We got up at 6:00 a.m. and were on our way from Cape May to Delaware City by 6:30.
We are going up Delaware Bay today. The wind is from the northeast and will be building today, so we want to get there as quickly as possible. High winds are forecast overnight, so we are going to dock at a marina tonight. We need a laundromat!
Today the waves are rolling us from side to side so much that I have to sit with one foot on the floor to keep from falling over. It's sunny and warm, though. We started off this morning going against the tide, but it should be switching so that we'll be able to take advantage of it during the second half of our journey today.
9:15. Carey's trying to take a nap now. I napped yesterday, so it's his turn.
9:45. LOL. That didn't last long. He's up already, and wants to check the radar.
We rode through quite a storm for awhile. Very poor visibility, quite wavy, with winds up to 28.8 knots! That's 53 kilometres per hour! The funny thing was that, because the wind was behind us, we barely noticed it. I continue to be impressed with RC Wings' seaworthiness.
By 12:30, the wind had receded to 20 knots and the seas had calmed a bit, but not much. We still had 14 miles to go, which turned out to be easy.
When we got near the entrance to the canal to Delaware City Marina we had to call in. The entrance and canal are very shallow so they needed to give us specific information about where to be in the canal. We needed to hug the boats on the right and leave at least 40' on the left. Counter-intuitive, for sure, since we usually steer clear of other boats just in case we get blown into one.
As we approached the fuel dock, the Dockmaster, Tim, gave us very specific instructions about how to dock with the strong current pushing us forward. Once again, counter-intuitive, but he said to point the bow away from the dock by 20 degrees, then reverse to get the prop walk to push us toward the dock. It actually worked! This marina is just one long dock on a very narrow canal, so after we fuelled up, we had to move down the dock and do it all over again. This time Tim said that if Carey could dock the boat with our back cleat lined up exactly at the cleat he had his foot on, he'd give us a 10% discount on our slip fee. Carey nailed it! Woohoo! Tim actually came through with the discount, too.
Another couple on a boat called Kinship, whom we had met in Catskills, is here, also. They will be participating in the ARC Carib 1500 to the BVIs just like us. Nice to know some people before we leave Portsmouth on our passage.
Once we were tied up and had helped Dave and Nicki dock, too, Tim demonstrated another cool trick you can do with currents. When we came in we noticed that all of the boats were facing out, but to turn our 44' boat around in this narrow channel would have been quite difficult. Yikes! Tim took our bow line, which we tied on the opposite side, then gave our boat a gentle shove into the current. The current took the stern out and around, while he held the bow and allowed it to pivot, practically by itself. It was so effortless and graceful. Quite impressive!
All was well until we connected our shore power. That's when I noted that the microwave didn't beep on and, after checking, we realized that our AC plugs didn't work. Aaarrrggghhhh. There's always something to keep us on our toes. Carey worked on it for a couple hours and wasn't able to solve the problem, so we went out for dinner with Dave and Nicki and left it for the morning. We went to Crabby Dick's and I had the best crab cakes ever. Delicious!
This marina is kind of cool. The walk to the washrooms/showers/laundry is very artsy.
When we got back, Carey listened to the Blue Jays game, and I read a book. Nice to relax.
Thursday, September 29, 2016
It rained and blew all night, but we didn't care because we could sleep in--if we wanted. We didn't, of course. Today was our 'catch up on tasks' day, so we started in on our list. When I was teaching I'd tell kids this was our ketchup day. LOL. Carey's first job was to figure out the electrical issue and mine was laundry. Done and done. The electrical issue turned out to be nothing to worry about it. There is a breaker (disguised as a switch) under the navigation table, which is where we store our handheld Dyson Vacuum. Sometime yesterday, while we were bouncing around in the waves, the Dyson must have hit the breaker switch and turned it off. Okay, that was frustrating because we had spent so much time on it, but it was a huge relief that nothing was wrong with our boat. Also, we learned something new about her, and that's always a plus. As Dave says, 'Sailing south is just fixing your boat in exotic places.'
My biggest trauma now is that I'm running out of Tim Horton's coffee. Oh, no!
We heard from Tipsy Gypsy today, too. They have already made it into the Chesapeake Bay and we will see them in Annapolis. Awesome.
Tonight we've been invited to Dave and Nicki's boat for a spaghetti dinner made with venison. Yum. We were looking forward to it, and had a wonderful evening. What a great couple.
More wind and rain tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment