We left Atlantic City anchorage at 6:00 am. It was still dark. The lights from the casinos made it easy to spot the channel and as it was a calm morning, we had an easy time spotting the navigational aides out of the channel. The winds were from the S/W at under 10kms so we had to motor. The water became green and glass like. It was so calm and beautiful . We could spot the dolphins so easily as the water would break with their fins. Sometimes they would appear maybe 100ft near the boat but they would disappear and dive under and reappear farther off. It seems like they had been conditioned to stay away from motor boats. I wished we had been able to sail but the winds were too light and on our nose.
We decided to not anchor on the other side of Cape May and cross to the other side of the bay as there was a safe anchorage there called Refuge Harbour that was very protected from the south and west. It took a while to cross as the distances are so deceiving. What you think is an hour turns out to be 4 hrs of motoring. It was a game to avoid the fishing and crab traps as they are not easy to spot. I would watch one side and David would watch another side. Together we managed to avoid them.
We arrived at a beautiful beach in Lewes City. We rowed to shore rather than attaching the motor to the dinghy and started walking using our GPS to point to the grocery store. We had asked for directions from a woman near a beach condo parking lot and as we started walking, this land rover drove up beside us and the man said he was a sailor and his wife had told him we were going to the grocery store and that he would drive us. It’s just amazing how people here are so willing to help. His name was Mark, from England and he was an avid racer. We really appreciated the ride. We provisioned and walked back to the beach.
On the way, we saw people lined up on the sidewalk. When we asked them why, they said it was the Homecoming parade. Apparently in the US , all the Highschools have these parades and football games. The whole town comes out and there are homecoming princesses, marching bands, decorated fire trucks and even the cadets all marching and some dancing. They threw out Halloween Candy and as I was going into sugar withdrawal as our boat is pretty sugarless, I grabbed them all and stuck them in my pocket for later.
When we returned to the beach, Mark was sitting there with his dog and a glass of wine, watching the sunset and keeping an eye on our dinghy that we had locked up to a bench. We invited him to come sail with us in Florida, when we get there that is. Of course, I’m sure it will be slow for a racer such as Mark didn’t seem to mind. We rowed back and settled in for the night with all our yummie and expensive provisions.
