Greetings Friends and Fans!
Some of you may be reading our blog for the first time. Welcome! Others may have read it previously. If you’re in the latter category we 1) appreciate your loyalty, as it’s been too long since we made any entries; and 2) apologize now for any repeats in tales/stories about previously covered topics!
This year our cruising will be a little different than in the past. In addition to doing the fall boat shows (Newport, Baltimore, Annapolis) we’ll be heading up to Maine for two months! This will be brand new cruising territory for us and we are excited to share it with all of you as we go.
On May 20 we left the ideal climate of Florida, land of optional masks, for cloudy, cool, mask-required Maryland. But “Daystar” awaited us which was great! Our mini-van was absolutely packed to the gills with supplies. It took nine dock carts full to empty it! Once settled in, we felt more relaxed to spend a couple of evenings with our good friends from Vero Beach who summer in Easton.
We departed from Oxford on Monday morning. (At least I think it was Monday! Some of you may already grasp the fact then when you’re boating, you hardly know what day it is much less the date! So don’t take my reference to days or dates too seriously!) Our first destination was Chesapeake City along the C&D Canal on the border of Delaware and Maryland. (See the blog entry dated September 12, 2012 for information about and the history of the C&D Canal.) A relatively quiet little town, it was party-central on Memorial Day! It was a lovely day and folks were ready to escape from their lockdowns. We anchored near the boat ramp (not by choice, for sure!) and spent a greater part of the evening totally entertained as day-boats were loaded on to trailers.
When we awoke at 5:30 the next morning for our 15-mile trek up the canal, we were greeted by the thickest fog we’d ever experienced. Fortunately no one else was out, plus we had our trusty Mr. Radar to guide us. We made it through just fine. The fog had dispersed a bit for the trip across the Delaware Bay and the waters were calm there. We reached Cape May by early afternoon.
John and I consider ourselves clam chowder aficionados! We absolutely love the clam chowder at The Lobster House in Cape May. It’s a 2-minute walk from the marina where we were docked, so we treated ourselves to two quarts of chowder plus some swordfish for dinner. Yum!
Next up: the Jersey coast. For those of you who have followed this blog, you may remember that we label the Jersey coast “the bane of Betsie’s existence” because it’s a long (12+ hours) and boring trip. In the past, we did it all at once, sometimes during the day, sometimes in the night. In recent years, we broke up the 12-hour trip and stopped at Atlantic City or Barnegat Bay. But this time, we decided to once again just go for it and get it done. And ya know, it wasn’t that bad! Still long, still boring, but not bad. We ran at 9-9.5 most of the day, 15+ for two hours. The fog followed us the entire day. We couldn’t see land (even tho we were running less than a mile from the shore) and didn’t see but one boat the entire day. All eyes were on the radar, once again.
As we approached Lower New York Bay, this is “the view” we had! This is what it looks like on a clear day!
We arrived at the marina on Staten Island, sprayed off the boat, walked the girls, heated up the chowder, and then had a really good night’s sleep!