Loop Day 4 &5 Chesapeake City/ Summit North Marina (Bear, DE) to Cape May, NJ Betsy

We enjoyed the morning in Chesapeake City walking around the quaint town and then visiting the C&D Canal Museum.


Chesapeake Inn and Marina where we ate outside



Looking out at FRYEDAZE on anchor in Chesapeake City

Overlooking the C&D Canal

Although we had visited there three times, we had never gone into the museum. It was fascinating!

Yesterday we left our anchorage in Chesapeake City and moved 4.7 miles to Summit North Marina. The rationale behind such a short move was so that we wouldn't have to clean off the anchor chain at 0500! While I was grateful this morning for not having that chore to do- the stress of getting into the marina yesterday afternoon was certainly not worth that trade-off. We pulled off the C&D Canal with 17-20 knot winds directly from the west pushing into the marina. It was very congested when we were coming in the narrow fairway. The slip that we had been assigned was not along the t-head as we had hoped. When Dave approached the slip there was no way we would have been able to get into the slip or even down the D/C dock fairway. He had me call the marina again as they were not answering on the VHF radio. While the girl in the office is sweet and as Dave put it very not hard to look at- she did not have a lot of command and control or common sense to help us find another solution. Dave decided on his own to back up and turn around (yes in the 20 knot wind) and go into a slip at the other end of the marina. I prayed hard to land the loop the first time on the floating dock- but prayers were answered by a really nice lady who came out from inside her boat. After she and her husband wrestled our lines down safely- he said and I quote, "By the way, I don't think this slip will be deep enough for your size boat at low tide. I think there will only be 1' of water below your keel." In other words, we would end up in the mud at low tide. Dave took our hand held depth sounder all around and at 1435 (2 hours from low tide) we were already down to 3' of water. So Dave called the ever-so-smart girl in the office and told her that this slip would not work we needed something with more water- and all I could think was yes and many dock hands there to grab my lines in this wind! After careful consideration and checking new slip assignment, we once again threw off the lines and began to move. Again selfishly praying for strength to loop the line (as I would once again have no help) we cautiously moved to new slip. Praise the Lord because there standing on the dock was a friend we had met and traveled with last fall Captain Ed. He very calmly told me exactly what lines to throw to him and before we knew it we were tied up and safely in our slip. After getting reacquainted and hearing about their wintering in FL, I promptly got out the sangria and informed Dave that ring bologna and Chex Snack Mix was our  dinner (we had a nice lunch in Chesapeake City so I knew this would be great with him).

After a peaceful night tied to the dock we departed at 0530 and caught the tide going out of the C&D Canal. Our entourage including another Looper Boat (No Zip Code) as well as Ed on Serenity and Len on Destiny proceeded down the canal into the Delaware Bay.

 



Delaware Highway 13 Bridge to Wilmington at Sunrise

Boat traffic was quite heavy going down the Delaware Bay and we had some hold your breath moments when the two large ships passed in the narrow shipping channel.

 

As we sit here at the end of the day talking about our favorite moments from the beginning to now- Dave has 2 favorite pictures he wanted to share and I have a picture in progress...

 

Day 1- Very hot going up the Bay. I was the Bug Lady sucking up the thousands of flies!

Day 3- So cold going to Chesapeake City that I had on my winter coat, hat and gloves



No shave Day 5- Lunch at Lucky Bones, Cape May N.J.

Night All!