Chesapeake City

Monday July 30, 2012
39 31.635 N
75 48.669 W

Its nice when a good plan works well. We are safely tied up at the FREE Municipal Dock in Chesapeake City! When we arrived the space was being "wasted" with a couple of little boats scattered along the dock (They should be banned!!). So we called the Dock Master on the phone (had the number ready for just this situation) and asked him if he would consolidate the other boats, and after a 10 minute delay he made us a space, and we squeezed in. The dock is free, but they offer 50amp/220V power for $15, so we are plugged in and will have AC for sleeping. (Plus Deidre will wash the sheets.) NICE!

The 22 mile run here this morning was uneventful, even if a bit slow (we were running against the current). We wanted to arrive at Chesapeake City pool about 1PM when we estimated the free dock (or a space in the small anchorage) would most likely be available. We had the breakfast dishes washed, the engines running and the anchor up by XX.X and arrived right on time.

This was a good one!

Recovering the anchor was the usual messy business. Almost all of our anchorages are in mud and the chain just loves to bring the mud back on board. We have a salt water pump and hose on the bow and it can be a 30 minute job cleaning the chain as it arrives. The for-deck always ends up a mess and takes another 10 minutes to clean up.

The canal links the "top" of Chesapeake with the Delaware River, about 1/2 way between the Atlantic (at Cape May) and Philadelphia. Ships can arrive from Europe at Philadelphia, then "cut across" to the Chesapeake and Baltimore. The canal is about 40' deep, but quite narrow. So we were a bit surprised when this enormous ship passed behind us as we were eating dinner.

Holy smokes - look at this!

The pilot boat running alongside

Gone