An Adventure For All Ages

We're sitting at anchor in Cape May harbor waiting to depart to New England very early in the morning.
I hear a knock on the hull and go on deck to see what's up but I don't see anything. Then the guy in the boat next to us hollers to me and points to the waterline.


I look over the side and there is his buddy on a paddleboard holding onto my stern. He paddled over to ask a question about the local waters.
So these two young guys are sailing from Quebec to Florida on a 26' sailboat with only paddleboards to get ashore. The current was ripping quite strong and he was tired! So we chatted a few minutes while he caught his breath before paddling back.
Good to see them tackling this adventure any way they can.
We met 2 young girls on a similar sized boat while in Oriental. I wonder if they crossed paths?

Storm Season

A short trip to Chesapeake City brought us to the free town dock. This is good because you can pay to hook up electrical....and run the a/c. It was 99 degrees with no breeze, so this was important. We met up with friends that own an Endeavour 42 and waited for the storm to move in.

Waiting




Glad we tied up here. Just before the storm hit we had heavy winds, at least 40 kts. A tree on land lost a very large limb. We heard it cracking and watched it crash to the ground...sorry no pics.

Here is the storm.





From Chesapeake City we head down th C & D canal to the Delaware River and Bay. Big currents, shoals, and commercial shipping mark this leg of our trip. It was drizzling most of the day.

The Ship John Shoal Light




At the mouth of Delaware Bay going into the Cape May inlet you either go outside of the Prissy Wicks Shoal (this could take an additional 2 hours) or you go VERY close to shore, next to the beach. This is always a nail-biter. There are strong eddies and rip currents and it just feels wrong to be that close to shore.


Here is a picture of Cape May as we rounded the inside of Prissy Wicks. We got even closer to the shore than this picture shows.




Safe and sound at Cape May waiting for the next thunderstorm.


Sunset just before the storm.

All Work and no Play

All work and no play makes Jack (and Jill) a dull boy. We didn't want to become too dull so we moved north to Chesapeake bay to play. Is all the boat work finished? NEVER, but we are moving on.

Here we are at the free dock in Great Bridge, VA. We walked to the grocery store and, quite frankly, went a little crazy buying all the items that the Oriental, NC market doesn't carry. Those small town markets have just the basics. We also stopped at DQ for a blizzard....yum.




Continuing north we traveled through Norfolk with all the Navy ships and anchored in Willoughby Bay next to the Navy base and watched all the helicopters fly.




We had a beutiful night in a secluded anchorage in the Chesapeake Bay. This is the sunset at Mill Creek. Beautiful, right?




Our friends on the Magothy, Mary and Chuck, invited us for one last visit at the dock at their house. One last? Yes! They are moving aboard their boat to prepare to cruise! We had lots of fun and used their car to run errands and saw fireworks from the house for the Fourth. Thanks again guys.


We headed south from the Magothy to St Michaels to see more fireworks on the fifth. It was a surprise to me. Ed arranged to meet for a raft-up with the newlyweds Jen and Craig. Great firewoks and spent a day exploring St Michaels....mostly from inside the pubs.








Now we are headed north again towards Maine. My family will meet us there for Labor Day.....very excited. We always see beautiful boats along the way.





And great sunsets.