New Jersey to Chesapeake Bay

Back again... not an overly exciting week, just hard cruising. After our last entry, the next day we headed out to Atlantic City on the Atlantic... not a bad motor sail and actually ended up going further to Ocean City. (Ocean City is the site, I believe, where the Amusement Park was that got destroyed by Hurricane Sandy . You will recall the news clips of the roller coaster, just sitting in the ocean, , totally pummeled by the storm. While crossing over the Atlantic City inlet, we saw some whales, not sure the type,.. humpback or "write"? whales . Saw several schools of silver fish about 1-2' in length , just breaking the surface of the water ... hundreds of them following us while we kept motoring on..
Our journey from Ocean City to Cape May was a tough slug, in 4-5 ' following seas, a bit too much for the Admiral to handle the wheel as we were surfing up and down waves for 4 hours. Winds were 15-20 kn with gusts to 25.. with a weather advisory. In hindsight we would have been better to wait the day. Boat and crew were fine, but just an exhausting 30 mile jaunt down the coast.
Got into Cape May and took a slip for the night, did some laundry and provisioned up .
Cape May to Chesapeake City was a 60 odd mile run up the bay. 13 hours... first 8 hours were great as we left on low tide and current pushed us up stream at 6-8 knots, then we had to slug the last bit out at 4-5 knot taking on the outgoing tide. We hit the D &C canal on low tide and we had to fight the last 14 miles up current. Arrived at Chesapeake City at 7:30pm Saturday night and anchored in the harbor. Next day entered into Chesapeake bay and made it to Rock Hall Landing  (40 miles) downstream.  The winds were strong and the 2 knot current made for a noisy and rocky night on the hook, There was a small craft advisory for the next day, so we decided to stay over another day. The rest didn't hurt either. Today we are in the Solomon Islands, about half way down the Chesapeake.
As I mentioned we did a lot of traveling this week, as the weather window was relatively in our favor, but just cold.

Mellowing out after 9 hours motoring

Crabbers on the Chesapeake

Atlantic City

 

Sunset  New Jersey Shore

See you next week. So far about 1250 miles completed, just over half way. Boat and wife still loving it, but it sure is hard work...