39:21.19N 75:21.57W

Tuesday 19^th June

Another grey early start after a nice quiet night.   As we left, we passed a set of fishing stakes (in Maryland they fish by suspending nets across withies in the shallows - although we have never seen anyone retrieving these) and sat on these were 13 Ospreys, 16 Grey Herons (supposedly solitary birds!) and assorted Cormorants along a spread of perhaps 25'.

I had actually got the tides right so we zipped along with 2 knots of tide under us, which became an impressive 3.5 knots pushing us along at nearly 9 knots once we entered the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.   With all that I had read, we had expected something similar to the Kiel Canal.   Rob wasn't actually aware he had even entered the canal until the current increased rapidly along with strong eddies - there are no locks.   The currents are created by the differential between the tidal range (the Chesapeake end has 2.5', Delaware 5.4' - sorry for the lack of metrication, USA does not use it at all).   I was also a bit nervous about the amount of traffic as there are plenty of warnings about damage by suction or wash.   In the event we didn't see any large traffic at all and were only passed by two motor boats.   

So we swept through, under five tall bridges;  two of which were being worked on at dizzying heights and oddly one of these was shut to road traffic, in what is presumably a busy area of Delaware.   We also passed under a railway bridge, the centre of which can be lowered to allow a train to travel along it.   I wasn't convinced it was as high as it might be, but Rob pointed out that it was still at least 100' high.   As we reached the Delaware River we heard a sailing catamaran a few miles behind us, calling this bridge to query the height and was told it was at 110' (not the usual 135') as they were working on it.   We then heard a very disgruntled yacht skipper point out that he had just hit the bridge with his 100' mast and the bridge official had been inaccurate!   The official merely replied "well its high tide"...... not exactly helpful.

We then trundled down the Delaware, a much narrower stretch of water than we have become used to in the Chesapeake and a much busier waterway with large traffic going up to Philadelphia (yup we are learning all these cities locations as well!).   We were called up on the radio by a tug who had diligently turned, with his large towed barge, to pass port to port with us - way out of his way and potential depth, as I had scurried further to port.   We are finding that all vessels out here (and particularly shallow drafted, easily manoeuvrable motor boats - with morons driving them....... did I say that?) stick rigidly to col regs and do not apply any common sense to moving out of the way of bigger vessels, staying out of the deep water channel etc etc.   And we finally know what "one whistle" when called on the radio means - one sound signal means turning to port and therefore they will pass port to port.

I had felt quite pleased with myself to have discovered a possible anchorage halfway down the Delaware (18 miles away) where we could stop rather than having to press on a further  70 miles to Cape May having already done 30 odd miles dictated by tides and therefore arriving at a very narrow Atlantic inlet in the dark.   It is on the Cohansey river and there was conflicting advice about entrance depths through a narrow dog-leg.   We  approached this through a few crab buoys and then the huge horseflies started to appear.   Green horseflies had been mentioned on Active Captain, but how bad could they be?   Well completely and utterly appalling (Pips your worst nightmare):   Rob was trying to beat off possibly 50 at a time in the cockpit as I tried to negotiate the narrows.   We basically dropped the anchor the minute we found an area where we wouldn't block the river for the fishermen (there were also various allusions to the speed the fishing boats go at - well obviously they are trying to beat the horseflies with speed!).   So we are in 11m of water and the river is perhaps only 40 metres wide, with a potential tidal speed of 3 knots – so fingers crossed!   It is such a shame as the area looks lovely:  salt flats with lush long grass growing to the edges, what little we saw of it before we dived below and closed all the fly screens.  

Now what time do Horseflies get active in the morning?!

New photos posted at www.rhbell.com