Delaware City, DE (Philadelphia)

We left Cape May at 8:40 for our full day’s journey up the Delaware Bay to Delaware City Marina.  The weather was sunny and cool and Jonny went back and forth from the fly bridge to the saloon throughout the day.  The cruise was calm and uneventful with the current running with us for part of the trip.  We were excited about this trip because Stephanie would be picking us up so we could spend the weekend with her in Philadelphia.

We arrived at this familiar and friendly marina at 5:00, tied up quickly and visited with dockmasters Tim and Charlie who seem to always to be there when we are.

We decided to forego our usual visit to Lewinsky on Clinton and instead have our own  cocktail hour on board and work our way through the food in our refrigerator.  We still have a lot in the freezer which we need to consume because our journey is (sadly) almost over!

The next morning Stephanie picked us up.  Georgio was very happy to see her and gave her a big hug!

Then we left him onboard and headed into Philly.  On the way we stopped at a cool country market where we bought apples and veggies and Stephanie got a couple of pumpkins for Halloween.

We arrived at her very comfortable apartment just off beautiful Rittenhouse Square and were greeted by her cute kitty, Sasha.

That afternoon we headed over to Philly’s hipster neighborhood known as Fishtown.

There, we found a very cool pub called Jonny Brenda’s that featured all kinds of hard cider.  We had a delicious lunch and yummy ciders.  Our server was an engaging young woman from the Lake George area who was very familiar with the lovely town  of Vergennes, Vermont which was one of our favorite places on Lake Champlain.  The connection came up because one of the featured ciders was made in Vergennes.  As expected, a lively conversation about our journey ensued.

Upon returning to Stephanie’s apartment, she popped a open a bottle of Veuve Clicquot so we could celebrate her recent promotion and raise and her upcoming birthday.  We are so proud of her!  And later that evening we had a celebratory dinner at a great Italian restaurant in the Old City called Panorama.  It was exceptionally good and we obviously were throwing caution to the winds with our culinary indulgences this weekend!

Stephanie made breakfast for us on Sunday morning and we headed out for a brisk walk along the Schuykill River.

It was quite cold having dropped to the 40’s during the night.  Stephanie showed us the new building her company would be moving to by the end of the year and we walked back towards her apartment.  She is so lucky because she can walk to work now and when her company moves she will be even closer to the new building.

Philadelphia is a very beautiful city and she really loves living in one of the nicest parts of this historic city.

After a homey lunch at the comfortable restaurant across the street from her home, we loaded up her car and she drove us back to Delaware City so we could resume our cruise the next day.  We’ll see her next in Miami when she comes home for Thanksgiving.  A wonderful weekend was had by all!

Cape May, NJ

We held off leaving Atlantic City on Thursday morning October 18 waiting for a more favorable tide since we thought we might cruise on the intracoastal instead of the Atlantic.  The winds were expected to be higher than the day before which could make an ocean passage more uncomfortable.  And the tides were looking favorable for an inside passage through the skinny New Jersery intracoastal waterway.  Jonny kept going back and forth with the decision on which route to take.  The ocean passage could be shorter and easier if the seas weren’t too kicked up.  The intracoastal passage is shallow and twisty with lots of no wake zones and many bridge openings.  He consulted with the local port captain who pointed out that if the ocean passage was too rough we could always duck out after an hour and go into Egg Harbor and pick up the ICW there.  So we decided to try the ocean passage.

It turned out to be a great decision!  We left Atlantic City at 10 and Jonny hugged the shore since the wind was out of the west.  The seas were not at all bad and the weather was sunny enough that we spent most of the day on the fly bridge, though we stayed bundled up against the chilly temperatures.  We made good time and arrived at our Cape May anchorage at 3:00. 

We spent the rest of the day reading and relaxing.  

It was cool enough to warrant our leftover lentil soup and salad for dinner which was much appreciated.  Jonny finally turned on the generator so we could have some heat.  That evening we watched one of the movies Andy loaned us, an enjoyable British feel-good movie called A Street Cat Named Bob. 

Atlantic City, NJ

We left our favorite New Jersey anchorage called Glimmer Glass at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, October 17 in order to make time on the Atlantic before the wind picked up later in the day.

It was sunny all day but cold enough that we spent the bulk of the day cruising from the saloon again.  We have done this more times on this trip than ever before. 

The Jersey shore continued to be lined with lots and lots of attractive beach houses.

By 3 p.m. as the waters became more choppy, we made our way into Atlantic City.  Good timing!

This time we decided to stay at the Farley State Marina which is also known as the Golden Nugget Marina.  Previously we had stayed at Kammerman’s Marina but we thought we would try something different.  We were not thrilled with our stay at Kammerman’s three years ago but it does get very good reviews on Active Captain so we will consider giving it another chance in the future.

After docking, Jonny washed down Zendo which was completely encrusted with salt.  We have been spoiled most of this trip because we have been traveling in fresh water lakes and canals and the boat has stayed relatively clean.  We then headed up to the showers and got dressed to go out for our “date night.”  A Chart House was located above the marina and they had a great happy hour with interesting and reasonably priced food choices so we decided to take advantage of it.  The setting was lovely overlooking the marina and harbor. As we sat in the cocktail lounge we reviewed the weather for the next couple of days to determine our best approach for getting to Delaware City (the intracoastal or the ocean).  In the meantime, we watched as dusk fell and the harbor was bathed in beautiful soft light. 

