June 1

While I was away Andy took Dawn and her partner Stan, for a cruise through Great Egg Harbour, as far as Margate, and then returned to the Marina for a BBQ.  He also did some work on the railings and did some shopping as well as picked up my computer.

June 3-  return trip to Philadelphia

Yesterday was my travel day back to New Jersey, and it didn’t go as planned.  I had stayed at the house Thursday night, didn’t sleep well as I had  a cab picking  me up before 6 to get me to the Winnipeg airport for 6:30  for my 7:50 flight.  The day started out great.  We boarded the plane at 7:25, pulled away from the gate, and then the captain came on saying there was a fuel guage issue.  We waited around for maintenance to come, and by 8:45 were told that we had to go back to the gate.  At about 915 we deplaned, with anticipation of a revised departure at 11:00.  We were each given a $10 voucher, and they began rebooking flights as over 30 people had connections in Toronto that they wouldn’t make.  I made Andy and Dawn aware of my delay.  We departed at about 11:20, and arrived in Toronto at 3:15 EST.  My new flight wasn’t scheduled to board until 4:20, with a 4:50 departure.  I only had my carry on bag and computer bag.  American Security  had problems—a glass door to enter Gate F, was not working, so we waited about 15 minutes, until finally the Canadian Customs officers, allowed about 40-50 people go through their door to get into the USA space- which was bedlam.    I had been warned about this fiasco by my coworker Veronique, as she had issues  about 2 weeks earlier.   We had to line up in order to  put all luggage through the scanners.   If your departure time was before 4:30- they sent you to a shorter line. There were likely 150 people ahead of me. I finally reached the scanners and had to   take off our shoes—both my knees are still bothering me- so this was no easy task.   We then went and scanned our passports and met with an Agent.  This entire process took about an hour- so I made it to my gate by  4:30.  This was OK- because our plane didn’t show up at the gate until about 4:50.  We waited for it to deplane, and then boarded, with a revised   5:15 departure, which in fact became a 5:45 departure- because of a delay caused by weather in Philadelphia .

Arrived in Philli, shortly after 7pm, and Dawn found me quite quickly, we were in the car by about 7:20 headed for a restaurant by the marina.   Had a nice dinner with Dawn & Stan, and then they drove us to the marina at about 9:45.  Very long Day for me!  Happy to be back in my boat bed, but had trouble sleeping as I couldn’t get comfortable because of my knees.

June 4

We got up shortly after 5, and departed All Season’s marina by 6 a.m.

We passed under the Ocean City bridge,

once we got to the Great Egg Harbour inlet, we went outside into the Atlantic for an hour, there were swells, but no large waves or wind.

We  re-entered the ICW through  Abescon inlet near Atlantic  City at 8:04-  Here are several pictures of the Casinos in AC- not all of them are operational.

Once we got back into the ICW , we proceeded  another  2 hours to Beach Haven Yacht club,  and filled our diesel and water tanks.  We continued on and reached Barnegat Bay around 1:00.  It’s a gorgeous day, so lots of fishing boats out, crab traps too.

We also came across a sailing regatta near Surf City.

We passed though the Bayshore bridge at about 2:20,

here’s some of the houses along the ICW.

Looking down this road you can see the sand on the  Atlantic beaches, so it gives you a perspective of  the distance between the  ICW and  ocean in New Jersey.

After traveling 80 miles, we  ended up anchoring  at 3:55 , about 3 miles up the Metedeconk River  Hopefully we are out of the path of  storm  “Bonnie”.

There’s been a fair bit of rocking and waves, as it is such a nice day and everyone is out in their boats- this should die down at dark, and once the rain comes.

This pirate ship came by after we were anchored.

May 22-25

The rainy and windy weather continues in New Jersey, so we sit in the boat and catch up on our reading.

On Sunday we found a laundry,  as well as something else that is familiar to us – a TD bank, they seem to be everywhere.

In the afternoon we drove up to May’s Landing,

to meet Dawn and Helen for supper.

