Yesterday we transited through a HORRIBLE fog and 3-4 foot seas to Manasquan, NJ.  It looked like the fog was starting to lift as predicted in the morning, but after we left the dock that didn’t prove to be the case.  Going back might have been suicidal, so we pressed on through the goo.  We docked last night in Manasquan, NJ.  It is a very pretty town, but the current in the river there is ferocious.  We got the boat onto a dock, but it took a team effort and some luck to get it done.

At a couple points in the transit from Atlantic City to Manasquan we passed other boats at about a quarter mile as shown by our radar, but we could not see them through the fog.  The lack of a horizon, plus seas that were worse than predicted, made it difficult to avoid seasickness.

Today we left Manasquan and transited into New York harbor.  Along the way we saw several whales, an unusual sight for us.  Marilou refused to share her photos of them, so there is nothing to show here.  We are docked tonight at Liberty Landing State Park, just north of the Statue of Liberty and directly across the Hudson River from the Manhattan financial district.  The views during the transit were spectacular, as is our view this evening.

 

Along the way today we passed a group of four military speedboats very near the Verrazano Bridge.  Probably Special Ops boats.  We think we’ve seen them before, but they are always a joy to see.

Tomorrow we will go into the city to visit old venues from our college days.  I’m sure there have been many changes since we were students here.

Yesterday the winds were forecast to be 20-25 knots.  They didn’t disappoint, and we were glad we spent the day tied to a dock.  Today was much better, and we went out into the Atlantic Ocean for a run from Cape May to Atlantic City.  A little rolly-polly, but overall quite acceptable.

Cape May is a really nice town.  It began as a resort town in the mid-1800’s, and is now famous for the number of Victorian homes.  They are remarkable, though their age pales in comparison to most places in Europe.

This morning we departed Cape May and moved north in the Atlantic to Atlantic City.  An ocean transit is frankly boring.  We saw a couple of manta rays, but otherwise the highlight of the trip was swatting biting black flies.  Four miles offshore and they showed up in swarms.  I’ve seen that before, and I really can’t explain it.  Where do they come from?

The Miss America pageant is not going on now, but Atlantic City is still a newer resort town.  We are docked at a state-run marina in front of the Golden Nugget Casino.  Nice place.

Tomorrow we will go to Manasquan, NJ.  Another ocean transit with all the attendant sights.  NOT!!

Today we departed the marina in the center of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, transited east through the canal into Delaware Bay, and then down the bay to Cape May.  This stretch is long transits in open water with few notable landmarks.  Thus it is hard to get decent photos of anything.

The C&D Canal is an unusually wide canal with some commercial traffic.  We didn’t pass any while we were on the water, but I saw a tow go past the marina last night while we were having dinner.  The canal is wide enough that weekenders go pretty fast in the canal, and the current is as strong as four knots at times, so the water can be pretty disturbed.  It wasn’t a bad passage, but I appreciated the stabilizers on our boat.

Delaware Bay is a very open body of water.  At one point today we couldn’t see land either side of us, though the radar saw the shore was about nine miles in either direction.  There isn’t much to see out there.  After the long transit down the bay we came through the Cape May Canal, and are now at a marina in Cape May.

The next part of our trip involves going offshore up the New Jersey coast.  We will probably stop in Atlantic City for a night, and then have a long day to get to New York harbor.  Unfortunately the winds tomorrow are forecast to be 20-25 knots, so we will sit at the marina for a day.  The forecast for the following days is more promising.

We Departed Solomons on Saturday morning in a parade of boats.  Everyone seemed to be departing at the same time.  All the other boats went south on the Chesapeake, presumably for a group function, while we went north.  Solomons still feels like home to us, and the sights and features in that area are still inviting to us.

We continued north up the Chesapeake and spent the night at Bay Bridge Marina.  It is a new facility right at the eastern base of the Bay Bridge.  The bridge extends all the way across the Chesapeake, more than 4 miles at that point.  The marina was very nice, but too many things still being for sale and the high prices didn’t make it seem like it would succeed long term.

