After some strong winds, conditions were good for a passage down to the Chesapeake. Jeremy worked out that we would hit Delaware Bay with a favorable tide if we left New York around 10 am, which conveniently was max ebb from NY harbor, so that’s what we did. It was spectacular working our way out of New York Harbor. The Statue of Liberty is a stunning sight seen up close and from the water.

The passage down the New Jersey coast was uneventful. The wind was on the nose yet again, and while it was a good sailing breeze, tacking down the shore would have taken much longer and we would have had to fight strong unfavorable currents up Delaware Bay. So the engine remained on again. The moon was almost full, keeping us company in the night watches, and we had a clear view of Atlantic City.

Jeremy had the 4am watch. The moon set, giving him a dark night, and things became much more complicated as we entered Delaware Bay, with several huge ships around. While the bay itself is very wide, most of it is very shallow, with only a narrow channel dredged for shipping. We tried to stay out of the way but couldn’t get too far from the dredged channel. Here’s a picture of Scheldegracht coming down towards us – those are large motor yachts on its deck!

Finally we were in the C&D Canal, where it suddenly felt rural and peaceful. It was odd to see people cycling nearby when so recently we’d seen huge freighters close to us!

We whizzed through the canal and down the top of Chesapeake Bay, still with good current. We were anchored in Sassafrass River by 3:30 pm and able to relax. The passage took a little under 30 hours. Although our tracker shows that we changed our heading multiple times for the different sections of the trip, the wind remained stubbornly on the nose the entire time! We look forward to actually sailing our boat in the near future!

Sassafrass Bay was lovely. We were there three years prior, waiting out bad weather from Hurricane Ian. That time we were tied up to a scruffy dock, cold, wet and stuck in the mud for five days. This time couldn’t have been more different — it was sunny, warm and calm, and we were in a pretty anchorage near Turner Creek. We stayed here two nights, so I got out a paddle board and went exploring.

Moving a little south, we went up Chester River and anchored in Corsica River, another lovely spot. There’s an 8 foot spot marked on the chart, which is alarming for us as we need 9 feet, however we didn’t see less than 10.5. We saved our track and followed it out carefully the next morning! It was a beautiful night with some wonderful birdlife, but unfortunately disaster struck as I knocked over a drink on top of Jeremy’s laptop and killed it. Thankfully he had brought another but a lot of the data on the first one will need to be reinstalled – major problem. There’s always something going wrong on a boat! Take a deep breath and enjoy the sunset.