AMY, ATLANTIC CITY
Five days after moving back aboard Mary T, we cast off the dock lines and sailed into our new adventure. We are bound for Newfoundland. We had hoped to visit author Farley Mowat in Nova Scotia. Unfortunately we learned of his death on May 6th shortly before our departure. He was one of Canada’s most celebrated writers and one of our personal favorites. He wrote many journalistic novels about the Canadian Maritimes, history and his personal history. After contacting him a couple of years ago he invited us to stop for a visit to his summer home near St. Peter’s, NS. We are truly addend by his passing. We may try to find his wife, Claire, if she is still in residing in their summer home.
Our first stop was four miles away, up the Rhode River. Our friends, Peggy and David aboard Sassy, met up with us for a send off party. Meetings with Sassy before departing has become sort of a tradition. Unfortunately, a storm was brewing. I frantically threw a salad together and jumped in to the dinghy to go to Sassy just as the first fat raindrops were falling. In our flurry to get over to Sassy, Kenny popped the oarlock out of its socket and we didn’t have the tool to put it back in so, we rowed over canoe style. Minutes after we clambered aboard their boat, we were treated to a first class storm with torrential rain, plenty of thunder and quarter sized hail with a few golf balls thrown in. David pointed out how the cocktails took the edge off. The whole event lasted less than half hour and then suddenly it was calm and sunny. We had a lovely visit with our friends and Peggy made a ab-fab dinner.
The next day we sailed over to the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay for another send-off party with our friends, Phil and Sarah. Phil and Sarah recently returned from a cruise to the Bahamas on their boat, Spartina, and are eagerly awaiting the arrival of their first grandchild due on June 26 which is my birthday! (feel free to send large expensive gifts). Our hosts provided us with a delightful steak dinner and copious amounts of red wine and regaled us with sea stories from their latest cruise. They treated us to a night in their upstairs guest bedroom. In the morning Sarah bid us adieu but Phil had departed at 5AM to partake in a sailboat race from Annapolis back to the Eastern Shore of MD. We began our voyage north.
We contemplated taking the shortcut through Kent Narrows but opted instead to go down Eastern Bay thinking we could sail (rather than motor) and get to see Phil and co-owners of Claiborne Ferry, sail by as they were in a 100+ sailboat race. We did on both counts. That night was spent in the Magothy River followed by a long day of motoring out of the Chesapeake Bay, through the C&D Canal into the Delaware River. We spent the night at Reedy Island opposite the Salem Nuclear Power Plant cooling tower at the north end of Delaware Bay. Memorial Day was another sunny, but windless day that had us motoring down the not-so-scenic Delaware Bay. We did get to sail for about half an hour after we rounded the bottom of NJ and headed to the Cape May inlet.
We stayed on the boat in the Cape May anchorage as we wanted to get an early start for Atlantic City to beat predicted thunderstorms for the afternoon. After tying up at Gardner’s Basin, we enjoyed our first decadent meal ashore at the Back Bay Alehouse. Afterwards, I took a stroll to take in the sights. I came upon a person passed out on the sidewalk. After conferring with another passerby, I decided to call 911 and inform the authorities. I didn’t stick around to witness the aftermath but did see the police cars going to the scene.
Later that evening as the tide came in, we left the dock for the anchorage in nearby Brigantine Bay. It was there that we enjoyed the later-than-predicted thunderstorms.