On Monday we went to the computer repair store for it’s opening at 9:00, I was told my computer has a memory card and battery issue, but my hard drive is fine.  I had brought a memory stick and made a backup of  my  pictures and documents.  The battery had to be ordered so it would be 3 or more days before the computer is fixed.  For my trip to Winnipeg, I will take Andy’s, as he is able to get emails on the tablet, and once  my computer is fixed, he will have it to use.  We returned the car and got a ride back to the boat.  At 10:30, we got a call from Rafe, he was approaching our marina on the  NJ ICW and hadn’t encountered any shallow water as yet—his draft is 3 feet.

For the remainder of the day and on Tuesday, I tried to figure out what I would be taking back to Winnipeg, and started packing.  Andy is working on a project of sanding and re-staining with Cetol the  Teak railings, as they have become beaten up in places, as we’ve rubbed against docks and poles.

On Thursday morning, Dawn is going to pick me up before 7:00 and drive me to Philadelphia to catch my plane which is taking me to Kansas City via Minneapolis.   Robert and Debora Kelly will pick me up at the airport in KC with our car (they’ve had it since November).  We will spend the night there and then travel North to Canada.  I think it is a 12 hour drive, and I’m hoping to make it home Friday night.  I’ll stay a couple nights at my house, visit with some friends and then will check into the Canad Inn for our Eastern Star Grand Session.  Thank goodness for our Star connections- it is star members- Dawn, Robert and Debora, that are assisting me in my trip home.

Now an update on the weather—we’ve had a month of rain, and yes it did rain yesterday as well, and was windy.

However today is suppose to be about 30 and remain that way for the rest of the week —hard to believe after all these days in the low double digits, I checked the Winnipeg forecast—rain and thunderstorms are predicted  with highs in the 20’s.  I’m use to the rain- will I be able to handle the heat?

There may not be another post until I return on June 3^rd, although the Captain may surprise us all and post  something.  Hope my sister Heather has a great birthday today.

May 20th

According to the waterway guide the waters of Delaware Bay are  considered to by many  boaters to be rough, tedious and inhospitable. The bay is notorious for building up short, choppy seas quickly and creating rough weather than local reports indicate. 

Thankfully none of this happened on Friday.  As Tim from the marina had indicated we  would have the perfect day if we timed our trip to be in Cape May before 3:00.

We left Delaware City marina at 8:00,following Richard and Jo Ann on l’intemporel

and proceeded out of the channel and into the Delaware River.  It was a  about a 52 mile run to the Cape May canal.  Initially we were running against the tide, we  passed the  Salem Nuclear  Power plant at  9:15.

We reached the Ship John shoal light at 11:10.

We ran outside of the shipping channel for most of the trip and the  seas were calm, with few waves or swells.  There was some turbulence when  we met or were passed by one of these large ships.

At 12:45 we  reached the Miah Maull Shoal light, at this point we started  a course towards

the Cape May canal which was still about 15 miles away.  We reached the inlet at 2:30, the water was starting to   become a little wavy caused by the wind and change in tidal direction.   There was a dredge at the mouth of the canal and the ferry  boat was almost  ready to depart

  we contacted both of them for instructions and proceeded into the canal. We reached the Cape May harbour  around 3:00 and anchored off the Coast Guard station.

  Andy looked at the charts and tide tables and realized that low tide  in the harbour was at 1:30 and if we waited about 40 minutes  we would have a rising tide and could proceed farther into New Jersey   We weighed anchor at 3:45 and started the windy trip through creeks and bays.

 We reached Wildwood at  4:30  and the next inlet (Hereford)  from the Atlantic, which gave us a boost in speed for a short time.   We reached Stone Harbour at 5:06,

where we had originally thought we would anchor, we decided to continue on while we had the  rising tidal effects.   We requested the 11 foot  bridge to be opened, and got through it quickly, but the bridge tender seemed to have an issue putting it back down.

