Cruising is . . .

. . . Fixing your boat in exotic places

Cohansey River, Delaware Bay May 18, 2011

That’s the sailor’s definition of cruising and although I’m not too sure how exotic the Cohansey is, we’re definitely fixing our boat. We finally threw off the dock lines on Monday, May 16. An overnight at Chesapeake City in the C&D Canal and we tackled Delaware Bay. And I do mean tackle.

For several years we joked the score was Delaware Bay 6, Andante 2. Delaware Bay is full of shoals, fish traps that have thick posts emerging from the murky depths in unlikely places, strong tides, very large ships that move very fast and a lack of places for a small boat to shelter.

We’ve endured nasty summer thunderstorms where it’s a complete white out and lightning storms with cloud to cloud streaks and bolts that reached down from a night time sky. Our old bronze prop became a permanent resident of the Bay during one of those storms so I always approach this body of water with respect and a bit of trepidation.

Turning south out of the canal, torrential rain made it hard to see the buoys. The rain eased off a bit but what had started as a motor sail quickly became a motor and then a motor into headwinds. Calling it quits, we motored up the Cohansey for several S turns. This is a classic Chesapeake Bay river meandering through salt marshes acting as a nursery for species until they're big enough to go out into the Bay itself and sheltering countless other birds and fish.

Delaware Bay is an important stop for lots of migratory birds including The Red Knot. This small bird flies up from Antarctica, gorges itself on horseshoe crab eggs and then continues its journey to the Arctic where it lays eggs, raises chicks, and does the return. The timing is incredible and if something goes awry and the Red Knots miss when the horseshoe crabs lay their eggs there can be a major die off.

The fixing up part . . . our head (that’d be the marine toilet) has been acting up and is now refusing to flush. Not a good scenario! Russ began the fun task of taking it apart and William discovered that our outboard wasn’t working as well as we’d like. Just back from servicing, it had no umph, refusing to go any faster than a slow crawl.

Two days anchored gave us a chance to make the repairs. The problems were narrowed down to a bad flapper valve and a bad spark plug.

Around the gear sorting and repairing, we explored the river and salt marshes in kayak and dinghy. Gliding up one of the many guts that feed the river fiddler crabs frantically wave their one big claw and startled sandpipers scurry along the bank. A Harrier Hawk soars low over the marsh grasses looking for his next snack.

I’d say this round was a tie bringing the total score to: Delaware Bay 7 Andante 4

Blog keeping notes: I've added an iceberg album and put a "before" picture under the refit album so you can see the original layout.