We did not leave Chesapeake City today... late yesterday we discovered a leak on the starboard engine... salt water was leaking from behind the heat exchanger... a real slow leak but non the less a leak... have a damaged port wheel (propeller) from the rebar that wrapped around it. Anyway. we decided to take a layover day and figure out what we wanted to do.

Conclusion was to proceed on south tomorrow... the leak is slow and I really do not want to tackle a repair when we are at a remote location... need to have parts source readily available... we are accustomed to having a dry bilge so we will deal with water in the bilge for now.

The wheel damage does not seem to affect things much... of course it will affect the efficiency slightly... we may loose a little speed... instead of getting 7.5 knots at 2750 rpm.. we might only get 7.3 knots... at the dock there is absolutely no vibration that I observed. If we get underway and discover that my assumptions are incorrect then we will deal with swapping out the wheels then.


Trip totals to date:

Distance: 377.83 nautical miles
Hours: 65 hours 36 minutes
Avg Spd: 5.75 knots
Days not moving: 2

We departed from Greenwich, NJ before sunrise at 0640 hours and headed out of Cohansey River with a current giving us a boost... we enjoyed while we could because soon we would heading out in to Delaware Bay and have a 1.5 knots current against us... :(

Just outside of Cohansey River we hit a crab pot with the starboard wheel... a quick thud and luckily nothing stayed on the wheel... bits and pieces of what was the float remained in our wake. But we did have the current on our nose slowing us down to 5-5.5 knots.. slow going... winds were as predicted blowing out of the NNE at 15-20 knots and it was causing a short 1-2 foot chop... just making noise on the hull... it was not affecting our ride at all... and it was bright and SUNNY!!! WE had gone to sleep thinking we would be having rain to deal with so the sun out was awesome!

Not much ship or boat traffic at all... the night before coming up from Cape May. NJ there were 5 or 6 ships running in the ship channel... communicating their approaches and passes on the VHF radio... today the radio was silent for the most part.

After we made the turn to the north adjacent to the nuclear plant we started noticing a lot of large debris in the water... mostly braches and chunks of trees... enough we had to keep turning to avoid them... just before the C&D Canal the debris got really bad... just in front of was a large patch of branches and other debris...suddenly, 100 feet in front of the boat a large tree bobbed to the surface... it was maybe 20 feet long and 8-12 inches in diameter... it was bobbing from submerged to on the surface... there was not enough time to try and swerve and avoid it... I took the engines out of forward and dropped them into reverse to slow us down as much as possible before we hit the tree... reversing of the engines slowed us quickly with the help of the strong current on our nose and we hit the tree just as we stopped moving... I continued to back down slowly and back away from the tree. Suddenly, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM... a loud banging from the wheels... we had picked something up in the debris field... I took the engines out of gear and we drifted with the current until we were well clear of the tree and the debris field... I put the starboard engine in gear... no noise... put the starboard engine in gear... BAM, BAM, BAM... a loud banging on the hull... SIGH.

I continued forward on one engine and headed toward the mouth of the C&D Canal just an 1/8 of a mile in front of us... 3 knots.... UGH! I looked out at the water we were traveling in... it was a lovely shade of brown and appeared more like coffee than water... plus the current was ripping at about 2 knots now... I did not want to dive under the boat in these conditions... IDEA!!!! let's call TowBoatUS and maybe they can dive and clear the wheel or at least tow us to a dock where I could dive safely.

The closest towboat was at Chesapeake City and informed us that they would be to us with in the hour... 1115 hours and we continued slowly east across the C&D Canal using only the starboard engine... 3 knots is really really slow!

1200 hours I could see TowBoatUS approaching us from the east... he hailed us on the VHF and let us know he would be right there... he came alongside... I asked do you dive to clear props? He replied no but I can get a diver to come out to where ever he towed us... I asked how much... he said diver is $150 an hour with a 2 hour minimum... OK... just tow us to Chesapeake City and I'll dive under the boat myself... secured the towline and off we went. According to my chartplotter the would take us about 2 hours arriving around 1400 hours. I killed the engines and saved some fuel!!!

