Week 3

Week 3 July 28- Aug 3

Monday

We survived the night and the thunderstorms. Our radar and radio antenna makes us 25 feet tall and is a giant lightning rod. I was a little nervous.
We pulled up anchor at 7 am. Today is a long cruising day. We headed up the Chesapeake across the Potomac River and across the Virginia border into Maryland. The winds were higher around 20 and the waves 3-5 feet. I worked on my personal history for an hour. I have 2 projects of history I brought with me.
We cruised 7.5 hours to the Patuxent River and up to Solomon's Island. We docked at the Zahniser's marina. It has really nice amenities. We were able to do laundry and go for a swim. It's a little bit cooler today, high 80s and a little less humid. The cruising was really pleasant temperature wise. We traveled 70 nautical miles today.
This crazy bird was just hanging out on the dock almost right outside our door for hours!

Tuesday

This morning we did some chores. Ed cleaned out all the sea strainers. We borrowed the marina bicycles that have a big basket on the front and rode a couple of miles to the grocery store, true value hardware, and the marina store. We used a duffle bag and a big backpack to carry everything back to the boat. These bikes were so old school. No gears or hand brakes.
We did a quick video call with Alaina for her 5th birthday! She got a trampoline and was so excited.
We finally had time to remove the old vinyl lettering and replace it with our new vinyl boat name. We had a christening ceremony with our Gatorade.

We left the marina and headed up the Chesapeake. The water was so smooth you could water ski. It's way better than the 3 foot waves we had yesterday. We cruised 3.5 hours to reach Annapolis. It's a big harbor with so many boats! Huge ones. We caught a mooring ball for the first time and tied up to it for the night. We found out we can't use our dingy because it isn't registered with the coast guard! We could use it, if we want to just paddle and use it more like a raft. But today we were not up to paddling. They have an awesome water taxi service. You call them on the radio and within 10 min they come pick you up.
We walked around a bit and saw the Maryland state house. It's a beautiful old building that is the oldest in the country still in legislative use. Annapolis was the capital of the U.S for about a year. George Washington resigned his commission here.

Walking back to the taxi pier we heard music. The naval academy band was playing at the end of the pier. They're an 8 man band that were really good! We stayed and listened for almost an hour. It's the 250 years anniversary of the naval academy this year. Annapolis is ranked one of the top tourist places in the nation to visit. We are in a heat wave going up the east coast. Everyone is telling us it's hotter than normal. It's been hot!

Wednesday

We took a tour of Annapolis, The United States naval academy. It was first Fort Severne. We are on the Severne river. Then it became a naval academy in colonial times. It has beautiful old buildings. It is a scholarly school with most going into engineering or mathematics. Notable athletes that graduated from there are Roger Staubach Heisman trophy winner and engineer. David Robinson for basketball played on the dream team and was a mathematician. There are a lot of signs and banners that say beat army. Huge rivalry. If you are a civilian professor you have to have a PhD. This was absolutely a highlight of the trip so far.

We called the water taxi to take us back to the boat expecting it to take 10 min for the pick up, and it ended up being a 40 min wait. We barely made it back in time to hold our institute class.
We had paid for an extra day in order to have a good place to have our class intending to leave right after. We decided to stay. The next couple of days are more critical to time our crossing to go with the tide and current. The current is much stronger at the top of the Chesapeake and going into the C and D canal to the Delaware Bay.
Every Wed late afternoon there is a sailboat race. There were probably 100 sailboats of different classes racing through this harbor skimming right past our mooring ball. It was fun to watch. But too close for comfort.

Thursday
We were up and leaving Annapolis before 7 this morning. We needed to hit the current in the C & D canal as tide was going out. The canal had pretty strong currents. We can make it in a swift trawler going against the current, but it takes a lot of fuel. Slow trawlers and sailboats can't make it unless they go with the tide. We were going against the tide all the way up the Chesapeake but once we got in the canal we had the current pushing us.
Delaware city 87° 70 % humidity.
We pulled into the Delaware city dock about 1.5 hours earlier than we thought we would. Getting through the 20 mile canal was a breeze. We have been fortunate to once again get a floating dock. There's no stress on a floating dock worrying about changing your lines with the in coming or outgoing tides. Because of the very strong current in this river, they have a unique way to get you on the dock. We pulled in on the starboard side and gave them the starboard bow line, but then he wanted the port stern line. The current flipped us 180° to then tie us up on the port side and we are facing against the current. It's called warping. Pulling out will be a piece of cake.
A huge storm hit just after we docked. After the storm we went for a walk in the darling quaint small town. There was an emergency flash flood issued. No one is supposed to be traveling right now. We couldn't take the ferry over to the Delaware city state park. Over on the island is an old union fort.
The canal were on was dug by hands to make a faster path to Philadelphia. They couldn't dig it deep enough; so it had 4 locks. Then in the 1920s the army Corp made it deeper and wider. They did away with the locks.
We traveled 60 nautical miles today on pretty smooth waters with hardly any wind.

