bye-bye Delaware

Hello friends and family,
We are at the bottom of the Delaware now. How cold is it at home? It is a little cold here. Tomorrow or Friday we hope to start the Jersey coast. Over the weekend we got to go to Washington DC! We even got to see the white house! I wish we could climb the Monument, we couldn't because in 2011 an earthquake hit and the Monument got a little crack in it.
Bye for now,
Jessica

So Far, So Good

We have made good time today, and are now approaching the beginning of the C&D Canal.

We have the benefit of the current, right now our speed is just above 7 knots, with slightly higher than idle power.
In true Cee Jem fashion, we have decided to push on. We always find it hard to stop before dark when we have the advantage of good current or wind. It is 12 miles to the end of the Canal, and we have almost 3 hours of light left.
The caveat to the situation is that we have just heard a radio call stating that a railway bridge halfway down the canal will be closing shortly and remain lowered until a train goes by. The closed bridge height is 45', our mast height is 48'...no good. The Canal controller was vague when we asked about the bridge opening, saying it would open when the train had passed, and there would be a call on the radio to let us know.

What to do???
We are going to carry on, and hope that the bridge opens in time for us to pass through tonight and get to the anchorage on the east side before dark. If not, we have to decide whether we will head into an unfamiliar anchorage after sunset or turn around and backtrack to Chesapeake City to anchor as originally planned.

New Territory

Monday morning, after returning the rental car we left the dock at Solomons headed north. The Chesapeake Bay narrows at the north end and it felt like a much smaller body of water than it had in the fall, before we had sailed "big" water.
Around 3, we passed the Thomas Point Light, fondly remembering our first sail south from Annapolis. Everything north of this light, until we reach Brewerton NY on the Erie Canal will be new cruising ground for us. We missed all of this area southbound when we trucked the boat, due to the damaged and closed Erie Canal. The Erie Canal was scheduled to open today, and we have heard that it in fact opened two days early.

Today our plan is to sail to the top of the Chesapeake Bay, and enter the first part of the C&D Canal. This canal, first proposed in 1661 and opened in 1829, links the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, shortening the water route between Baltimore and Philadelphia. The canal has since been enlarged considerably, and our guide book now states that the maximum allowable length for a self-propelled vessel transiting the canal is 886 feet! Though we hope not to pass a huge ship in the channel, their wakes can be tremendous and reverberate off the rock walls for quite some time, we know we will see many large vessels, and have found a website that shows commercial traffic in the area.
Though you won't be able to see us, you can check out who we might see by checking this website: marine traffic.com and zooming into the area between the top of the Chesapeake and the top of the Delaware.
Off we go.....