We departed the marina this morning, and had great views of the bridge.  It is an impressive structure.

These days are long, straight transits with the autopilot doing most of the work and our function being to watch out for debris in the water.  We saw many types of vessels from fishermen to commercial ships to military vessels.  It’s always fun to see what traffic is on the water and watch their antics (well, not the commercial guys).

We are in a state park marina tonight in the center of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.  The canal connects the northern end of the Chesapeake to Delaware Bay, and is a major commercial shipping route for traffic heading to the port of Baltimore.  We saw no commercial ships today, but expect to see traffic tomorrow on Delaware Bay.

We are still at Solomons.  We had the Durfee clan visit over the weekend (including Nicole, Nora, Libby and Emmet).  On Monday I was also able to go to Minneapolis to move Marilou’s car and check on the cabin.  I was also lucky to have dinner with our neighbors, Bill and Vickie Hilger.

On Wednesday we departed the marina and anchored in a protected cove in Cuckold Creek.  We had dinner that night with our good friends Tim and Susan Floyd.  We thought about departing yesterday, but the weather forecast was for small craft advisories through Friday.  While we could go out in that without compromising safety there is no reason to do so.  Thus we decided to sit at anchor for another couple nights and enjoy the seasonal weather.

On Thursday night a line of thunderstorms moved through the area.  The rain was preceded by a sizable gust front that was quite impressive as it moved through.  When the wind hit us our anchor dragged, and at the height of the storm we were raising the anchor and getting the engines going to control the boat.  We didn’t panic, and although Marilou didn’t listen to the Captain (me) we got through it without significant problems.

We plan to start north again Saturday.  Major holiday weekends are not the best time to travel as the weekend boaters are usually working hard to display their skills (meaning lack thereof).  If that becomes too onerous we will stop again and wait until after the weekend.  The next several days are long passages through open water, so excepting dumb weekend boater tricks there shouldn’t be anything too exciting in this part of the trip.

The Admiral has directed that I include the date in the blog.  So, this is May 16, 2019.  I will try extremely hard to remember to include it, but it is included in the header or footer somewhere in the likely event I forget.  And I should also point out that once you retire the date and day of the week really don’t matter anymore, so I mostly don’t care.

Yesterday we departed Deltaville and cruised up to Solomons.  I lived in this town before I retired, and it feels like we are home.  It is a small town with a great boating, crabbing and oystering heritage.  Unfortunately the trip from Deltaville is several miles off the western shore of the Chesapeake, affording few opportunities for decent photos.  I have included the few poor examples I was able to get.  Even Sinbad was unhappy with the trip.

We are in a marina with several Looper friends, Kissed Some Frogs, The Lower Place, The Journey, Salty, and their intrepid crews.  We were invited to docktails tonight on The Lower Place.  Bushwhackers.  An experience I can recommend to anyone.

We hope to have a visit from the Durfee clan over the weekend.  And hopefully a visit with our good friends Tim and Susan next week.

Sunday we departed the Dismal Swamp Canal and proceeded through Norfolk harbor.  This is a large area with commercial and military terminals and bases and shipyards everywhere.  It is always eye opening to transit this area and see the tangible evidence of our military power.

On Sunday and Monday nights we stayed on the city docks in Hampton, VA.  We have been to this marina once before, and it works well for us.  No grocery nearby but it is well protected from the weather, and there is a microbrewery at the head of the dock.  We stayed an extra day to wait out some weather yesterday.

Today we moved up the Chesapeake to Deltaville, VA.  The weather was marginal, and we had to wait out a thunderstorm before going into the marina.  Not much to photograph here as it is big water, but I did manage a photo of Old Point Comfort Lighthouse.

Tomorrow we will move to Solomons, MD, where I lived before I retired.  That is, if the weather cooperates.

