Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Pictures: 1/4 bushel of crabs in our dinghy, along with fresh water; houses along the New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway, decks hanging over the water; bay side of Atlantic City, wind generators with casinos in the background; sailboat that was towed in to Atlantic Highlands after getting loose from it's mooring in the high winds (the tow boat operators have employees on the sailboat deck running the boat the last quarter mile)

As of last night we have made it to Chesapeake City, Delaware, right on the state border with Maryland. We spent our final two days in New Jersey taking a nice walk through an historic town, buying crabs from a local crab boat, eating steamed crabs for lunch on our boat and getting past the last of Delaware Bay. We also had a kind local man offer to take us to a grocery store and back. It was at least 8 miles each way, so he was a true Good Samaritan. When we asked what he did before he retired he said he was police chief for a 60,000-person city in south Jersey.

We had seen more of New Jersey than we wanted, but we were safe, comfortable, and relatively happy so it could be worse. On Thursday Oct. 20 we were anchored off of Greenwich, N.J. This is what I wrote then:

If it does not stop blowing we may not get to see what the guide book promises is a village with many early American homes. Hmmm. Sounds like Cohasset or Duxbury. To get here we traveled off of our course a few miles, along a serpentine river (the Cohansey), away from Delaware Bay because we did not have time to get all the way through the bay before dark. As it was, we were the only boat we saw all afternoon on our trip from Cape May, NJ to Greenwich. Many boats were waiting the forecasted winds out in Cape May or Atlantic City. However yesterday turned out to not be as windy as projected so we did make some progress.

Prior to yesterday, we had two days of interesting cruising in the back waters of the Jersey Shore. We were following the NJ Intracoastal Waterway which we hadn’t had any experience with before. The bridges are low, most at 30 ft. clearance or less. The depth of the channel is mostly 8 ft. or more but you have to be vigilant watching the depth-sounder. There are a lot of marshes and birds on your starboard, going south, and lots of beach houses and docks on your port.

After our first night’s anchorage on the NJ ICW we headed out from behind a low island to leave the way we had come in and were immediately confronted with dredging pipes and buoys. The workers were not too helpful about which way to go to get around this and we grounded out in an attempt to get around the buoys. We had been hopeful that with our Mainship we would NEVER go aground but here we were already stuck! The workers came out in a scow that had a 25 HP outboard on it and told us they were trying to signal us to go out at the other end of the small island; they did offer to try and tow us off the mud and they were successful. Evidently the signs warning of the dredging in that area had blown away and when we passed the dredging equipment the night before the workers were already gone for the day and we made it past somehow. We can float in 36 inches of water, so to get stuck we are in REALLY shallow water!

Backing up to last weekend, we spent it in Atlantic Highlands. That makes 5 and a half days in the Sandy Hook/Atlantic Highlands area. The weather just was not cooperating. We were able to get groceries, wine and beer, and also replaced two of our boat batteries there so it is a good stop for reprovisioning. The anchorage was secure and access to a dinghy dock was easy. There is also a great-looking bike path that evidently goes for quite a way along the shore. I wasn’t able to get my bike off the boat due to the winds and rain.

Our plans are to get to Annapolis and do some laundry, pick up a GPS chip being sent there, and other housekeeping duties before we head south through the rest of Chesapeake Bay. Stay tuned!