We passed through Avalon and a second inlet (Townsends) at 6:00, we went though Sea Island   Bridge at 6:24  and then on to  Strathmere and the Corson Inlet.  We passed under the Peck Beach Bridge at 7:30 and reached All Season’s Marina in Marmora NJ on the other side. Since  we were early and not expected until  the morning,   we tied up on the fuel dock for the night.  It was not dark yet nor raining– a great day, we pushed it traveling 96 miles for the day- but we were secured before the predicted bad weather moved in.

May 21st

The day didn’t start out well, my computer locked up and I wasn’t able to use it at all- not sure what the problem is.

After 8:00, we got our slip assignment and moved the boat to F16, where it will stay until June 4th.  I am flying home on May 26th for a week, for the Manitoba Eastern Star Grand Session, returning June 3rd.   We rented a car for the remainder of the weekend, and took my computer into a nearby computer shop an assessment hopefully will get it back on Monday.  We then did some shopping and found a Verizon store to buy more time for our Mi-Fi, as the marina doesn’t have Wi-fi.    We contacted Dawn  who was a Grand Representative to Manitoba a few years ago (Helen Lipsey’s counterpart) and will meet up with her tomorrow– she is going to be driving me to Philadelphia airport on Thursday.

We then drove to Cape  May to visit with Rafe, who was there waiting out the weather yes it is raining and the winds are blowing making water travel impossible.

 We went for ice cream, and then supper, watched the Belmont stakes horse race, and then had dessert.

We returned to the marina, the wind was still howling and the rain was still falling.

May 22nd

We will be off to find a laundry mat, as there is no laundry at this marina, and will meet Dawn later in the day.

May 18, 19

We left our anchorage at  9:00 and headed back down the Sassafras River to the  Bay.  Coming down the river we came across what is termed a fish trap, on the charts. Not sure how it works but the birds were watching and waiting.

We turned north at 9:56 and followed the channel into Elk River.   Here’s one of the many lights along the river

and here are the range marker  lights for Back Creek directing us  towards  Chesapeake City and the start of the  Canal.

We  arrived at the Chesapeake City bridge at noon,

we had originally thought we would tie up at the free city dock, however there wasn’t enough water  < 4 feet so we move south in the anchorage  basin

and dropped the hook next to a boat called Heaven Scent.  We relaxed for the remainder of the day.  At about 8:00 we had our recurring weather phenomena—a rain shower.

May 19

In the morning we weighed anchor at 8:25 and proceeded into the  14 mile Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.

We passed under 6 bridges

and met two barges.  Not sure what this tow was hauling.

We exited the C&D canal at 10:30, and made out way up the Bulkhead shoal channel and then into the Delaware City Branch channel where the marina was located.

We have set foot in our next state Delaware, and will stay the night, so we can explore the town.  We have now gone over 5500 miles on this adventure.

We went downtown for a late lunch at Crabby Dick’s

and then ice cream

and checked out a number of stores.

We saw this diver’s bell in the park,

and this iris bed of a favourite colour of mine

Also saw this restaurant and the sign says it all!

We returned to the boat so that we could attend the 5:15  briefing on Delaware Bay travel for tomorrow.  Two other couples at the briefing were Canadians 1 from Quebec and 1(Jim and Wendy) from Clear Lake Ontario- who are harbour hosts on the Trent Severn Waterway.

Tim telling us about currents, wind direction and wave heights.

Onward to New Jersey tomorrow!   Hope my Mom has a great birthday!

May 16, 2016

First thing this morning I saw this heron eating a fish.

We left Herrington Harbour North at 10:20, and made our way out of Herring Bay.     We were hailed by Cat Daddy shortly after 11:00 he was behind us and had spent the night at Herrington Harbour South. Andy and Rafe chatted- we will cross paths again.  There was a small craft advisory out for most of the Chesapeake with 2 foot waves and winds gusting to 20 kts.  It didn’t seem that bad out on the bay and it wasn’t raining.  We reached the Thomas Point shoal light at 12:04,

there were several large ships anchored out between the light and Bay Bridge.

