Chesapeake City to Cape May NJ

May 30, 2002 - Chesapeake City to Cape May NJ

We left Chesapeake City about 9:10 for Cape May, about 69 miles away. It was very foggy early, so everyone got a delayed start. When the fog started to lift, the boats started to pull out and go single file along the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal for about 12 miles to the Delaware River. The C&D Canal originally opened in 1829 to link the Chesapeake Bay with the Delaware River. Chesapeake City was built to house workers who built the Canal and union forces were stationed there to prevent the Confederate Army from blowing it up. The Canal was rebuilt in the 1900's to eliminate the locks and to let large boats use it. The Canal is now 12 miles long and 450 feet wide and 35 feet deep, so large ocean going ships can travel it. After we got into the Delaware River we found bad fog banks and it was sort of scary to see HUGE barges and tows looming at us --too close for comfort. NEVER A DULL MOMENT. Serendipity and Mo Martini were ahead of us, so they tried to alert us as to what was going on, but we still had to keep on our toes.

We arrived in Cape May mid afternoon, and the three of us washed the boat, cleaned up and had Jan and Tom from Serendipity and Bill and Bonnie from Mo Martini over for cocktails. They had made reservations for all of us for dinner at the Lobster House and had arranged transportation, as the restaurant was not in walking distance. They had ridden their bikes into town earlier and bought fresh crab claws for us to enjoy during our cocktails - a real hit. Dinner was fun, but they served way too much food for my liking. When our taxi van picked us up, Karen the driver offered to drive us around town for a little tour. It looked like a darling old town and we all wished we could stay for a day or so to enjoy it, but we all felt that we needed to push on to Atlantic City the next day. Back to the boat to make our plans for the trip to Atlantic City in the morning. We decided that we would all try to leave very early.