Chestertown Maryland

We came up the Chester River to Chestertown.  25 miles by water, Half that by land.  We'll spend three days here visiting our old friend Dick Owen who, for 40 years, piloted ships up and down the Chesapeake Bay from Cape Henry to Baltimore, a 200 mile trip.  I once was lucky enough to go down and back with him once.  Pilot comes on board and ships captain goes to their quarters.  Dick the boss.  I met him when I was a Hopkins in the early 60's and he and his wife Paula have been terrific hosts, driving us around for groceries and supplies.

There is a storm named Melissa way out in the Atlantic that is throwing amazing storm surge at the mid-Atlantic.  200 miles up the Chesapeake and 25 miles up the Chester River, there is flooding.

There are docks under water at those pilings.

Today we went over to Rock Hall (by car) for their Fall Festival.  Lots of oysters and great music.  Good ol' authentic music.

And a kazoo band.  And a high school steel drum bands.  And lots of oysters.
So we'll head back down the Chester river when the tide turns.  But I have to wonder if a river is a river if it flows both ways.  Isn't that an estuary?  Like the Hudson up to Troy.  Is that a river if it can flow backward?

Rock Hall and old friends

A day of rest in Chesapeake City.  Slept in. Everyone who had raced up the Delaware Bay with us left in the morning.  Finally seeing the "Quebec Navy" and hearing them on the VHF.
Here we are in the C&D hurrying to get our anchor down before dark set in on Monday night.  We didn't make it.

Yesterday morning, Wednesday, we caught the tide just right, enjoyed a following wind and scooted down to Rock Hall where we tied up to the public wharf.  Dear friend Capt. Richard Owen, Chesapeake Bay Pilot ret'd, came and treated us to dinner.

Today we'll head up to Chestertown and do a bunch of maintenance jobs and spend more time with Dick and Paula Owen.  Rosie's To Do list will always be long and we left Vermont expecting to do a lot of the work during our travels.  Endless repairs and upfits.  She used to need 50 amp service with electric range, microwave and AC refrigeration.  But with propane, DC refrigeration and solar panels, we downsized the service to 30 amp.

A few nights ago, as we enjoyed sundowners (cocktails) in the salon Kathleen commented that Rosie's space is about right and she could envision living in a "tiny house".  I agree.  But in the middle of the Delaware Bay all I could think of was the old Breton prayer with the line "O God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small."

Maryland

This is the 8th.  And the last post ended with "We're going to shorten our days"  Hah!

From AC we stopped at Shelter Haven (nice name) in Stone Harbor, figuring we'd make the 50 miles to Cape May in 2 days, like we said.  Very nice little cove surrounded with nice shops and bars!  Thought we'd spend another day.  BUT..
 The next day forecast was southerly winds and sunny.  For the next 5 days it was cloudy, cool with stiff north winds.
From Cape May to the C&D canal (into the Chesapeake) is northerly and long.  So the crew was up and off on the 7th before daylight.  Made the 10 miles to Cape May and just kept going, right past the US Coast Guard training station.

Delaware Bay is one big body of water.  I don't know where George Washington crossed it but we were out of sight of land for half the day, heading north toward Philadelphia.  The crew was patient but wary.

The rising tide didn't give us much push until well up into the river and out of the bay but the engine ran strong and we kept going, staying just outside the shipping channel.

Finally made the C&D canal as the sun was going down.  Another 11 miles to Chesapeake City.
We reached the small harbor that is Chesapeake City in the dark and the anchorage was very full.  But we finally planted the Rocna and got Lacy some relief after a 13 hour sail.
And now we say, "We're going to shorten our days".  Whatever happened to naps?

More New Jersey

From Manasquan we had to take the ICW south.  We're not at Atlantic City and Cape May is our destination. The Jersey waterway is very shallow.  Boats drawing more than 4.5 feet can't do it.  We changed the alarm on our depth  gauge from 5' to 4' to stop the incessant beeping!

New Jersey does have beautiful beaches though.

This is Seaside Park where we had to spend two nights riding out 25 knot winds with gusts to 30.  We love our Rocna anchor.

From there we planned a 50 mile trip so we would have the wind to our backs and could ride the tide.  I worked perfectly for the first 40.  As we approached AC the shoaling was horrific and the waterway curved and ambled through low marsh and shoals.  We made a mistake that we will learn from (again).  We took what GPS said was the channel instead of what the buoys indicated.  Chart data is old.  The Coast Guard moves the buoys to reflect the shoaling.  So we scraped Rosie's bottom.  That's not running aground BTW!

We could see Atlantic City from 20 miles out but it took for ever to get here.

So along day.  8 hours of stressing over depths.  We're tied up at a marina in AC and we're going to shorten our days from now on.

Highlight of the day?  Face-timing with Cyrus, Diana and the kids!

New Jersey

We're not in

P

Kansas anymore.   We left Manhattan for Atlantic Highlands.
Kathleen says "I made it here . I can make it anywhere.

So we "med moored at AH...

Headed out of Atlantic Highlands accompanied by dolphins. Greeted at Manasquan by a whale!

The Hudson

We are in Waterford NY where the Erie Canal (Mohawk River) meets the Hudson.  We'll hang here for a couple of days to do some chores that weren't completed because we said we were going to leave on the 22nd ad by God we did.
Boats running well.  Point Bay to Whitehall in 8 hours with strong wind on our nose.  Old friends on Sunday night and Monday morning meant we only got to Ft Edwards Monday night.  (Ain't no "there" there.)  That's where the Champlain Canal dumps into the Hudson River.  Four locks, 2 up and 2 down.
We've been accompanied by just one other boat, a Ranger tug from S. Caroline with one old cuss on it.  Why no Quebec navy this year?  One dock master said "Trump!"  Another said the hurricane.  Another said the weak Loonie.  I think it's Trump.  Anyway, we've had the canal and river to ourselves.  Big thunderstorm though.
Today we did the remaining 7 locks.

Waterford loves Tugs.  The have a Tug Parade in September and tugs come from all over the northeast to participate.  We feel welcome.

So it seems to us we've been gone a long time already 3 days!) because we are still stowing stuff and getting our processes down.   Haven't settled in yet.  8 months can be a very short time, like walk through a store and it's already Christmas.  And it can be a long time, like yesterday was the autumnal equinox but the leaves still have to fall or be blown off in that last wet windy day followed by "stick season? and then the first ground-covering snow before December 21st.  A lot has to happen just to get byAutumn.  Then there's winter.

But 8 months is a perfect amount of time for us to wander south, visiting friends and family, running from the cold.  We're going to take it slow, try to be at anchor by 3 each day and exploring places we didn't visit last time, like Savannah.

Before we left we had to lower Rosie's mast for some low bridges.

 but we also fitted her with a new dress.  A stabilizing sail that will also come in handy if the wind every gets behind us.

So all is good with us.  As long as Verizon, Hewlett-Packard, Google and the whole world of freakin' technology doesn't object, I'll post again in a couple of days.  Expect we'll be in Castleton-on-the-Hudson and Catskill next.  Hope to see some family in the Big Apple this weekend.

Be patient Rosie...

Be Patient Rosie.  Not yet.  At the gas dock stuffing provisions on board.

The quartermaster is a genius!