Day 58 & 59 Delaware Bay

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After our night of adventure bypassing New Jersey, we were ready for some downtime.  It was very easy to sleep once we got settled in around 7AM until noon, but then the sun was high overhead, it got stuffy warm in the cabin, and our biological clocks told us to get up.  We still weren't too energetic though.

We took a long walk on the beach followed by a long sit on the beach, and eventually the tide came in high enough that our sand bar was disappearing and we had to admit it was time to go back to the boat.

We made a nice dinner, left the dishes for morning 😨 and again slept really well.

Aug 28th

We spent a laid back morning doing a bit of boat chores.  We were anchored in 9-10 ft of water, but our shallow water alarm kept going off over & over. There was no wind. We hadn't drifted or drug anchor... Suddenly we realized it was dolphin swimming under our hull setting off the alarm.  We spent a couple lovely hours watching the pod of maybe 12 dolphin swim around us hunting, occasionally leaping completely out of the water.
A group of 20+ pelicans were nearby to cheer them on.
We reevaluated our plan to head south on an outside route down the Delmarva Penninsula. The winds and ocean swells were not promising for a nice ride. The alternative is going north up the Delaware Bay, then taking the C&D Canal west to the northern Chesapeake Bay. This is another route that takes planning and timing to coordinate with the tides. You need an incoming tide to take you north, then an outgoing tide to take you west through the canal. For the second year in a row we somehow managed to time our travel at the right time to cruise on through without stopping.  It meant another another late night sail, but the canal is well lit so that makes it lots easier. 

Along the way we saw familiar sights: the Dole banana boat (Wilmington, Del is the port where bananas enter the US)

And the Hope Creek Nuclear Plant on the NJ side
We pulled into Rogue's Harbor in Maryland's Elk Neck State Park around 1AM. (Historical note: This is the same place we put one of the boats Brent built, Navigator, into the water for her maiden voyage. We were living nearby in Delaware then.)

Already it feels good to be back in the Chesapeake Bay.




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