We got up bright and early today for the 2nd leg of our trip to Annapolis. We timed our departure to take place during slack tide so that it would be easy for me to turn the boat around to head back up the canal. However, when we woke up, the fog was so thick that you could barely see the boat next to you. In fact, it was so bad that the Coast Guard closed the C&D Canal to all traffic. We were stuck!
With not much better to do, we spent the next few hours cleaning the boat and waiting for word from the Coast Guard. And as we waited, I watched the beautiful calm waters of the slack tide turn into a progressively stronger current that scared the heck out of me. By the time the Canal was re-opened, the current was so strong that there was no way I was going to be able to turn the boat around without running into an adjacent boat.
Fortunately, the dock-hand had been through this a thousand times. They have developed a technique whereby they can turn your boat around without your even leaving the slip. Basically, the push your stern off the dock and then walk your bow line up stream while the current pushes your stern around 180 degrees until it is back at the dock. It worked perfectly, and we were ready to go. Except it was now 12 o’clock noon, and we were 5 hours behind schedule.
It was a 7-8 hour ride to Annapolis and we might not make it by nightfall. This was an issue with us since we had never driven the boat at night. We decided that we could still make it, as long as everything went our way. Of course this did not happen.
When we got to the C&D we found that the current was now heading towards us at about 4 or 5 knots. If we had left on schedule, we would have had the current to our backs, but now, we were going to be traveling the 14 mile canal at about 4 knots and losing two hours in the process. There was no way we were making it to Annapolis by nightfall. Good thing we were not in a hurry!
The C&D Canal is a joy to travel. There are several nice Marinas along the way and we were fortunate not to meet up with very many commercial vessels. One thing to be aware of though; if you enter it when the current is emptying into the Delaware, like we did, you will hit some strong, swirling currents at the entrance. Nothing to be alarmed about, but it caught us off guard. We were traveling at idle speed, taking our time, and got whipped around sideways. All we had to do was crank it up to about 15 knots and power through it and all was well, but is was scary for a moment.
After getting through the canal it became apparent that we were not going to make it to Annapolis on time, so we decided to spend the night at a marina, on the Chesapeake side of the canal, called Great Oaks Landing. That is where we learned a lesson about looking for markers at the entrance to a new marina.
We saw the entrance from across the bay and headed in what seemed like a good approach. What we did not realize is that, just before the entrance there is a shall, and you need to hug the southern coast for the last 100 yards. Our draft is only 3 feet, so we got lucky and skimmed right over it. A fisherman on the other side shouted out that “We had a horseshoe up our ass,” and laughed as we went by.
By the time we got there it was after 6:00pm and no one was around. When we spoke to the dock master earlier in the day, she told us to use the gas dock as our slip, so we knew where to go, but everything was shut down. Even the restaurant was closed, which surprised us. We had read great things about it, on our tablets, while crawling through the C&D, and it was the main reason we chose that marina. It looks like a fun place, with Tiki Bars and beaches, but it was a ghost town to us. And since it is in the middle of nowhere, with no other choices, we had a martini and went to bed, hoping to get an early start the following day.
