We were optimistic this morning and pulled anchor at 0730 and headed out the Cape May Inlet... a 40 foot sailboat was about 1/2 ahead of us. We had a large 3 to 4 foot swell coming in the inlet... I watched the sailboat as they approached the end of the inlet and moved out into the Atlantic. The sailboat was really thrashing around and then it started disappearing from sight... I could only see about half the mast... the hull disappeared entirely as it dipped in the waves... it was ROUGH... VERY ROUGH SEAS! The sailboat turned around headed back in the inlet... that was enough signal for us to do the same thing... we turned around and headed back to the anchorage... looks like we are stuck in Cape May until the Atlantic settles down some....

We dropped the hook back in the same anchorage area we had left earlier at approximately 0800... slightly different position at N38°57.014', W074°53.080'. We traveled today for 30 minutes covering 1.5 nautical miles averaging 3 knots.

Going to investigate doing the NJICW from Cape May to Atlantic City... see if it is doable for us with our draft... we did it once back in 2008 but there have been a lot of shoaling reports since then.

Checking when the best time to leave Chesapeake City for the most favorable currents to Cape May, NY was 0200… we were not going to leave that early… we decided just to leave at our normal time around 0730 and just not worry about the current. Up at 0630 and prepared SAILS for departure by 0730… engine room check, etc… We were clear of the dock at 0730 on the nose.

We had full current against us when we left… appeared to be 2 knots plus slowing us to 4.5 to 5.0 knots till we reached the end of the C&D Canal and turned into the Delaware River and we got a big boost in current running at 8 to 9 knots for the next 3 or so hours when we started to slowly loose our boost and once again back to 5 to 5.5 knots… it did improve slightly anear Cape May running 6 to 6.4 knots for the last couple of hours.

The winds were 15 to 20 knots out of the East all day which made the Delaware Bay quite choppy with 2 to 3 foot waves… with the strong winds and short chop we had spray hitting the pilothouse windows most of the day… and it was COLD… mid 50’s and the wind made it feel like 40’s…

We arrived at Cape May at approximately 1700 and decided to anchor near the Coast Guard Station… there were three other sailboats already anchored here. We were securely anchored at approximately 1715... Our position is N38°57.024', W074°52.956'. We traveled today for 9.75 hours covering 63 nautical miles averaging 6.5 knots.

Layover today... friends coming to visit... Cathy and Jim Fisher...

The ship traffic is crazy