Friday we floated along heading towards Delaware Bay, I looked in detail at Cape May and found that just outside the Coast Guard Station there was 4 metres of water. We fancied a night or two ashore and motored in through a very rough entrance up around the corner to find that the anchorage was only just over 2m and the 4m was directly behind 2 large CG Cutters, so not a good plan. We motored around for a using the EchoPilot FLS, then gave up heading back out to sea and the Harbour of Refuge on the western side of Delaware Bay, a bit rolly but plenty of room with only one other yacht, so we caught up on our sleepless night in Atlantic City.

 

The flood started in the Bay at 0830 and we set off slowly not wanting to miss the current at 0800, by 0900 the current was still against us and didn’t turn until about 1030, I guess just the extra volume of flood water coming down river from Irene. There was a whole procession of yachts that are on their way back south and we chatted with some on the VHF. One of the yachts had been to Newfoundland and the other Americans were really confused cos he left 4 days ago and hadn’t cleared back into the USA (which of course you don’t do until you land).

 

Again we had no wind and motored the 50M up the Bay to arrive at the entrance to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal at 1500 just as the ebb started west and were able to ride this all the way through to the Sassafras River, where we anchored after a long day and around 80M, really pretty and very quiet, just some “no-see-ums” biting (but not as bad as hurricane night at Rondout Creek).