Up Chesapeake Bay, Across the C & D Canal, Down Delaware Bay

After our peaceful, effortless trip up the Dismal Swamp Canal, getting “spit” out into Norfolk was like having someone dump icy cold water down my back.  The Chesapeake Bay, C & D Canal and Delaware Bay are all teeming with commercial shipping and military traffic constantly keeping us on our toes.

In addition, both bays are shallow and notorious for steep closely spaced waves that can make for an uncomfortable ride.  By watching the weather and picking our days, we were lucky but still experienced spray splashing as high as the upper helm and FOG.

On two of our four days traveling the Chesapeake and Delaware, we got lots of on the job training on our new to us radar — which btw, is great radar, but only at the lower helm.

We saw lots of lighthouses …  I love lighthouses!  Some were active, some were retired, but all were cool.  Wolf Trap Lighthouse at the opening of the Rappahanock River was for sale for $249,000 but the Coast Guard condemned it in April 2017.   So we missed our chance…

Because of time limitations, we hopped up the Chesapeake Western Shore stopping in Deltaville and Solomons Island.  Deltaville was just one night, but we had a very enjoyable evening with the Dozier’s Regatta Point Marina crew on the porch of the clubhouse.

While in Solomons Island we borrowed the courtesy car from Spring Cove Marina for a much needed WalMart run and stayed an extra day to enjoy the Lighthouse Restaurant in “downtown” Solomons as well as the excellent Calvert Maritime Museum. David especially liked the old wooden boats and I loved the river otters, as well as the Drum Point Lighthouse, of course.

Cruising from Solomons Island to Annapolis, there were two more lighthouses … Thomas Point Lighthouse has always been my very favorite from our time in Annapolis with s/v Winterlude.

Annapolis was an unplanned stop. We had hoped to consolidate navigation, radar and AIS on the electronics at both upper and lower helms, but getting work done on the boat in the busyness of springtime wasn’t meant to be.  So we just enjoyed a couple days in one of our favorite places.  And in the meantime, if we need the radar, we have to go to the lower helm.  🙁

Leaving Annapolis to head up the Upper Chesapeake Bay, we’re in unexplored territory … since we bought s/v Winterlude in Annapolis, and sailed her to Punta Gorda (West Coast), Florida, prior to now, we’d at least sailed by most of the places we stopped on our Great Loop.  From now on, everything is brand new.   Sort of exciting to begin a new phase of exploring!

I love the Bay Bridge & always wanted to sail under it, but somehow we didn’t venture this far north with s/v Winterlude.  So now’s our chance!

We cruised past Baltimore and into the Upper Chesapeake.  We had no idea there was this much Upper Chesapeake!  It finally narrowed into the Elk River and we cruised past yet another lighthouse with the unglamorous name of “Turkey Point”.

Shortly after Turkey Point, there’s a stoplight indicating when there’s major ship traffic in the C & D Canal.  If the light is red, you call Dispatch33 on the VHF channel 16.  If the light is yellow, it’s OK to proceed…  With the yellow light, we entered the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal (C&D) which was designed to connect the upper Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, providing a shorter route between major Philadelphia and Baltimore shipping ports.

The 14 mile, 450 feet wide, 35 feet deep canal is maintained by the US Army Corps of Engineers and begins at Chesapeake City and ends at Delaware City, Delaware.  Another state added!  We’ve now cruised Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware!  7 of the total of 22 states we’ll visit on this Great Loop cruise.

The C & D Canal features a bike path almost the entire length & we took the opportunity of a weather day to break  our our bikes and ride 14 miles, the farthest the little bikes have taken us yet!

Cruising Delaware Bay comfortably requires the right weather.  We found a day after two days of thunderstorms and wind to take advantage of yet another “boring” cruise.  Remember, boring is wonderful!  Flat water, no waves … if a bit foggy …  seems fog equates to no wind and some rain in the forecast.  Oh well…

Lighthouses have interesting names on Delaware Bay.  Ship John Shoal Light attracts alot of birds and guano (bird crap)!

More ship traffic on Delaware Bay than either Norfolk or Chesapeake Bay …  must be headed up to Philadelphia or across the C & D Canal to Baltimore.

More lighthouses to keep all these ships off shoals in the shallow Delaware Bay.

Check out the solar panels on Miah Maull Shoal Lighthouse — think they generate enough solar power to light this lighthouse? Guano strikes again!

On to Cape May, New Jersey where David began his seafaring career back in January 1967 in US Coast Guard basic training.  Not the time of year to be in Cape May, NJ!

Phase I of our Great Loop is complete.  1,600 miles into our 6,000+ mile Great Loop, it’s time to take a Commuter Cruising break and return home for a surprise 60th birthday party, a graduation and a family beach vacation, complete with grandkids!  Optimystique is in Utsch’s Marina, Cape May, New Jersey anxiously awaiting our return approximately June 12 when we’ll cruise through New York Harbor, past the Statue of Liberty, up the Hudson River and hopefully through the Erie Canal to near the Ontario Canada border.  Until then ….