The plight of the fair weather sailor!
Three days in Rock Hall, Maryland has turned into 3 weeks as we wait for a 4 day weather window to head north along the New Jersey coast. It has ben a very stormy start to summer with thunderstorms rolling through every bunch of days.
While thunderstorms are still in the forecast for tomorrow, they are only forecast as “possibility of thunderstorms” – good enough; time to go!
We ready Rocinante and check the tides for the C&D canal to time our arrival for a fair tide heading east from the Chesapeake Bay to the Delaware Bay and determined that heading out around 7:00 AM would be about right.
The Chesapeake & Delaware Canal
Our sail up the Chesapeake was perfect – we made great time and hit the C&D as expected. Better still was the fact that no commercial traffic was coming, or going, through the canal! We made a quick stop to top off our diesel and continued east at a steady pace. We were quite happy with our speed until a couple of bicyclist on the trail that runs parallel to the canal overtook us!
But alas, we’re in no hurry, so we chugged along at our leisurely pace and we were soon passing under the St. Georges Bridge and officially crossed into Delaware – woohoo!
Unfortunately, the weather was already starting to get funky and all hell broke loose as we exited the confines of the C&D canal. One of the challenges of this particular leg on a slow moving sailing vessel sailing east through the canal and then heading south on the Delaware is that you either get a fair tide through the canal or down the bay – not both! Well, the “possible” thunderstorm showed up after all with heavy rains and winds against the opposing tide. Translation; incredibly slow going against the current and bashing into short 3 foot seas with poor visibility – fun!
It took us well over an hour to travel the short distance to Reedy Island and now the fun really begins – we need to turn broadside to the waves & wind and get through a small cut in the rock wall that makes up the Reedy Island dike; which, of course, is exactly due west into the setting sun!
As usual, we make it through and once we get behind the wall, we see that it’s no longer a threat and is now our friend! The waters are relatively calm and almost flat here as we watch the broiling bay just feet beyond said refuge. We head a bit north to get behind Reedy Island and anchor along with 3 other vessels and settle in for the night.
Cape May, NJ
At day break, we check the weather forecast. Yesterday was a long, tiring day and we almost make the decision to sit it out at anchor. But at the last minute we decide to go for it, pull up anchor and head back out. As we pass out through the cut in the rock wall, we note that it seems much wider than it did last night when we were trying to get in!
As usual, for every “bad” day, we usually have several good days and luck was with us this day – we had a great trip down the Delaware, so much so that we decided to change our destination from Delaware’s harbor of refuge behind the cape to New Jersey’s Cape May harbor. Not only were we familiar with the anchorage in Cape May, but it would buy us an hour or so on our next leg up the coast the following day.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t use the Cape May Canal this time because of Rocinante’s 64’ mast, but the trip around the Cape was not bad at all and the only rough portion of the trip was at the entrance to Cape May. At least this time we weren’t dealing with the after effect of a storm and no one was anchored in the entrance channel fishing!
Anyway, we got in and headed towards the Coast Guard station – it’s a great area to anchor for the night and while it was fairly crowded on this particularly day, we managed to find a spot to drop the hook. We had spent two long days getting here, so we decided to take a day to simply veg out.
We had a great morning, but a not so great afternoon; the secret to anchoring in close quarters is that everyone swings in the same direction, nobody hits anybody else and everyone is happy! On this day however, the tide & wind started playing games and before long, boats were facing every which way! Our boat and another where soon playing tag and I decided to pull up anchor and move before one of us became IT!
The problem was anchoring again. With everyone swinging every which way, it was impossible to determine anyone’s swing radius and thus impossible to pick a safe spot to drop our anchor. In the end, several of us spent the afternoon motoring around in circles waiting for things to settle down before we could anchor again for the night. Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep that night; waking up quite often and popping my head out to make sure everything was ok.
Atlantic City, NJ
Our last time out, we sailed south down the coast of NJ on an overnight run of 24hrs from the Atlantic Highlands to Cape May. This time, we decided to make a stop in Atlantic City to break the trip up into two legs; an 8 hr trip from Cape May to Atlantic City & a second 16 hr trip from Atlantic City to the Atlantic Highlands.
Old man and the sea!
We headed out from Cape May with practically now breeze and a 2’ swell from the south, so… yep,you guessed it, we motored! We had read that the anchorage in Atlantic City was awful. Lots of traffic, lots of wakes, lots of noise and generally uncomfortable. A place to spend the night if you had to, but certainly no longer.
Well, I’m not sure if folks are pickier than us or if we simply got lucky, but it actually wasn’t bad at all. Yes, we had a few folks fly by leaving us bouncing in their wake, but quite honestly, we’ve paid good money to stay in marinas that were far, far worse than this anchorage. All in all, we’d do,it again!
It’s been quite a few years since we’ve been to Atlantic City; I think we’ll stop in for a day or two on our way south and check out the boardwalk.
Till next time,
Carlos & Maria
SV Rocinante…_/)
Photos – Rock Hall, MD to Atlantic City, NJ
Heading down the C&D Canal.
Time to switch Charts -goodbye for now Chesapeake!
Sunset while anchored in Cape May, NJ
On final approach to Atlantic City, NJ
Our anchorage in Atlantic City – What a view!