We crossed under Bay Bridge around 13:00 and headed  north-east towards Swan Creek.  We entered  the channel into Rock Hall Harbour and tied up to the dock at 14:30, having gone about 30 nautical miles for the day.

Near the boat was this oysterman monument.

We went exploring and found Waterman’s Crab house and stopped for a beer and Maryland crab soup, afterwards we got directions to  down town and walked the 1.5 miles to get there, but none of the stores, including the ice cream store were open,  I did find this free library box and took a book, as you can never have too much reading material on the boat.

On our trek back to the boat I saw this statue in front of someone’s house.

In the evening we went back to Waterman’s Crab house and shared  the steamed crab pot which consisted of   4 large  crab, 12 mussels, 12 clams,   1 lb of shrimp, 2 potatoes and a cob of corn.  It took us well over 1½ hours to dissect the crabs and eat it all.  It was a little messy!  We met a couple from York  PA (Dave and Cindy) at the next table and told them all about our Loop adventure to date.  Following dinner, they came over to the boat to visit some more.

  We went to bed and the boat was rocking against the dock, during the night the wind changed and the tide started coming in and the rocking/banging increased.  This made sleep impossible so  between 2:30 and 4:00, we  tried moving the fenders and securing the boat with additional lines to decrease the banging. (Elaine: not quite as bad as Pahokee in February, but almost). Once we hit high tide at 4:30, it seemed to be a little better.  This was a free dock and it likely would have been ok if there hadn’t been wind–   It was a Sleepless night in Rock Hall!

May 17, 2016

We left the dock at 8:10 and headed back out to Chesapeake Bay, winds were light, but it was overcast.

We had likely only gone about 30 minutes when the predictable happened—it started to rain.

We proceeded north, saw a couple of barges doing some dredging and met one barge  with gravel and the rain continued.

We entered the Sassafras River and anchored near Knight Island at 1:15

having gone a total of 34 NM for the day.  We’re still about 20 miles away from the C&D (Chesapeake & Delaware) Canal  which will take us into Delaware Bay and closer to  the Atlantic Ocean.  .  It’s now 8 p.m. and I finally see the sun, as it is going down. It going to be  an early night, to catch up on the lack of sleep.

May 10 thru 13

We continue to have cool rainy weather here in Maryland.  A record has been set with 15 continuous days with precipitation in  parts of the state—not the best weather for travelling and sightseeing.  We waited around most of Tuesday for the delivery of the oil switch—in the late afternoon we learned that the UPS guy had been in the area around 12:15- but didn’t have the correct address.  Andy’s phone number was on the shipping label but he didn’t think to call us.  So, no part Tuesday.  On Wednesday we finally got the part at noon.  Andy called the mechanic however he wasn’t able to make it to our boat until later in the day.  Andy was able to replace it on his own, and then proceeded to change the oil in the starboard engine.

On Thursday the plan had been to leave Herrington Harbour, however we were fogged in.  The rainy weather was to continue, so we decided to stay at this marina until after the weekend. We rented a car so we could drive to a couple of the places we had hoped to see by boat.  In the afternoon we walked around the marina and checked out the historic village.

These are the trees with the bright purple/pink  flowers that I admired in South Carolina

On Friday after getting the car we drove to Annapolis.  We went on a 2.5 hour walking tour of the State Capital and some of the historic buildings in town in the rain.

It including going into the state capital building and seeing where Washington resigned as commander-in-chief.

We also went to the United States Naval Academy, located on the banks of the Severn River which was founded in 1845.  This facility trains 4000 plus midshipmen to become officers in the US Navy and marine corps.   

The residence for these young men and women is called Bancroft Hall.

We visited the Naval Academy Chapel where here was some amazing stained glass windows.

In the crypt of the chapel there is the remains of Commodore John Paul Jones, who was one of the naval leaders of the American Revolution.

Here’s a view of the harbour from the city docks.

