After running for 34 hours in the last 48 hours we opted to take a couple of days off and stay put in Chesapeake City... we were tired... and we had friends coming on Tuesday to visit from the Baltimore area... Cathy and Jim Fisher.

We'll head back out again on Wednesday weather permitting.

We left Atlantic City, NJ at 0730... Seas were relatively calm with an easterly swells about 2 to 3 feet.... destination planned for today... Cape May, NJ.

At approximately 1230 we arrived to Cape May and making plans to anchor near the Coast Guard Station... When we arrived to the anchorage area we found it filled with barges, tugs and dredge pipe... there was a small section open but feared it would be too close to the Coast Guard Station... plan B... Stop at a marina.

Well not a lot of options for marinas that we like the dockage rate... Found one that was reasonable at $1.50 per foot... Miss Chris Marina... taking to them to see if they had a slip we would fit in and they told us they could accommodate us but that we would be sitting in the mud at low tide... but no worries it was soft mud... We passed on that marina....

Back to plan A anchoring... Checked the weather for the night and next day... discovered that the wind was going to pick up out of the NW late night and blow 25-30 kts on Monday... that speed and direction would of made the trip from Cape May up the Delaware Bay to Chesapeake City horrible... 20 to 30 knots would of put the waved directly on our bow and we have done Delaware Bay with those conditions... it SUCKED... we decided to go to plan C...

Plan C was to continue on to Chesapeake City today... the Delaware Bay would be calm with less than 1 foot seas... the downside was the tide/current was not in our favor... we would have the current against us the entire trip... but we decided that slow and clam would be better that windy and fast... plus it would of been opposing wind and current... that idea of that made plan C a go... we continued on... destination Chesapeake City.

The current against us was strong... we were only able to make 5 to 6 knots... made our eta around midnight...

We ran across the flats rather than the ship channel to get a little less current... the flats can be riddled with crap pots and would be tough in the dark to see them... luck seemed to be with us... we did not see a single crap pot... that is until the sun set and the pots came out... tried to see them as best we could but after a couple of close calls and almost hitting a crap pot or two... we made a 90 degree turn to port and headed to the ship channel.

Once in the ship channel we would be free of crap pots but we slowed down a lot... making 4.5 to 5.5 knots... we would get a reprieve from the current as it was approaching slack and slowing down... we slowly saw our speed creep up and by the time we made it to Reedy Point we were almost back to normal cruising speed making 7 knots... then we turned in the C&D Canal... it was like the brakes being applied... back to just under 5 knots...

We chugged along for another 2 plus hours and made to Chesapeake City, MD at approximately 2330 and were securely docked at the city docks 2345. Our location for night N39°31.626', W075°48.668’. We traveled today for 16 hours and 15 minutes covering 100.2 nautical miles averaging 6.2 knots.

We departed from Stamford, CT this morning at 0615... SAILS felt a bit sluggish backing away form the dock... the props evidently were fouled with marine growth... we continued out the channel toward Long Island Sound... as I increased RPM the speed did not increase as it should and I could fell a lot of turbulence from the props in the steering wheel...

We were leaving at near low tide and channel is very shallow... as soon as we were into deeper water... I increased the engines to cruising RPM... we were only making 5 knots instead of the typical 7 knots... the turbulence I felt at first was worse... the props were definitely fouled with marine growth... not getting off to a good start on our trip south...

I continued on to see if the prop treatment we had paid dearly for at last haul out would perform as advertised... the marine growth should clean off the props... several minutes and basically no improvement... the only thing to do was dive on the boat and clean the props... that presented another problem... I had just had a procedure to removal some basil cell skin cancer and was not suppose to get the areas wet... diving on the boat would surely get those areas wet...

A lot of "sighing" this morning... I called Mitch (my boss) who had just returned from a trip to warm southerly island waters and asked a huge favor of him... could you dive on SAILS and clean my props ??? It's 0630 and I know I just woke him up... I felt so bad... he agreed that he would do it and to come across to Oyster Bay... so we altered course to the south and were off to Oyster Bay.

About 15 minutes out I noticed the turbulence had almost disappeared and we were running at 6.5 knots... we continued on... soon we were running at full cruising speed 7.5 knots... turbulence was barely noticeable... YES! Maybe the prop treatment we had done really did work... I called Mitch and told him we were aborting the dive... the props had cleaned themselves well enough to continue on without diving on them... he was definitely happy about not having to dive on SAILS... when I thanked via a text he replied... "No Problem! Would have been my pleasure to jump into 5 degree water after swimming in 90 degree water yesterday. Was actually looking forward to it."... So we changed course to the west and were off heading to Atlantic City our planned destination for the day.

The slight delay had not really affected our timing for Hell Gate currents in the East River... we would still arrive at just after slack tide going into an ebb tide that would giveus favorable current till well outside New York Harbor and heading down the Jersey Shore.

Predictions for winds and seas were good with winds less than 10 knots and seas 2 foot or less diminishing to 1 foot or less... and the forecast was accurate for 80% of the trip... we did get some higher winds and seas about 4 hours out from Atlantic City that produced a not so comfortable ride and to add to that we had lost our favorable current and running between 5 and 6 knots... another

We arrived to Atlantic City at approximately midnight and were securely docked at Gardner's Basin at 0015. Our location for night N39°22.577', W074°25.274’. We traveled today for 18 hours covering 124.2 nautical miles averaging 6.9 knots.