Sunday 30 September: Leaving Cape May NJ and arriving Betterton MD.
Wake up alarm just before sunrise, and we up-anchor as the sun pops over the horizon as a red globe. Quite chilly, especially as the sun disappears behind some clouds. We have all our thermal gear on again this morning. We need the early start so that we can make it up the Delaware River, through the canal and out into the Chesapeake all with the tide helping us.
We say farewell to pretty Cape May and leave the tranquil bay. A few other boats in front of us seem to have the same plan as us, and we keep an eye on the chart to see which way they choose to navigate through the shallows by Cape May lighthouse. When we round Cape May, the sea is choppy due to the wind against tide, and swirling around us.
Sails come out soon and we sail in 7kts of wind on beam reach. Lovely! When Alex wakes up we have a healthy breakfast in the cockpit, under the warming sun. And as we sip our coffee with the sails loose so we are not heeling too much, we see a sailing yacht overtaking is. At which point Glen rushes us to finish our fruits and coffee so he can trim-in the sails correctly and put out racing hats on. Oh, how we miss racing!
Our competitor is sailing right through the channel, we are to the starboard of it, through more shallows, and we have our eyes both on the sails and the depth. Catching up with them, but only just. Maybe our tactic was not the best. Lovely sail though. So peaceful, hard on the wind in flat water and heading exactly where we need to go.
The peace is disturbed by the generator and watermaker noise when we switch them on to top up our tanks with fresh water. We would rather make water here, where there is still some clean Atlantic, than higher up in the river. It is amazing how in these inlets the watermaker needs hardly any pressure to run, and we are producing at maximum capacity, 170 liters per hour. We can only imagine it’s because the salinity is much lower.
Mid-morning our enjoyable sailing and racing come to an end. The wind drops to nothing and and we switch on the engine. Time to chase the boredom away! Alex installs himself in the hammock reading his book. Glen potters on the deck, windscreen washing and polishing stainless steel fittings and the BBQ. And Oana updates the blog, budget, pictures and videos archives. All the while, we are zooming along at 9.5kts SOG helped by the flood tidal flow. Eating up the miles.
Early afternoon we leave Delaware River and go through the canal towards Chesapeake. Very busy canal, lots of power boats speeding passed us, and on the AIS we see lots of sailing boats ahead of us too. Looks very rural and marshy to begin with, but later we pass a nice looking village, with pretty houses and beautifully kept lawns. The tide helped us with 2.5 kts under us, and we got in no time to the end of what looked like a very long canal (25 nm). As we exit, it opens up to a large bay, with yet more beautiful properties on the water’s edge.
Looking at the map, we realize we’ve been in three different states today: we left from New Jersey, had the small state of Delaware to our port while sailing up Delaware river, and we reached Maryland through this canal. With a bit of effort we could’ve ticked Pennsylvania too!
And at this stage, Glen finished polishing the BBQ too! That took him a while! But it’s now sparkling with shine. Quickly, cover up before any salt spray gets to it again!
There is lots of organic debris floating around, brought in by the rivers which got flooded by hurricane Florence. And just before sunset we arrive in front of Betterton and drop the anchor in 4m of water. Another boat is anchored here, further inside in the bay. The place doesn’t look like much, but we go ashore for a walk anyway. And as we tie the dinghy to the dock, we see two catamarans anchoring next to us, and two more boats coming in. We imagine that all these boats came the same way we did and looked for the first bay deep enough to come in and anchor after exiting the canal.
There is a small beach by the docks, which probably looks very inviting on a sunny day. We walk on the road up the hill, along the waterfront, and the view over the bay is very nice, with the golden sunset glow reflecting off the water. The houses along this road look very normal compared to the big houses we’ve seen in previous places, and they all have very nice lawns. It is a very quiet town, we only see few people about.
After a full tour of the town we return to Cloudy Bay, right on time to see the red sky after sunset. Boys have some beers in the cockpit, enjoying the glow in the sky and chatting away with soft music in the background. Then we debate on the plan for the next few days. As the night comes with more chill, we retire for dinner and more chatting in the cozy saloon.
Action packed day again, to be continued tomorrow.
