Jersey boy homecoming

We are under way southbound in the Delaware Bay, bound for Cape May, NJ. That will have us poised for the home stretch, the run in the north Atlantic up the NJ coast to New York Harbor. It has certainly been quite the ride, and this is the earliest in the year we've ever been this far north.

Thursday after I posted here we continued our excellent run -- right up until we were east of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, at which point we wolfed down our dinner just before driving right in to a line of severe thunderstorms, which the weather radio had been screaming about for an hour. 35 knot winds, driving rain, hail, and, most concerning, "continuous cloud to ground lightning," as the forecast put it, stayed with us around the corner into the Patuxent and nearly to Solomons.

Passing Hope Creek (left) and Salem (right) nuclear plants after sunrise this morning.

Louise was all geared up and braced for anchoring in driving rain, but we got a reprieve just before we arrived at the harbor, and we anchored in a dry spell with the sun trying to break through. We had the hook down by 7:30 in a familiar spot near Leg Island (map), the closest spot to both the town dinghy dock and a trio of waterfront restaurants with docks, on the theory we'd be there a couple of days.

Friday's sea conditions were better than forecast, and, in hindsight, we should have just weighed anchor and set off in the morning. But a multi-night stop in Solomons had taken root in our brains, and we remained firmly in place. I knocked a project off the list, repositioning, securing, and caulking the flooring I installed nearly two years ago but never got around to finishing after letting it fully relax into place.

Light show at our anchorage in Solomons, courtesy of the storm we had just driven through.

The system we had feared did move in, albeit with less bite, and it rained all afternoon, which convinced us we would be donning our foul-weather gear to sprint to the very nearest restaurant dock for dinner. But once again we got a reprieve, and when we saw a gap in the rain we quickly splashed the tender and went ashore at the Lighthouse Restaurant. Still the closest place, thinking it might well be raining again on the return trip.

It was great to get off the boat, and dinner was good, at least right up until my very last bite of crab cake, where I found a human hair. The manager was quite apologetic and took my dinner off the tab, but much time will have to pass before I am ready to return. It was still dry after dinner and we strolled a couple of blocks before heading home. Had we known the whole dinner excursion would be anything other than a waterlogged and hurried affair, we might have tried to connect with some friends who spent the season here, but we figured there might be time for that later in the stop.

The view from our dinner table.

Encouraged by the better-than-forecast conditions on Friday, Louise checked the weather Saturday morning, and it looked like we might be able to get a late start after the worst of it in the morning and just make Annapolis by sunset. We had already decked the tender Friday night, "just in case," or I would have headed in to the dinghy dock for more of a walk in the morning.

It looked like a noon start would be best, but circumstances conspired to drive us out of the anchorage more than an hour sooner. That would be the nesting pair of osprey who decided, at 10am, that Vector was absolutely, positively in the perfect spot for their nest. After the third time climbing precariously atop the soft top to heave their nesting material, and even a freshly dead fish, overboard, we decided they would not be deterred until we left the area. I even tied a streamer on the VHF antenna, which worked back in NY the last time we had this problem, to no avail.

We could have moved to another spot in the harbor, but with just an hour or so to our intended departure, we opted to just weigh anchor and slow-roll our way out of the harbor. A half hour later, we reached Drum Point, where the Patuxent empties into Chesapeake Bay, and we could see the conditions were not yet favorable. We dropped a lunch hook off the beach just behind the point (map), where it was completely calm, to wait it out.

Sunset over Chesapeake Bay and the western shore from our anchorage off the Little Choptank.

And wait we did, a full two hours, before things settled enough to venture out. We could still make Annapolis, although we'd again be eating under way. The forecast had told us that conditions would improve throughout the day, and certainly they had while we waited at Drum Point. We expected seas to get a bit bigger as we left the protection of Cove Point and faced the full fetch of the bay, and that proved true.

After making the turn and settling in to our new course, however, seas continued to build. A re-check of the forecast revealed that it had changed completely. What should have been steadily improving conditions throughout the afternoon were now forecast to be steadily worsening conditions. Now, however, we were in the middle of the bay, with the nearest protected anchorage in any direction hours away.

We briefly considered turning around and running the two hours back to Solomons, but ultimately decided to press on ahead and find shelter on the eastern shore. After another hour and a half of bashing, getting salt spray all over what the storms had so nicely rinsed, we were finally able to turn onto the Little Choptank River. Another hour got us to Hills Point Cove, west of Ragged Island and Hills Point Neck, where we would be protected as the winds clocked around to the east overnight. We dropped the hook as close to shore as we could get (map).

The only traffic we passed in the canal. This skipper said he sails the Caribbean on his Island Packet sailboat, which coincidentally is the same boat our tugboat-skipper friend sails.

It was a bit bouncy through dinner, but then the winds shifted and we had a calm night. We got an early start Sunday morning to take advantage of the calm, but the tide cycle had us driving uphill the entire day. Annapolis was no longer in the cards, and we passed on by, hugging the eastern shore. Once past Rock Hall there are not a lot of stopping options, and we pressed on ahead to an old standby, Whorton Creek, where we dropped the hook in a new spot off Button Beach (map) right at dinner time.

The long day had us perfectly positioned to have a fair tide through the canal, and yesterday we weighed anchor at 8:30 for a fair tide all the way to Reedy Point. We whizzed right past a favorite stop at Chesapeake City, where we would have had the anchorage and dinghy dock to ourselves, and shot out the eastern end of the canal with a knot still behind us.

Not a great view from our anchorage. Reedy Island at left and a downbound ship at right.

Without starting mid-canal, as we usually do, it's not possible to have a fair tide in both the canal and the Delaware River. So as soon as we made the turn were were facing over two knots against us. Rather than push against that kind of tide for three hours, only to get a dozen miles downriver to an unprotected anchorage, we opted to make it a short day and hole up behind Reedy Island and its boat-eating dike.

We came in at the north end, a new entrance for us, dodging a sailboat and a couple of fishermen, and then spent the better part of an hour clawing our way just three miles downriver to the anchorage, where we dropped the hook squarely between Reedy Island and the historic community of Port Penn (map).

The waterfront that made this a port had shut down by the early 20th century, and has long since been reclaimed by the river, with the town now separated from the water by stands of reeds and dense foliage. A boat ramp 3/4 mile away would provide access to the town, which I would like to explore, but with both water and air temperatures in the 50s it was less appealing. The map says there are two restaurants here as well, but we ate aboard.

Sunrise over Reedy Island this morning as we were getting under way.

This morning we were up before dawn to take advantage of as much ebb as we could get. We threaded the needle through the small navigation gap in the dike and angled across the river. At one point we had over three knots behind us and the speedometer read 9.7 knots, which is lightning fast for us. We ran out of tide mid-river and now I am pushing uphill at 5.7 knots.

Normally we would anchor in Cape May, but we need water and 240 volt power to do the laundry. Things just get more expensive going north from here, and so we are biting the bullet and shelling out $3.25 per foot for a marina tonight. Tomorrow we will move to an anchorage to wait for our outside window to Atlantic City.