On Saturday, we plan to go across the Bay bridge to the Eastern shore and visit St. Michaels.

May 6,7,8,9

On Friday for forecast was for rain all day and that’s what we had.  Andy decided it was a good day to change the oil in the engines.  When he started up the engines, he noticed that he had an oil leak in the starboard engine, and there was about a quart of oil in the bilge.  Because we’re at a full-service marina, he called a couple of the contractors on site to see if someone could come take a look.  He was told there was a 2 week backlog but one company may be able to have someone come on Saturday on O/T, they would let us know later in the day.

Andy met a mechanic from on our dock working on another boat, who came to check our leak.  He told us what we required, and we called Trans Atlantic Diesel for the parts we had to send them this picture to ensure they sent the right one. 

We should have them on Monday.  So Andy changed the Port engine oil, and cleaned up the spill under the starboard.  It’s a 31-year-old boat things wear out!

On Saturday morning, we got picked up by Enterprise as we had rented a car, so we could go into Washington to play tourist.  It is only a 35 mile drive.

We drove around; a little and  went to the Lincoln Memorial,

as well as the Korean, Vietnam and WW II memorials;

We also saw this Einstein monument near where we had parked.

We did a lot of walking, as there was no nearby parking and thousands of people, many of which were foreigners like us speaking many different languages.  There were also lots of Pittsburg fans, as the Capitols played the Penguins Saturday night.  We went to the Happy Harbour restaurant, in another marina in Tracey’s landing for supper.

On Sunday we left the boat, shortly after 9 and headed back into Washington.  Our plan was to spend a few hours at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

and then go to one of the other Smithsonian museums.  We got to the museum, just when it was opening at 10:00, and got great parking just across the street.  We embarked on a 1.5 hour guided tour at 10: 30 which lasted until almost 1:30, and we hadn’t seen it all yet.

We went back to some areas to take more pictures and went into galleries, that weren’t on the tour—we left the Museum after 4:00.  In the 6 hours there we saw and heard about early flight, with the Wright Brother’s display, Spirit of St Louis,

 Amelia Earhart Lockheed Vega, as well as saw some of the early mail delivery planes,

first passenger planes and military planes

 i saw this Canadian flag flying outside of one of the windows while I was taking pictures of planes and focused in on it. Not sure what building it was on.

There was lots about the space program, and space race- some of the artifact are the actual ones used, or are the “back ups”.

 sputnik model supplied by Russia

Explorer 1  backup satellite

various missions and pictures and artifacts from the moon.

Here I’m touching  moon rock.

There were also displays from both World Wars, and the evolution of navigation from naval times, up to rocketry navigation including global positioning systems.  Here is a picture of the robotic car too.

How ironic leaving Washington, our GPS stopped working, we realized the adapter from the GPS to the cigarette lighter was faulty.  Luckily it had got us onto Pennsylvania Avenue and Andy figured he could get us home from there.  That’s why I let him drive both the car and the boat—he has much better sense of direction than I do.  We got off Pennsylvania Avenue in search of a store, where we could buy a “mini” adapter piece—tried several drug stores and one lady gave us some brief instructions as to where we could find a Best Buy, it was 5:30 by this time and being Sunday- we figured it may close at 6:00.  We followed what we thought were the instructions, but didn’t find it.  Andy still figured he could get us home and had an idea where there was a Wal-Mart.  We saw a Staples enroute however it was closed.   We found an adapter in Big Lots and once again had our GPS working.  We arrived home at 8:00—it was a long 11 hour day on the road.

Monday morning we got up, and Andy noticed that our American courtesy flag and staff were missing—not sure if they were taken during the night or yesterday while we were away.  Funny thing is that the flag was getting quite tattered, and I had taken it down on Friday when it was raining and cut off the tattered ends and re-hemmed it by hand.  Maybe I should have left it—no one would have wanted it in the state it was in.

