| Subject:
Lee
Hughes reaches Cape May in New Jersey: Hughes
Nughes 26 ----- Original Message ----- From: Adrienne Faherty To: Sue Hughes ; ... Sent: Friday, May 09, 2003 2:08 PM Subject: Hughes Nughes 26 Hughes Nughes 26 Hello folks, Delawhere?
Barely
saw it. Ok, it's a wee tiny state but even so, I
missed seeing anything of it due to wicked fog. I'm
in Cape May, New Jersey now.  I did 3 states in one day yesterday - Maryland, Delaware and NJ - all in 3 hours. I sailed merrily up the bay on Monday after checking emails at the city dock and drawing out my last $40 from Visa. Then I sailed to a spot about 33 miles up the bay (Codjus Cove north of Worton Creek) and anchored in a nook for the night. Lovely safe sailing under grayish skies with a nifty wind that whizzed me along at 7 mph for most of it. It rained a bit that evening and some fog rolled in. Fair enough, I reckoned, because I'd had a sunny week in Anapolis. ..  But the next day when I set off to sail to Chesapeake City (pop. about 300) at the C&D canal entrance, the fog stayed around till late afternoon. I got in there by noon and wandered around the wee town. It's so tiny it doesn't have a shop but a bridge over the canal is 135 feet high so I walked up it and took pics of 'downtown'. I could have pushed on through the canal but didn't want to because the weather the next day was to be a southerly and that wouldn't have suited me to sail down the Delaware River and Bay. So I loafed there and looked at their canal museum and had a nice night tied up to a free dock. The fog went away, too. ..  But it came back. The next day I motored the canal in heavy fog and passed into Delaware. I was planning to turn north and go to Delaware City (the original eastern terminus of the canal, but now just a grotty city surrounded by chemical plants). However, the sea was flat calm, the fog was heavy, and the wind was non-existent. As I turned out of the canal I caught the river current and hello .. I'm doing 8 mph! South. So I stuck with it and steered a compass course almost all day at never less than 6 mph. I planned to shelter in a creek if the south wind kicked up but it never really did until - at about 2.00 pm - the wind came to life and some fog burned off. By then I was 5 miles from Fortescue, so I motored there. That made about 45 miles for the day (haven't yet totted it all up) and so, if I'd done the canal the day before, I could have made Cape May in one hit. Astounding. ..  Anyway, I then had an odd night at Fortescue - a wee town on the NJ shore about 22 miles north of Cape May. It started OK, with me managing to get all my provisions right at the dockside (so rare to find a shop near the water). Then I anchored in a channel near the state marina, but at about sunset, I could see I was going to beach myself and I didn't like the roaring curent from the creek there. So I hauled up my bow and stern anchors. I nearly got the stern one fouled on a log which I hauled up, too - but luckily it slipped free just before my disc did. As the current pushed me along I tried to motor to a better spot. But I got pushed into the shore - mainly because I forgot to put the centreboard down before starting this. Straight away I caught the prop and snapped the shear pin on it. Bugger. I just stayed stuck on the mud until I had replaced the pin. Then I pushed off with an oar and motored to the floating dock on the other side. I'm on my fourth pin of the trip so far - all but one broken by routine incompetence on my part. I tidied up and washed all the mud off (from up-anchoring with two anchors in a hurry) and decided to squat there for the night. I should mention that big thunderstorms were predicted for that night, but like the previous night, never arrived. I would have paid the dock fee and even wandered off to the dockmaster's office, but he had gone home so that was that. I left there on at 6.30 am on Thursday morning (today) in yet more fog and flat calm seas. After a couple of hours, the breeze blew but by then I was in the Cape May canal so I motored to a marina and went ashore to buy new shear pins. It's still foggy. ..  Anyway, I'm here. Cape May is lovely. It has an enormous collection of Victorian houses all in mint condition - in fact the whole town is a historic landmark. I don't like Victorian architecture but when you see this much in one place, it manages to look pretty cute. If you're the type of person who collects Kincaid paintings of cottages or if you like those china houses you can whack on your mantelpiece, then you'll like this place. I'm going to take it slowly up the ICW to Sandy Hook and NY harbour over the next week. I can do this now because I've got oddles of boodle now that the cheques have cleared in my account. Yarooooooo!! Lee
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