Philadelphia, PA

A pleasant five hour cruise brought us up the Delaware River on Wednesday, September 11 to the Pier 3 Marina in Philadelphia where we had stayed the last time we brought Zendo here.

We would be staying for five days to visit with Stephanie and to see additional friends and family. Stephanie came aboard when she got out of work and we had a casual dinner of leftover curry while discussing the plans for our stay.

The next day, while Stephanie was at work, we walked all over Philly, so historical and interesting with lots of wonderful neighborhoods.

We had lunch at a great falafel restaurant called Goldie’s that she had recommended to us. It had amazing tahini milkshakes. The place is one of several restaurants owned by Michael Solomonov who also owns Zahav (more about that later). There was a line going out the door of this little hole in the wall place. The food was delicious!  We followed lunch with a visit to the Mutter Museaum, a most unique and rather macabre collection of medical artifacts. Founded by a local doctor with an incredible collection of anatomical specimens and medical instruments, it was very interesting but not for the faint of heart.  When we left the museum, we passed a cute little cinema that was playing Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a movie we’d been wanting to see.  So beause we are footloose and fancy free, we bought tickets and spent the rest of the afternoon watching a very enjoyable show.  It was sprinkling a little when we left but we were very close to Stephanie’s apartment near Rittenhouse Square so we grabbed some takeout and met her at her apartment where we had an early dinner. Lynn was intent on getting back to Zendo in time to watch the Democratic debates which we did.

On Friday we walked to Reading Terminal Market for lunch and split the great pulled pork sandwich that comes with broccoli raab (one of Lynn’s favorites) at a lunch counter there.  Lynn wanted to get a new jacket so we went to a flagship Macy’s where she found one that was perfect.  Macy’s has an amazing atrium with the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, the largest fully functioning organ in the world! It was breathtaking! Unfortunately we didn’t get to hear it being played.

Later that evening, we met Stephanie and Nicky Brayer at a favorite restaurant of Stephanie’s called Res Ipsa where we shared the tasting menu, a wonderful collection of Italian dishes. It was great seeing Nicky who is working on his MBA at Penn. He lives right around the corner from Stephanie on a charming cobblestoned street or mews on which no cars are allowed. He brought us by to see his comfortable home.

Now that the weekend had arrived, Stephanie was free to spend all day with us and the first thing she did was to take us to see where she is now working. Still with Aramark, she was just promoted to a general manager role in a different line of business. She is now running the entire food service program at  LaSalle University where she has a staff of almost 300 people! She is enjoying her new challenge and we are very proud of her.

Afterwards we drove through an absolutely charming area called Chestnut Hill where we had lunch at a lovely restaurant called Cake.  We had to get back to Zendo by mid afternoon because Lynn’s cousin Taylor Lynn and her family were coming for a visit.  Taylor and Stu are the parents of Evie, an adorable toddler and a new baby boy named Otto (after Taylor’s grandfather and Lynn’s favorite uncle) who was born in May.  We had a wonderful visit with them. Taylor and Stu are delightful and their kids are a joy.

But Saturday wasn’t over yet because later that evening our little threesome met a bunch of Jonny’s cousins at yet another Italian restaurant for dinner. After a little mix-up with locations (the restaurant had two locations across the street from each other), we finally connected and had a lively dinner outside. Steve Katzen and his wife, Ann, Steve’s sister Abby and her husband Rich, and their nephew Jeremy who lives in Philly were all there.  Steven and Abby live in Connecticut but were in Philly to pick up Abby’s daughter’s dog for whom they are pet sitting while she is on vacation.  So we had a 

totally fun-filled evening. They were staying very close to Zendo so we visited their “digs “ afterwards and had some local ice cream. It was a late night!

Sunday was another big day. We took six of Stephanie’s friends out on Zendo for the afternoon.  They had a blast and so did we as we cruised up the Delaware River.  We dropped anchor at one point and the kids went swimming and paddle boarding. It was a beautiful day and everyone really enjoyed themselves.  This looks like it’s going to be a tradition as we did the same thing last year which is absolutely fine with us!

But wait, the day wasn’t over. After we returned to dock, we got a ride with Stephanie back to Rittenhouse Square where we met another of Jonny’s cousins, this time it was Emma Bergman who also  lives in Philly. We saw her last time we were in town and she rode her bike to meet us at a cute restaurant near Stephanie where we had a drink and a light bite and caught up on each other’s lives.

We spent Monday in a much more relaxed mode.  Stephanie was back at work and so we took it easy, our daytime outing was to walk to beautiful  Rittenhouse Square to pick up some prescriptions and to get our annual flu shots.

The evening activity was a very special one as Stephanie’s boss had scored us reservations at Zahav, winner of the 2019 James Beard Award for Best Restaurant!  It takes months to get a reservation but we had one for 5:00. What a fantastic meal it was, an amazing combination of Israeli tapas-style items, each one more flavorful than the last. We chose the special chef’s tasting menu with an incredible roast lamb as the crowning touch.  It was quite an experience - very special, indeed!

