Just 5 miles out of Annapolis Harbour is the William Preston Lane Jr Memorial Bridge, or the US Hwy 301 bridge over the Chesapeake Bay. It was so hazy when we left, we couldn't see the bridge from the harbour. This picture is from over a mile away.
There are two spans that were completed at different times and are different designs. Maybe nephew Jason can explain these to me.
From directly below.
We met a fair amount of commercial traffic headed south as we neared the Chesapeake and Delaware Cannal. Military too. There were five of these traveling together.
I did a little research and found that this class of ship is for training and is assigned to the Naval Academy. This particular one was built in Marinette, WI. We learned on our Naval Academy tour that Sophomore, Junior and Senior Midshipmen go to field training in the summer, so I assume that's what these guys were doing.
Our trip from Annapolis was just 59 miles and ended in Chesapeake City, MD.
I knew this was going to be the place to stop for crabs. One of my old bosses from my working days had told me stories about eating crabs in Chesapeake City when he worked in the area just out of college. I had also talked to a guy in Annapolis who told me that "The Tap Room" was pretty well known and in addition to attracting locals, also attracted people more famous than us whenever they were in the area. Kind of like Maria's for those of you from Rockford. It wasn't fancy, the staff had been there for a long time and had stories of the famous people they had waited on over the years.
Of course, I got the all you can eat steamed crabs and Denise took lots of pictures.
After a quick on how to clean crabs from the waitress, a young lady sitting next to us also offered to show me her method. She was a bit of an expert having grown up working in her father's restaurant cleaning crabs for crab cakes.
Denise has been having crab cakes all the way up the east coast and has officially proclaimed Maryland Lump Crab Cakes as the best.
After a brief break, I successfully completed the first platter and ordered a few more.
Denise was comparing my inexperienced method of opening crabs to others around us and noticed that no one else was making the same mess as me.
After dinner, we had to stop here.
Lights out at the marina.
Today we were planning to complete the trip through the rest of the canal and then head back south down the Delaware Bay to Cape May, New Jersey, a trip of about 70 miles. The cruising guide said the best time to leave Chesapeake City was an hour before high tide at the east end of the canal. This would provide the maximum boost down the bay from the outgoing tide. The only problem with that plan was it would have meant leaving Chesapeake City at 4:30 this morning, an hour before sun up. The best I could do was to was to leave at 6 AM.
I expected that the tide boost would start in the canal and was starting to doubt the guide book when our speed was around 7.5 MPH, a mile slower than what I normally get at my standard 2000 RPMs, but I pushed on. When I made the southbound turn into Delaware Bay, the speed immediately picked up and we were "flying" along at over 10 MPH. An hour into the bay and we were as high as 12.5 MPH. This continued until about an hour out from Cape May when the tide switched and we slowed back down to about normal. This really helps fuel mileage and today I filled up and calculated 2.9 MPG on this last tank.
There's not a lot to see in the bay and about half way down you lose sight of both shores, Delaware on the right and New Jersey on the left.
After fuel and a quick trip to the Marine store for a NJICW chart, we decided to keep going and arrived in Avalon, NJ this afternoon about 5:30. This is mile 97 on the NJICW, Cape May is mile 115 and Manasquan, NJ is mile 0. At point the ICW ends and we'll need to make a 25 mile ocean run to New York Harbour. Denise is sweating this part, but we'll only go in favorable weather and should be fine. If you don't see another post in a couple of days call the Coast Guard.
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