We got ready and drove in to Washington, slower trip than on the weekend as there was a lot more traffic on the road and places where they were doing some road repairs and it was raining again.  There has been one stretch of Hwy 4, Pennsylvania Avenue that was full of pot holes and ruts so the repairs are needed.

We had an appointment to visit the International Temple of the Order of the Eastern Star at 1:30.  We arrived there at 11:30 because when we had cased the area on Saturday, I had noticed that many of the streets had no parking between 9:30 and 11:30 on Mondays for street sweeping- so we figured if we were there at 11:30- we shouldn’t have a problem finding a spot.  We walked by the OES headquarters and ran into a group of star members from Burlington Ontario, who had visited the centre in the morning.

  They had told us were they had gone for lunch nearby and we decided to go there as well.  I had Crab cake sliders.

They had also told us that there was parking behind the building for visitors.

After lunch we moved the car to the OES parking spot, and went into the building at 1:15.  Once our dues cards were scrutinized the tour started at 1:40.

Here’s some info about the headquarters from Wikipedia:  The building is located at 1618  New Hampshire Avenue NW in the historic  Dupont Circle  neighborhohood of  Washington D.C.  and was the former Perry Belmont Mansion completed in 1909.  This building serves as the headquarters for General Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star. The Right Worthy Grand Secretary and his spouse live on the premises. Tours are usually for members only. Items from the Belmont era of the mansion, as well as items sent to the International Temple as gifts from chapters around the world are on display It was bought in 1925 for 100,000  and is now valued at 7.5 Million (2009 evaluation.)  Here’s some of the pictures from the building

These are on  the ceiling.

We were in the mansion for almost an hour- amazing rooms and furnishings.  But we really don’t understand why the O.E.S. needs something this opulent.

May 3,4,5

On Tuesday we left at about 6:20, it was raining intermittently most of the morning.  Since it was a work day, both the upper and Whitehaven ferry were operating.

It took us nearly 3 hours to come down the Wicomico River to the Great Shoal light.  We went through Hopper Strait and past the Bloodsworth (a navy bombing range) and Hooper islands.  We encountered some flags appearing in the water along with crab pots

and were confused for a time, wondering if they were flags marking fish nets like we’re use to in Manitoba.  We finally stopped a boat with “watermen”( this is  what  fishermen/ crabbers are called around here) they told me the flags are used to mark a string of  crab pots.  Thank goodness for that because we had been trying to avoid passing between 2 flags, and were almost immobilized as the flags seemed to be everywhere.  We appreciated that the crab pots were quite visible with the flags-of all the  places we had been and seen crab pots this was the first time they were marked this way.

Our route then took us closer to the main shipping channel and we encountered these two boats—we probably looked like ants to them.

Here are the 2 boats passing to put their sizes into perspective.

We continued northward passing by several more islands on the Eastern shore.  It was still quite overcast, we turned into the Little Choptank River at 14:32, and followed the channel down to the entrance to Hudson Creek.  We went up the creek about 2 miles until we reached a large open bay.   We anchored at 15:50.  This stately home was our neighbor for the night.

Around 7 we had a shower and several more through the night.  In the morning we decided to stay put in this anchorage for another day.  As the morning progressed we had a couple more light misty showers, and the bay seemed to fog over.  We were quite content to spend the day reading.

On Thursday, after having  breakfast we started the engines at 8:40 and  headed out from  the anchorage. We had watched a couple of watermen the previous day go back and forth along the creek, they seemed to be using nets / cages attached to their boats to catch fish.

We exited the Little Choptank River by 9:48, it was another cold and dreary day.  We headed north through the shipping channel up to marker CR, which makes a whistling noise,

and on to Marker 82 which we reached at 11:22.  We then proceeded westward to the Maryland shore and into Herring Bay.  Following the marked channel we reached Herrington  Harbour North marina in Deale at 12:45.  This marina has 600 slips, with a complete repair and service yard as well as a West Marine and restaurant on-site.

It also has wetlands for birds and other animals and dry storage.

The plan is to be here for several days to explore western Maryland and go into Washington DC.