Because we were in the canal, we had to wait for the current to be going our way which was around 10am. We had a couple of options on this leg of the trip- we could stop at Delaware City, Delaware at their free dock, but that is only about thirteen miles away. Our second option is to stop at an anchorage before the Delaware River opens to the Delaware Bay- that is about a thirty mile trip. Our third option is to go all the way to Cape May, New Jersey and anchor in the protection of Cape May Harbor, which will be a sixty five mile journey- that is much longer than we usually do, but with the currents pushing us it sounded doable. We agreed that we would decide to stop if the weather wasn’t cooperating or it got too rough.
We left the dock at 10:15am and had a nice push. We were doing almost ten knots and sometimes more. We made it to the first potential stop of Delaware City in about an hour and decided to continue on. The weather was nice and the current was still pushing us as we headed down the Delaware River. By about 3pm we were passing our anchoring option and I consulted with Lauren. At this rate we should be able to make it to Cape May between 6-7pm. The winds had picked up considerably but the water wasn’t too rough. We agreed to keep going. Boy were we wrong on making this decision. Part of our factoring was the weather for the next few days was supposed to be rain and high winds, so we didn’t want to be stuck at the anchorage that didn’t have great reviews. We continued on and after an hour past our point of no return we were met with steepening waves that continued to build as we were now in the relative openness of the bay. On top of the large breaking waves, they were coming at us on the beam, which means we were getting violently rocked back and forth. I would tack into them, only to be lifted high up and then dropped with a sickening splash, only to be bow into another wave picking us up again. I was doing everything I could to make the ride somewhat bearable but nothing was working. Shit was sliding everywhere. At one point Frank has his paws wrapped around my foot trying to hold on to me as he was sliding back and forth from the wave action. I’ve never seen anything like that from him or from the seas. I was feeling terrible thinking what Lauren and the cats were going through down in the cabin. I couldn’t communicate with her as it was too dangerous for her to go outside and I wasn’t about to try to call her because I needed full attention on what was going on around us. I continued to try to alter course, but also felt the need to try to make it in as quick as possible. I also had to worry about shallow spots and a couple of giant ships that were coming up the channel. The waves were actually getting me wet on occasion up in the flybridge, that’s how big they were. I kept trying to calculate the most direct, non-violent way to get to our inlet. This part of the trip was the longest and one of the worst we have experienced. Finally by about 7pm we were getting close to enter the Cape May Canal which would take us to the harbor. As we got closer the depths got lower and at one point I was quite nervous as we were showing less than six feet of depth, which also made the waves break around us. We can’t get grounded- not now- this was a dangerous situation. We got closer to the entrance and of course I hear a securite call from a ferry that was departing and coming out the canal. I contacted them on the VHF and told them I was coming in and would stay to their starboard side until they cleared. I was running out of water depth and didn’t want to try to cross in front of them either. Once they got clear of the jetty I throttled in behind them. Holy crap. That sucked. At this point the waves were gone because we were in a narrow canal. Lauren came out and upstairs and I apologized over and over. We agreed to never talk about this day’s trip again. She told me everything in the cabin was tossed about. She was basically holding on as best she could while we were getting tossed around and I told her how Frank had wrapped his paws around me. We were relieved be in the canal, but we still had to find our anchorage and hope there was a good one. We came out of the canal and saw the anchorage but it was in shallow water and I wasn’t comfortable with it, so we continued up the channel a bit. We were running out of time and daylight so we had to make a decision. We saw another trawler anchored a ways up and decided to pass them and anchor out of the channel in somewhat deep water. Nine feet is deep around here. We finally dropped our anchor after a nine plus hour trip. Now we had to get Frank to shore before it got dark. I usually wait at least an hour to ensure all is secure but had to get going rather quickly. I took Frank to shore and we saw a sign that said “US GOVERNMENT PROPERTY- KEEP OFF”. Shit. I told Frank to hurry and he did. Once relieved we hightailed it back to the boat. Lauren and I went about getting everything back in order. We could hear the Coast Guard Academy training going on with yelling and chanting as they did their workouts. Eventually taps were played and it quieted down. We poured ourselves a strong drink and again agreed we wouldn’t discuss this day again as we both put it in the top three of worst travel days we’ve had. All the stress and long day made us tired so we retired not too long after.
We had asked our Great Loop forum for suggestions of stops taking the ‘inside route’. The first five responses were to tell us to take the outside route! There were a few people who gave some suggestions which we were grateful for. We decided we would stay on the inside and take our chances, especially after having gone through what we just did. We looked at our charts and found an anchorage that looked really protected at Stone Harbor, so that is our next destination if we can navigate this shallow NewJersey ICW…