Tuesday was our last day in Philly and we spent most of it outdoors.  Jonny got up early to drive Stephanie to work so we could have her car for the day.  We took it, along with a picnic lunch, to the lovely Bartram Gardens, an historic garden in Philly.  The garden was the home of John Bartram and his son William who were instrumental in the study of botany in America.  In fact, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and others like them were frequent guests at the beautiful stone homestead there. We strolled the riverfront property on a perfect weather day.

Later we stopped at an Italian market that Emma had recommended. We bought some goodies for that evening and some for Zendo’s pantry. We picked up Stephanie from work and brought her home where we ate leftovers from our various dinners. It was our last night with our little girl with whom we had such a wonderful week.  Lucky Lynn will see her in just a few weeks when they are going to Phoenix together - story to follow!

Delaware City, DE

Sunday, September 8 proved to be a very calm day for cruising.  We left Utsch’s Marina in Cape May at 8:45 right after we said goodbye to Puffin, our good-looking dockmate.

The Delaware Bay was beautiful with very little boat traffic. It was quiet uneventful cruise on a beautiful day as we headed up to Delaware City.

 Lynn made a lot of progress on the afghan she is knitting for her niece, Samantha.

We arrived at the familiar Delaware City Marina at 4:45 and docked in front of a huge Great Harbor trawler, a boat with so much windage it’s practically a sailboat! We are sure it has more square footage than our new condo.

We planned to stay three nights at the marina so Jonny could do an oil change and so we could  time our trip up the Delaware River to visit 

Stephanie in Philadelphia.  Each night we had dinner on board since our favorite local restaurant, Lewinsky on Clinton, had closed!  We had so much seafood from our fish market purchases that we were in good shape!  We had shrimp salad for lunch and Jonny cooked the flounder in a brown butter sauce for dinner and it was delicious!

The next day we went for a long walk on a beautiful trail past a pre-Civil War African American cemetery and towards the “new” C&D Canal. It was lovely!

Lynn did three big loads of laundry while Jonny tried to replace the water pump with an old one that he thought still worked.  No such luck - so he ordered a new one which would arrive the next day. He then went on to change the oil but his extracting pump failed so he borrowed a hand pump from the marina and spent the next 90 minutes hand pumping the old oil out. No fun! His arm was noticeably sore for the next two days!

That night Lynn made a very good vegetable curry for dinner and we had a lazy evening reading and watching a little TV.

The final day in Delaware City began with another long walk along the canal trail. Last time we saw a ground hog and this time a bunny!

Afterwards Jonny walked into town to mail some letters. Delaware City is small but historic and has a degree of charm with a dash of funk.

He returned to invite Lynn to go for lunch at the local waterfront seafood restaurant that had crab cakes as their Tuesday lunch special.  Because we are crab cake snobs, we didn’t expect much, but we were very pleasantly surprised at how delicious they were. Quite a treat and a great bargain at $10!

The new water pump arrived and Jonny got to work installing it while Lynn did some cleaning.  And yes, our roles are pretty stereotyped while cruising which is mostly OK by us!  Now that all our repairs and maintenance have been completed we are ready to leave for Philly.  We’re looking forward to spending a week there. We’ll stay on Zendo but spend lots of time with Stephanie and we plan to see lots of other relatives as well!

Cape May, NJ

We had another long day of cruising on Thursday, September 5 traveling from Atlantic City to Cape May.  We could make better time if we traveled outside on the Atlantic rather than the ICW but we weren’t sure about the conditions.  So after leaving our comfortable anchorage at 8:45, we stuck our nose out of the inlet to see how the ocean looked.  It looked choppy with whitecaps so we erred on the side of caution and took the inside route.  We anticipated that it could take us about 8 hours to get to Cape May instead of 5 if we went on the outside.  And once we were underway we thought it might take even longer because the many bridges and no wake zones were really slowing us down. Again, this was to be a day of hyper-vigilance due to the sinuous passage and the often shallow waters.  However, in the long run, it was a beautiful cruise passing by a lot of comfortable waterfront homes (the Jersey short is filled with them)!

And we cruised through long stretches of serene vistas as well.   The whole trip only took us six hours. We were on a rising tide and we thought that maybe the effects of Hurricane Dorian were pushing water into the bay which helped to speed us along..

We arrived  at Utsch’s Marina after stopping at another one for a pump out. We had never stayed at Utsch’s but it’s very popular with loopers. The last time we tried to stay here it was full and we stayed at another more expensive marina.

We docked next to Puffin, a beautiful 42 foot Nordic Tug with very friendly owners, Peter and Cathy. The dockmaster and dock hands were helpful and welcoming and we quickly saw why this marina had such a good reputation.  We planned to stay for two nights waiting for the best weather window and tide schedule for the next leg of our journey up the Delaware Bay to Delaware City.

