ssloop: Chesapeake City-Atlantic City

On Friday morning we left our anchorage in Chesapeake City Basin and entered the C&D (Chesapeake-Delaware) Canal. This canal connects the top of the Chesapeake Bay to the top of the Delaware Bay. This canal was built to accommodate ocean ships and tankers to transit from one bay to the other. We traveled 17 miles to Delaware City Marina. In the afternoon we decided to take a walk to check out the town. Twenty minutes later we were done. Yup...pretty small. At night we went to dinner with Mark & Vicki from Blue Willow. We ate at a restaurant on Clinton Street named "Lewinsky's on Clinton". (really...we are not kidding)

5:30am on Saturday we left the dock along with 6 other boats to ride the out going tide and southern winds down the Delaware Bay to Cape May. It is important when transiting the Delaware Bay to have winds and current in the same direction. We traveled 61 miles and arrived at South Jersey Marina by noon. In the afternoon we rode our bikes to the downtown and beach areas of Cape May. How pretty! On the way back, we passed by the Coast Guard Base where Sheli's nephew Travis graduated from boot camp! For dinner we met Dave & Michelle from Just Us and Mark & Vicki from Blue Willow for pizza.

Sunday morning we walked to the Cape May Lutheran Church were they had a special Memorial Day Service. It was very patriotic. The afternoon was a grocery shopping adventure...as always. We walked to the bus stop and took the bus to the next town. From there we walked to the Pharmacy for prescriptions and then on to Walmart for oil for the boat. We pushed our cart with 6 gallons of oil 1/4 mile to a Lowes parking lot where we left it. (sorry Walmart). We then carried our oil across a divided highway and a block later found a ShopRite cart abandoned in a parking lot. We loaded up our oil and continued a couple blocks to the ShopRite store where we purchased groceries. We then pushed that cart across the street to another store (sorry ShopRite) where we completed our shopping. We knew there was no way we could handle all this on the bus so we used Uber to get back to the boat. Whew!

When we depart Cape May, we must travel "outside" on the ocean. After looking at the forecast, we realized we would be staying here until later in the week due to high winds and waves. On Monday, we decided to move to Canyon Club Marina to wait for a good weather window. Upon arrival at the marina, we were invited to a hamburger cookout by the marina pool. They claimed it was to celebrate Memorial Day. We chose to believe it was in honor of Sheli's birthday. It was a beautiful sunny warm day. What a special birthday.

Tuesday we rode our bikes to Wildwood Beach and Boardwalk. The ride there we fine, the return was a bear pushing against the 20 mph winds. Whew again! That evening we were exhausted from the winds, so we cooked out and ate on the boat.

It appeared that our weather window was going to open up on Thursday, so Wednesday was spent working around the boat. By late afternoon we finished our projects and rewarded ourselves with a little pool time.

Mid morning on Thursday we pulled out of Cape May and traveled 45 miles to Atlantic City. We rocked and rolled in the 5-6 ft swells on the Atlantic Ocean. It was an uncomfortable ride, but safe. Our marina for the night was at the Golden Nugget Casino. We took the local bus to the famous Atlantic City Boardwalk in the afternoon. It was not very busy, but we could tell this place must really hop in the summer. At night we enjoyed the rooftop hot tub the the Golden Nugget.

Next stop NYC! We plan to head out early Friday morning to take advantage of a good weather day before the winds return.

Delaware City Marina