Although we are definitely not gamblers, we thought we would walk through the casino to get the local flavor.  It was loud and very glitzy, as expected, but not at all crowded.  It’s amazing that these places stay open 24 hours a day!  Lynn tried her hand at one of the slot machines but of course she immediately lost her very modest investment.

After a quick stroll through the rest of the casino we headed back to Zendo since once again we planned to leave at dawn the next day.

Manasquan, NJ

Our Nyack anchorage turned out to be one of the worst nights on anchor that we’ve ever had.  The boat rocked incessantly throughout the night with the dinghy banging like crazy. The slap of the waves was not even rhythmic enough to lull us to sleep.  Each of us woke up several times in the night and Jonny kept getting up to check the anchor app to make sure we weren’t dragging.  Fortunately, the anchor held fast. 

It was a relief to leave that anchorage which we did at dawn on Tuesday, October 16 in order to take advantage of the ebbing tide on the Hudson.

We wanted to make time over the next three days so we could get to Delaware City by Friday.  The plan was to have Stephanie pick us up there so we could spend the weekend with her in Philadelphia.

It was cold enough to cruise from down below in the saloon.  We made our way down the Hudson passing the Tappan Zee Bridge which was under construction and very close to where we had anchored.  

We passed the majestic Palisades and George Washington Bridge.

Cruising by Manhattan  is always a thrill and requires hyper vigilance with all the ferries and other watercraft crisscrossing New York Harbor.  We never tire of the view of the skyscrapers, Ellis Island, Statue of Liberty and Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

Even Jersey City looked beautiful in the morning sun.

We were making great time the whole day with the currents in our favor and the sun shining brightly.  Rounding Sandy Hook, NJ we cruised down the Atlantic coast to Manasquan Inlet passing all the attractive summer homes that line the shore.

Turning into the inlet, we made our way to one of our favorite anchorages, Glimmer Glass.  This is a very calm estuary that is entered by way of an old draw bridge.

It’s a perfectly calm anchorage and we were surrounded by lovely homes with docks.  Only one other boat anchored there. 

We had a wonderfully peaceful night at anchor, quite  the opposite of the previous night.  We enjoyed the lentil soup that Lynn had made the day before, perfect for this chilly weather.  Surpringly, we had no TV reception but we managed to watch our favorites, PBS New Hour on their website and The Voice using Stephanie’s YouTube TV app.

Nyack, NY

We got up early on Monday, October 15 to catch the favorable current down the Hudson River.  Our goal was go get David to Poughkeepsie so he could get a train.  He planned to meet his daughter, Olivia, in NYC for lunch then fly back to Miami later in the day.

We took off by 7 a.m. in rainy and foggy weather.  As we left Kingston’s harbor we started off on the flybridge and cruised past the lighthouse but soon we were all below in the warm saloon where we spent most of the day.

Lynn made a hot breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast using a dry frying pan because we don’t have a toaster onboard.

We didn’t get to enjoy the beautiful scenery along the Hudson but we did manage to discern some of the more noteworthy structures such as the Vanderbilt mansion.  We arrived in Poughkeepsie and found a little municipal dock where we dropped David off in a location that allowed him to walk a short distance to the train station.

Continuing down the Hudson, there were lots of trains going up and down the tracks that line the riverbanks and we passed the towering cliffs of West Point and World’s End.  

As we entered a wider part of the river the waters kicked up and we had a pretty rocky ride which caused Georgio to be a very unhappy camper!  Eventually the waters settled down and we cruised more comfortably.

Since we were on the Erie Canal, Jonny had planned to get fuel at Haverstraw Bay Marina which had the cheapest diesel prices anywhere.  As we neared Haverstraw Bay, Jonny phoned to tell them of our imminent arrival.  To his dismay, they told him their pumps were down and might be open by 9 the next morning.  It was only 1 p.m. and we weren’t inclined to stop cruising.  Jonny got on the phone to call a bunch of marinas to find the second best fuel prices.  After extended discussions of which place to choose and to avoid going hours out of our way, we chose a marina in Ossining, NY.  We stopped to fuel up and then headed to the other side of the river and down to Nyack where there was a large mooring field and a place to anchor.  As always, we love seeing the type of catboat that we used to own.

If the weather had been better, we would have dinghied in to Nyack which is a very pretty town with lots of shops and restaurants.  But we just wanted to stay warm and cozy inside Zendo. 

Lynn headed to the galley where she made a big pot of lentil soup and prepared a dinner of leftover rotisserie chicken, green beans and fingering potatoes. 

The anchorage, just north of the Tappan Zee bridge, which we thought was fairly well protected turned out to be surprisingly rocky.  We had poor television reception, which also surprised us so we couldn’t watch Lynn’s favorite PBS News Hour.  Instead, we spent the evening reading and updating the blog and going to bed early so we could get started by sunrise the next morning.