Leg 7 - Sunday, August 7, 2016

Dropped lines at Delaware City Marina and headed out of the creek at 0615 heading toward Cape May or further if we feel up to it. We left early to catch a favorable current in the Delaware River towards Cape May.  We caught the current and were making over 11 knots for the first few hours of the trip.  For a boat that does a top speed of 7.5 knots, it felt like we were on a rocketship.

About half-way down the Delaware we approached Miah Maul Light and turned to head directly toward the inlet at the Cape May Canal.  As we changed course we began to be bitten by a swarm of green head flies.  There were hundreds of them!  We had 2 fly swatters aboard, one stayed in the cabin and the other went to the bridge.  The attack and massacre of flies was relentless.  They just kept coming.  We littered the cabin floor and bridge deck with fly carcasses. They bit our ankles and legs for almost 5 hours causing a lot of sailor talk and jumping around.  We learned the secret of the "old one-two".  First you swat them, then step on them.  If you didn't finish them off, many would lay there for a second and then take off to bite again.  

As we approached the Cape May Canal the Ferry to Lewes, DE, was pulling out.  I thought about my brother-in-law, Lee Mills, who we had planned to visit, in Lewes, but we had to by-pass due to the schedules of the crew.

We entered the canal and proceeded toward Cape May and the Atlantic Ocean.  

Rich Terry had met a young man, Sean Polk, at the Bristol Yachts Rendevous earlier this year who was sailing his Bristol 35 to Key West and was currently anchored just outside the channel near the Coast Guard Station at Cape May.  As we appraoched his position we spotted him in his dinghy and taking pictures of our approach.

We chatted with him for few mimutes and wished him a safe journey and he wished us the same as motored off down the canal.

We exited the canal and turned Northeast toward Ocean City, still battling the flies.

We decided that we could press on to Atlantic City which was only an hour past Ocean City, but it will give us shorter day on Monday to Manasquan Inlet.

We arrived at Atlantic City, NJ, at 1800, after an 11.75 hour day.  The good news is that are now over half-way to Boston.

There are to marinas listed in Atlantic City.  One is the Farley State Marina at the Golden Nugget Casino, which has 640 slips and each dock looks like it was a mile long.  

On the opposite side of the inlet is Kammerman Marina that is a much smaller and is just inside the inlet, and has a fuel dock.  So, we decided to fuel up and spend the night at this marina.  The couple who owned the marina were very nice amd made us feel welcome.  The wife runs the marina during the day and the husband is a Sargent with Atlantic City PD.  We fueled up with 61 gallons of diesel and then moved to our slip.  

As we came into our slip the marina attendant and the owner of a 49' motor yacht next to helped us dock.  The owner of the motor yacht named Rene' was from Ontario, Canada.  He and his wife had been cruising simce April and were heading back to Canada.  We will be traveling the same route through New York City, but they will be heading up the Hudson River toward Canada when we go up the East River toward Long Island Sound.

The owner if the marina recommended a restaurant for dinner that was about a half-mile walk, so we decided to walk over to the restaurant.  It was called the "Back Bay Ale House", so we thought it appropriate being from Boston.

We ate dinner at the bar because the restaurant had a one hour wait.  Food was good and the ladies behind the bar were generous with our brinks.

We walked back to the boat as the sun set behind the downtown casinos.