Our fearless autopilot steered the boat well. The bright animated lights on buildings in Atlantic City illuminated our way for over 20 miles down the NJ coast. We split up watches with John on from 9-12, I had the 12-3, and Gary had the 3-6 am watch. Gary finally had recovered in time for dinner.
By 1:30 a.m. we were ready to round Cape May, the southernmost part of NJ. I had a dilemma. A cruiser had given me 3 waypoints that would take us zig-zagging through potentially treacherous shallows close to Cape May. The advantage of following the waypoints is that they would save us the 2 hours it would take us to go out to the main ship channel. The disadvantage is that it would take us very close to shore and I wasn't sure that Superstorm Sandy hadn't changed the depths. Two years ago when I was sailing back to LI white water was swirling past the shallows. The white water was unnerving.
Studying the charts I found a compromise. There was an old channel (unmarked) slightly further outside my original route that didn't take me so close to shore. It would take a little extra time but not 2 hours - and - it wouldn't scare me to death in the dark early hours of the morning. I found the channel and although I still had to pass fairly close to some 2 and 4 foot spots I felt a little more comfortable further away from the shore.
I compared the depths on the depthfinder with what I saw on the chart. I was getting some big differences and not what I expected. Where the water was supposed to be 9 feet deep I was getting readings of 21 feet. That's OK but it had me wondering if I was where I thought I was. All these calculations are running constantly through my head at 2 o'clock in the morning - a time when I'm afraid I might not be at my peak decision-making best. The dark, the tiredness, and the repetitious bright loom of the Cape May light house in my eyes added to an air of spookiness. Sometimes it's a little nerve wracking to be on watch at night. You have to figure everything for yourself - and as captain you are supposed to be confident - your doubts are your own - not to be shared with the sleeping crew. I felt pretty good about my piloting skills and no one had to know that I was checking and double checking myself - but I was relieved once we got past the shallows into Delaware Bay!
Gary took over and I was able to get a good 5 or so hours of sleep. When I awoke John found that he was having a problem with our chartplotter and asked me to take a look at it. It did look a little strange - and it took me a few seconds after seeing the nuclear plant on the wrong side of the chart to realize that somehow John had turned us around and was taking us back to NY! We straightened that out and entered the C&D Canal within an hour.
After a stop at the Summit Marina on the north side of the canal to fuel up we found ourselves looking for a free berth on the public dock in Chesapeake City by 1 p.m. We had called ahead to see if there was any room. We were assured that there was. Wrong! The spot that would have been ours had a Tom Sawyer-like raft in it. Made of logs lashed together it had a tent on top of it - and on the tent was a live chicken. A young woman dashed off the raft every few minutes to grab a cat that seemed to need some serious shore leave. The gentleman who shared the raft later explained that he had done this voyage before and that it was being filmed for a possible reality TV show. Bizarre! There was also a dog and who knows what other animals shared the raft. After 2 days and 32 hours of motoring we anchored in Chesapeake City and went ashore for some lunch.
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| A couple of the cute little houses in Chesapeake City with one of the bridges that spans the C&D Canal |
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