Saturday, June 7, 2008

Sunshine enters NJ

On Sunday, June 1, we ran down the C&D canal from Chesapeake City into Delaware Bay. We had a fantastic run down the Bay -- the winds were very light so the water was flat and the flies were eating us alive. Nothing we had on board would keep them from biting. I had blood running down my legs. Muriel and Shelly were still thankful for the light winds in spite of the flies. At the mouth of Delaware Bay we entered the Cape May Canal. What a shock! Traffic was heavy in the canal and none of the large sport fishing boats slowed for anyone, even when asked and cussed and gestured. We entered Utch's Marina where we spent several days while Bella Luna got an injector tube replaced.
We ate dinner the first night at the Lobster House Restaurant which was a 5 star restaurant. They have table cloth dining, all the way down to take out and eat on the pier. The food was fantastic and reasonable. On Wednesday Muriel needed sour cream and there were no stores nearby so she went to the Lobster House and they gladly sold her a cup. Muriel enjoyed Cape May's old houses. They had lots of gingerbread on them and looked like doll houses.
Since we knew we were there for a while, we rented a car so that we could gather the supplies we needed. I got to a Lowes and got the plywood I needed to finish shelves in Shelly's hanging locker and Muriel and Dianne stocked up on groceries.
We got under way again early on Thursday and ran on the inside up the NJ ICW with two other looper boats. We ran past Ocean City and Atlantic City. The ICW runs right through the back yards of houses in these areas. We anchored for the night about 7 miles north of Atlantic City out in the marshes but still within sight of the lights of Atlantic City.
The place we chose to anchor was influenced by the need to get the dogs ashore. It had very strong tidal current and as soon as Shelly, Dianne, and I got ashore with the dogs Bella Luna began to drag anchor. Muriel noticed Bella Luna approaching just in time to shout at Louis so he could get his engines started and avoid the problem.

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