Halfway, through the tow the towboat hailed me... if you're wondering why we slowed down it's because I've lost one engine... I'll keep trying to get it started but wanted to let you know what was going on... I acknowledged and we continued on... Susan had just made us lunch so we enjoyed the ride and ate our lunch.

It was not long before the towboat hailed me again and said he got the engine started and all was okay... something to do with switching fuel tanks but all was good now... :)

We arrived at Chesapeake City just at 1400 hours and the towboat came alongside to be our port engine as we docked... the floating face docks were wide open with the exception of one 20 foot sailboat that we slipped right behind. 1420 hours and we secure to the dock... :)

Now it was time to go for a swim... water conditions had not changed.. coffee colored and maybe 1 inch of visibility... but no current to deal with. I pulled the Hookah rig and my dive gear from the lazarette... jumped into the water... BRRRRRRRR! it was cold!!! dove under the boat and went to port wheel... I found 10-20 of poly line and attached to it was a piece of steel rebar... it was maybe 6 feet long... at least that was how long it was before it wrapped around the shaft two times like a pretzel. I managed to wrestle it free untwisting the wraps... took me about 45 minutes. It damaged two blades of the wheel and I will have to swap it out fro one of the spares we have... but I think I will hire a diver to do that job... :)

Jumped out of the water took a HOT shower to warm up and noticed that somehow I had injured my left wrist... the top of it is swelled up with a big knot... will ice it and see how it does... :)


We traveled today for 7 hours and 40 minutes covering 33.38 nautical miles and averaging 4.35 knots.

Trip totals to date:

Distance: 377.83 nautical miles
Hours: 65 hours 36 minutes
Avg Spd: 5.75 knots
Days not moving: 1

We departed from Atlantic City, NJ at 0820 hours and headed out the inlet toward the Atlantic... fingers crossed that the 9-12 seas that had been reported as the winter storm passed through the area had subsided enough for us to make the trip to Cape May, NJ in comfort. The winds were forecast for 5-10 knots out of the east. Easterly wind is not usually very good but being only 5-10 it should not be that bad. We cleared the jetty and found the seas to be very calm... it's amazing how the seas can calm down so quickly but it was great for us today... calm seas... :)

We needed to get some fuel today and started canvassing the Cape May marinas by phone to see who had the best price on diesel... did not realize there were so many marinas in Cape May... must of called a dozen... anyway, we found the best price at Utsch's Marina and their location was perfect... right off the channel... we arrived at 1355 hours and took on just 500 gallons in anticipation of finding a lower price further south... $3.449 per gallon all taxes included. It was still fairly early in the day and we decided to continue on and try to make up for our lost time for the winter storm.

Not many places to stop on Delaware Bay... we set our destination for Greenwich, NJ on the Cohansey River... this is actually the first place that we are aware of to stop as you head up the Delaware Bay... we had been there before and it was a nice stop... a little trek up the Cohansey River to get to there... but that was our goal... GPS had us arriving at 2130 hours. Of course the current was against us for the entire time up Delaware Bay...making only 5 to 5.5 knots... :(

We arrived to the entrance to Cohansey River about 2145 hours and it was dead low tide... we had a little moonlight but for the most part it was pretty dark and entry was pretty much using radar and chartplotter... I was told to hug the green lighted marker as we entered but I must of gotten a little too far to the red side as we entered... saw 6 feet a couple of times but once fully in the river depths dropped off to typically 25-40 feet... we saw depths of 80-90 feet on one of the bends... the Cohansey snakes in from the Bay and the current rips through it... we were near the change from ebb to flood but still had a good knot current against us.

We were not sure where we were going to stay once we arrived to Greenwich. There are a few options... we could anchor but that one was out... too cold to launch the dinghy to walk Beecha... :) and three marinas as we arrived I scanned the docks at the first and second marina... a couple of spots that we could fit but they were very tight and with the current still running I did not want to try and squeeze in between two other boats. The third marina down we found the face dock completely open... we eased in and secured SAILS at Greenwich Pier Marina... at approximately 2215 hours we were securely docked and ready for some sleep... it had been a long day.

We traveled today for 13 hours and 5 minutes covering 75.3 nautical miles and averaging 5.44 knots.

Trip totals to date:

Distance: 344.45 nautical miles
Hours: 44 hours 51 minutes
Avg Spd: 5.95 knots