evening.  It was a quick squall, with only one peel of thunder and perhaps an hour of rain and lots of wind, and then it was done and gone.  We barely collected more than a small jug of water.  

     Monday we again left early as the tide was most favorable to us in the canal then and would be again favorable in Delaware Bay in mid afternoon.  We planned to get all the way to Cape May, New Jersey, over sixty miles away.  It made for a very long day, but there were times we were making nine knots.  Pretty good for a slow motor-sailor!  We had a little company in the Delaware Bay: two other sailboats and one motor yacht, along with a passing line of container ships and a couple of tugs and barges.  We all managed to stay out of each other’s way.  Only two of us went into Cape May.  We got there about six in the evening and moved a few miles from the city to a small anchorage nearby.  I’d forgotten how New Jersey is built up on one side of the waterway and all marsh on the other.  Such a disorienting combination of wild and urban!  We had a supper of grilled turkey breast with mashed potatoes and gravy and turned in early.

     Tuesday was yet another early morning.  Dan wanted to take advantage of the tide offshore New Jersey so we left before seven.  We also wanted to be in an anchorage before the weather started showing influences of Tropical Storm Colin.  Colin is not forecast to come near this area, but it will affect the local conditions with gustier winds and ocean swells.  We’d rather not be offshore then.  We can’t travel the New Jersey Intracoastal from Cape May to Atlantic City because there are three fixed bridges with heights of 35 feet.  We need 37 feet.  (Most vessels don’t even bother with the NJ-ICW because even the fixed bridges of 55 feet aren’t tall enough, and because this waterway is notoriously shallow in spots.)  We traveled all morning on the outside, with favorable current but a following sea which made for a rather rolly ride.  It was hazy and overcast, but most of that cleared off by noon, when we reached the Absecon Inlet at Atlantic City. 

Atlantic City

Swift current against us in Absecon Inlet

    Tide was against us in the inlet, but we didn’t have far to go to the anchorage, and it didn’t take us too long.  We set the anchor about 12:30 pm.  We’ve been here before, so we know how to get ashore (leaving the dinghy in the reeds & climbing over a fence to get to the road) and we know where the grocery store, post office, and the internet access are.  

     Well.  The wifi was down at St. George’s Pub, and non-existent everywhere else.  We stopped in the Verizon store to order a new cell phone, and then went to pick up a few groceries.  Dan admitted to me then that he wanted to go about ten miles farther down the waterway so that tomorrow we could get all the way to Manisquan inlet in one day.  When we got back to the boat, we hauled the dinghy and weighed anchor.

     And promptly drifted aground.  It was low tide, it didn’t take much movement for us to find shallow ground.  We relaunched the dinghy and I lowered the anchor and most of the chain into the bow of it so Dan could use it to kedge us out of the mud.  He rowed out to deeper water, set the anchor by hand, and came back so we could crank the line in to pull the Willie around and out of the mud.

     Did I mention a large squall was heading our way?  The sky was thick with black clouds and a wind was picking up.  We took turns scanning the sky and cranking on the anchor winch.  We had let out all three hundred feet of anchor chain and rode; it took about twenty minutes, but we managed to set Willie afloat.  The shallow seas were starting to kick up now, and thunder was rumbling in the distance.  Dan headed us out of the anchor basin and back into the waterway, bucking the conditions in Absecon Inlet as the squall finally hit us.  Good thing we have a pilot house!

     I waited until we were well into the calmer waters of the ICW to start supper - it being a lot later than when we’d originally agreed to move on ten more miles - and the squall left us for the open ocean.  The rain was done, the sun came back out, and we had turkey pie as we headed toward our intended anchorage.

     We’ve used Skipper Bob’s Anchorage Guide.  Skipper Bob and his wife have done the Great Loop about a dozen times, and put together their extensive knowledge in a simple guidebook form.  He died over fifteen years ago, but the guide is still published.  We’ve been told some of the information is terribly outdated, and maybe so, but overall we still have made good use of the guide.  Our biggest peeve is the poorly written and sometimes erroneous information about the bridges along the way.  Tonight was the first time we found dangerously bad information about an anchorage.  The guide had the wrong marker listed for the turn, which we figured out, but it also said there was a lot more water than we found.  Yes.  We went aground again.

     This time we knew what to do and began immediately.  We launched the dinghy, lowered the anchor, Dan reset it with the dinghy, and within twenty minutes we were all set and sitting down to admire the sunset.  It was another very long day, but we’d accomplished what we’d set out to do.