We spent the day today on the Dismal Swamp Canal.  This is one of our favorite stops on the ICW for it’s solitude and peacefulness.

This canal has a long history.  The Dismal Swamp Canal was first proposed in 1728 as a means to connect the farming and fishing areas of the Albemarle region to the shipping hub of Norfolk.  George Washington advocated for it, but not for entirely altruistic reasons—he had timber holdings in the Great Dismal Swamp, and the canal would have enabled economic extraction of the timber.  The canal construction was finally begun in 1793, and it was opened in 1805.  That makes it the oldest, continually operating canal in the US.

The original canal was dug by hand by slaves hired from local plantation owners.  Those slaves also helped carry the timber out of the swamp after the canal was put in operation, and thereby became very familiar with the swamp.  In the years before the Civil War there were large colonies of runaway slaves in the swamp, and a number of literary works were based on observations by outside visitors.

Today the canal is a National Historic Landmark, and is still operated and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers.  Few boats pass this way now, but it isn’t entirely forgotten.  Today we have seen about 8 boats pass headed northbound.

We left the visitor center this morning, and headed north along the canal.  I have a number of images, but they all seem to look the same.  Still waters (which aren’t very deep), and if it weren’t for the pollen on the water you would think it a mirror.

Tonight we are tied up at Douglas Landing.  This spot is absolutely silent.  We are about 8 miles from the Deep Creek Lock at the north end of the canal.  Tomorrow we will head north through Norfolk to Hampton.

Today we departed the anchorage on the Pasquotank River, cruising upriver to the South Mills Lock, and into the Dismal Swamp Canal.  This stretch is one of our favorite areas on the east coast.

Above Elizabeth City the Pasquotank has the appearance of a remote area.  With the exception of College of the Albemarle and a few houses there are no structures.  It is reminiscent of the Waccamaw River in South Carolina, but the current is much lower.  This area has the feel of a very remote area.

At South Mills we have to pass a lock to get into the canal proper.  This lock lifts about 10 feet, and there were only two boats in the lock today.  While this remains a commercial waterway, and is operated by the Army Corps of Engineers, there is seldom much commercial traffic and nearly all boats in the canal are recreational.  The lock tenders have a great time talking to people.

The Dismal Swamp Canal is a historic landmark, and I will write more about it tomorrow.  For tonight we are tied up at the canal visitor center and Great Dismal Swamp State Park.  There are six boats here, with three tied to the dock and three others rafted off of them.  We are one of the rafted boats.  As we pulled up near the dock the people on the boat we are tied to were out on deck waving us to come tie up to them.  Turns out we met them in Brunswick, GA a few weeks ago, as were the people on two other boats that were here.  It’s a small world among cruisers, and we really enjoy the camaraderie.

We did take a walk through the swamp.  Surprisingly it is a very interesting area.  Marilou is excited that she saw a Prothonotary Warbler.  She is enjoying seeing birds that she has never seen before.  It looked like a goldfinch to me.

Today we departed our remote anchorage and transited through the Alligator-Pungo Canal (yes, we saw an alligator) and the Alligator River, crossing Albemarle Sound, and up the Pasquotank River through Elizabeth City.  We initially planned to anchor on the Alligator River, but when we looked at the wind forecast we decided to press on before the winds got any worse.  They were bad enough already, which meant the sea state was marginal at best.

The canal was unremarkable.  It is wide, deep, straight and long.  The same is true for the Alligator River.  Albemarle Sound was rougher than we expected and poor Sinbad suffered a bout of seasickness.  We felt bad for him until he got on the counter and ate some butter later.  He still doesn’t look like he feels good.

After passing Albemarle Sound we transited up the Pasquotank River past the US Coast Guard Base, and into Elizabeth City.  The base has a huge blimp hangar that is a remarkable building.  When we got to E-City the winds made the free docks untenable, and we continued on up the Pasquotank to an anchorage.  We will go into the Dismal Swamp Canal in the morning.