Jonny had been suffering from an earache for a couple of weeks and finally decided to go to a clinic to have it looked at. A fellow from the marina gave him a ride to the nearby clinic and sure enough, he had an infection and was able to get a prescription for it. Upon his return, the marina (and the general area) lost power but fortunately it came back a couple of hours.  Although Dorian was moving up the coast, we hadn’t expected it to affect us in any significant way other than the fact that in the middle of the night it poured rain and the next day it rained a little on and off during the day.  Lynn put off doing the laundry which was a very long walk from the boat due to pending rain.

That night, we treated ourselves to a true date night by having a delicious  prix fixe dinner (albeit at 5 :00!) at the elegant Peter Shields Inn and Restaurant. The restaurant was located in one of the gorgeous early 1900’s homes that line the road across from Cape May’s beautiful beachfront.  It was a lovely meal with wonderful service and we felt quite pampered.

The next day was bright and sunny.  Jonny did some engine maintenance and fixed one of the bikes so we could go exploring.  However, the fix didn’t hold so we had to borrow one bike from the marina.  We proceeded on our way, cycling through the charming town of Cape May which is filled with Victorian architecture, beautiful homes with welcoming front porches, and and cute shops.

We headed to Ducky’s, recommended by last night’s server as “the place to go” for fresh vegetables. We loaded up our backpack with beautiful fresh vegetables. 

From there we biked along the beach road checking out the gorgeous wide Atlantic beach where quite a few people were enjoying the last vestiges of summer.

The day called for ice cream so we found an ice cream shop on a pedestrian mall in “downtown Cape May”.  Lynn was a little disappointed in this part of town. Though it was attractively laid out, it was more touristy and seemed less authentic than the older, more charming parts of town.  On the way back to Zendo, we stopped at a fabulous fish market run by the Lobster Pot, a very popular (and touristy) restaurant right next door to our marina.  They had stone crabs for $7.50/pound, unheard of to us Miamians where the prices are more than twice that! We bought stone crabs, soft shell crabs, and flounder.  Jonny had bought their lobster salad, potato salad and coleslaw when he was here on his way up north and highly endorsed them so we bought those too.  We would be feasting on fresh seafood for the next several days!

When we returned to Zendo, we were invited aboard our dockmates’ boat, Puffin, for drinks and hors d’oeuvres.  Peter and Cathy are a charming couple from Cincinati with whom we were very simpatico. Too bad we were both leaving the next day - we would have enjoyed spending more time with them.  Hopefully, our paths will cross again!

Afterwards, on our aft deck we indulged in our seafood extravaganza enjoying our fresh stone crabs, soft shell crabs and corn on the cob. What a treat!  The next morning both Puffin and Zendo would be taking advn antage of calm seas and a favorable current on the Delaware Bay to head out to our next ports of call. 

Atlantic City, NJ

We gave ourselves a pre-dawn wake-up call on Wednesday, September 4 for the long cruise down the Jersey shore.  If we started early before the seas picked up, we could make better time by going on the Atlantic side of the coast rather than the winding intracoastal waterway (ICW).  So at 6 a.m. we pulled up the anchor, watched the sun rise, and headed out on what started to be a sunny day.

We stayed on the outside until about 1:00 when the wind and waves picked up and it was getting just too uncomfortable. There are not many places along the Jersey sure that are safe to pull into and we were just getting to the Barnagut Bay inlet which was our best bet.  Jonny muscled his way into  that challenging inlet and we proceeded on the narrow sinuous channel that would bring us to the ICW. We continued on that skinny channel which required a lot of concentration.  This was not a relaxing cruising day!  We did cruise through some serene areas and passed  this beautiful isolated house in Little Egg Harbor (love that name)!

By 5 p.m., we arrived at an anchorage noted on the chart, but it was wide open and had a very strong current.  Jonny wasn’t comfortable with the situation so we decided to push on to Atlantic City.  It should be noted that we were pushing to make it to Cape May to get ahead of the remains of Hurricane Dorian before it impacted our area.  

As we neared our anchorage we watched as a helicopter seemed to airlift someone from a nearby fishing boat. We were not sure if it was a practice maneuver or for real. There was no chatter on the radio to indicate either situation. 

By 6:30, after a 12 1/2 hour cruise, we arrrived at a very protected anchorage in Atlantic City called Brigantine across from Harrah’s Casino. It was a nice, calm spot with only two other boats that were on mooring balls. 

Jonny had been manning the helm for most of the trip and he was pretty tired.  Lynn made a dinner of pork tenderloin marinated in jalapeños in adobo sauce which we cooked on the grill. That and a tossed salad made for a satisfying dinner after a long and stressful day (particularly for Jonny).  Harrah’s and nature provided an amazing light show.  Following that extravaganza, we had a quiet evening and fell into bed early.