Friday

We had our first weather delay day. We were highly discouraged from traveling today due to high winds. There's always something to do no matter where you are. And the weather is much cooler! We are happy to walk around in low 70s and overcast! We took the ferry over to Pea patch island to tour the old fort Delaware. It was also a POW camp for the union. 8,000 confederate soldiers were taken prisoner from Vicksburg. The fort was never shot upon, so it's in it's original condition.

Then we took an Uber to Philadelphia. We weren't planning on going there this time around the loop, but we've always wanted to go. We were super excited to get an Uber for a 45 min ride. We toured the historic part of town. We saw the oldest congressional hall, the old documents, the liberty bell, the little house where Thomas Jefferson wrote the declaration of independence. We had to get a Philly cheesesteak. We found a great little joint. Then we took an Uber over to the famous Rocky stairs. It's actually an art museum. We decided to run up the stairs like Rocky did. I started to sing the Rocky song, but 6 stairs up I tripped and fell flat! How anticlimactic. We did finish the run to the top.

It was 5 pm and rush hour when we were trying to get an Uber back to Delaware city. We went to the Rodin museum. He created The Thinker statue. We thought it would be easier to get an Uber on that street. We were dropped 5 times and Ed's phone went dead. We decided to walk to a different street after sitting there for an hour with no luck. I had prayed for us to be able to find a solution to get back to the marina. There is a train, but it takes 2 hours and we didn't know where the station was. We sat down and I looked down the street and I see an angel Moroni!! We were right by the temple. I suggested we go there. Often there's a visitor's center or temple housing. I was hoping someone would be able to help us out or point us in the right direction. We walked around the temple and there wasn't a visitor center but a long building. I walked in there and no one was around. I kept walking and out of a door came a man. He was suspicious of me. I told him I was a member and looking for a visitor center. He said there wasn't one. I told him we were in a bit of a pickle needing to get back to Delaware city but with dead phones. By then Ed caught up to me. Ed told him that we needed a charge cord for a few minutes. He went back into an office and came out with a cordless battery. He just gave it to us. Ed tried to pay him, but he said no he had found it and didn't have a use for it. How great it that for us!! We were able to get my phone charged enough and then actually got an Uber that didn't drop us!!! Tender mercies!

It was such a beautiful evening, we decided to get the scooters out and go for a ride. There is a bike path that goes along the C and D canal all the way back to Chesapeake City. We rode on that for a couple of miles past an old cemetery of free black union military men. We saw lots of little brown cotton tail rabbits and one doe. Today was a great day!

Saturday

We left Delaware city before 7 am for a 61 mi passage to cape may new jersey. We wanted to go down the Delaware River with the current and then across the Delaware bay. The winds were only at 10-12 knots until we got down to the cape. Then they bumped up to around 15 to 20 knots. Which isn't ideal for docking. The weather was perfect otherwise, clear skies temperature in the high 60s. I actually needed a hoodie for the crossing.

Still no dolphin sightings. Sad about that. It took 5 hours to cross Delaware Bay 61 nautical miles. We docked at the South Jersey marina. It was tricky with winds blowing one way and the current pushing another. South Jersey is the most expensive marina yet. We went exploring the town. Beautiful old homes and buildings. The weather is just so perfect. Ed was able to do a few small fiberglass repairs that hadn't been fixed yet.

Something interesting to us is that we can't find caffeine free soda! We've been looking since Chocowinity. We brought several 12 packs with us and they're now gone. We have to resort to water! Ugh!

Sunday

We woke up at 5 am to check the weather. The winds are supposed to be high for the next 3 days. We had this small window from 5-9 am where it's calmer, so at first light we left. We learned how swells work and then the waves on top of the swells. You really don't want to travel if the swells are closer together than 7.5 seconds. We were in swells that were 5-6 seconds with 2 to 3 foot waves. We were bouncing but it wasn't too bad. The boat mostly rolls over the swells. We traveled at twice the speed we usually do to make it a bit smoother. After about 1.5 hours it was calmer. By the time we hit Atlantic city the waves were only about a foot. It was a much smoother ride. We decided to keep going. We pulled into Barnegat inlet to get fuel and anchor, but after fueling decided to keep going. It was just too crowded.

We made such good time we just continued up the new jersey coast. We saw a pod of dolphins, probably 12 big ones! Ed saw them first to the side of us. He circled back so we could watch them for a min. That was exciting. We drove up the liberty bay to the liberty landing marina. We floated in front of the statue of Liberty and Manhattan and took pics. We traveled about 164 nautical miles today. We were so blessed to have a really good crossing today. We covered so much ground, which we need to do.