Delaware City to Cape May

First time heading south since we left Palmetto

 ...or, "What a day on Delaware Bay!" The trip was absolutely amazing. Sunny, warm, windless, and nearly waveless. The water looked like glass. The only time we had any swells of any kind was when we reached Cape May, and those were only 1 foot.

We tick off yet another state, setting our course for New Jersey.

Tough start to the day. After the briefing yesterday we were all told that thunderstorms in the afternoon would be a possibility. Best to leave early and be off the water by 2 pm. That meant a 6 am departure.

Glass, I tell you!

A number of boats wanted to make the crossing today, four of which were loopers. Cat-n-Dogs was the first boat out. Despite being parked nose to stern with all the other boats, the dockmaster, Tim, knew his dock and its current. He let lose all our lines except for a spring line and gave our stern a little push. The current slowly moved our back end clear. He tossed Russ the last line and said to me, "She's all yours, captain!" Off we went.

The early departure wasn't ideal tide-wise. The progress was slow for the first couple of hours, until we got to slack tide. At that point I opened up our engines a bit (those honkin' Yanmars need to be used at high RPMs occasionally, which is just fun for me!). Once we got about half way along the tide switch to our favor. When we reached the canal we were doing 10 knots without much effort.

One of many channel markers,
with both light towers and horns

About a hour away from the marina we received a Pahn Pahn on the radio. That's a call that means "Pay attention, this could mean you." A plane crash landed somewhere near the Cape May light house. We didn't see or hear anything, so we couldn't be any help. As time went on it sounded like a terrible search and rescue; they couldn't even find the plane. Even now I'm not sure they could get to it. Such an odd event for such a wonderful day. (https://www.nj.com/cape-may-county/2019/05/small-plane-crashes-off-coast-of-cape-may.html)