Day 264: Sunday, May 26, 2013
Port to Port: Delaware City, Delaware
Underway: 0:00 am Motor Off: 0:00 pm Miles Traveled: 0 Stayed At: Marina
Mile 0 to Mile 0: We spent a few hours in the morning getting ready for our trip down Delaware Bay, plotted our possible courses over the next several days up the New Jersey Intracoastal, wrote yesterdays blog while waiting for a load of laundry to finish and chatted with all the new boaters here.
We had an unexpected reunion too. Some friends –Larry and Lenore on Champ 3 – that we first met way back in Carabelle Florida before our Gulf Crossing in November ended up at the marina. What a pleasant surprise. They had a wonderful crossing of the Gulf a week after us – they have a planning powerboat which can go 20+ so it only took them 8 hours. Lucky.
The marina is going to have a full house tonight so Tim and his crew spent some time repositioning boats so they can fit in all the footage that they expect to arrive this afternoon. We ended up moving all the way down to the other end of the dock right by the main ramp. All we will have to do in the morning is push the bow out, catch the current and head out into Delaware Bay.
One of the boat couples we met here are Ron and Terry on Golden Echo – a steel hulled sloop. They have been trying to get their boat projects done over the last year but their list doesn’t seem to get shorter. Ron had to get some parts for the boat (surprise, surprise) at West Marine and Home Depot so he offered to drop us off at the Flea Market/Farmers Market in New Castle about 20 minutes away. This was the best farmers market we have been too. We bought about 30 pounds of produce for less than 20 dollars. We wandered around the other booths and bought a few things for the boat, found some mini-donuts and shared part of a turkey leg for a late lunch.
Since most of the transient boaters at the dock were leaving on Memorial Day, we decided to celebrate early with docktails at 5:00 pm on the deck by overlooking the channel. Boaters from 6 or 7 other boats showed up with drinks and snacks and we had a blast. We all chatted for a couple of hours and got to know each other a little better. You can imagine how many stories there are in a group like this. We now have a lot more fellow cruisers to hopefully cross paths with in the future.
We ended the day taking a tour of Golden Echo and chatting with Ron and Terry. They are almost ready to start their adventure and we wish them luck and fair winds.