Delaware Bay Sail Trip

[Ulladh]

I had a pleasant single handed sail/motor sail over three days Essington PA to Bidwell Creek Cape May over the weekend. Overnight at Delaware City Marina and Hancock Harbor on the Cohansey

Nothing dramatic, just a pleasant relaxed sail and good dockside conversations.

To make my schedule for favorable tides I needed to average 4kn SOG, which means motor sailing when speed under sail drops below 2 or 3kn, but used less than 3 gal fuel on a 20ft boat with a 6hp outboard, for a trip of about 80nm.

The boat will be at Bidwell Creek until next weekend when I do the return trip

Had dinner with Rhythmdoctor at Crabby Dicks in Delaware City, was planning on meeting up with Ottos at Cape May but had to return to to Philadelphia for work related stuff on Monday afternoon.

[arknoah]

Sounds like a nice sail!

[chef2sail]

Sounds like you had a good time. I know that stetch well...Say hi to the greenheads for me.

Dave

[deniseO30]

If my "possible end of season trip" http://www.sailnet.com/forums/chesap...ason-trip.html becomes an actual trip. The meetup you have in mind could work! From what I've heard, I think the Cohansey is deep enough for 5 ft fin keels

[GaryHLucas]

The Cohansey is a strange river. It's like 200 feet wide, and 80 feet deep! The only really shallow part appears to be the sandbar across the entrance. Going in you need to stay real close to the fixed marker on your port side. I ran really hard aground about 30 feet to starboard! Fortunately my keel was all the way down so I didn't go up on the bar and could retract it to 3 feet to get off.

Gary H. Lucas

[Ulladh]

chef2sail
Green heads and black flies, and swarms of gnats at sunrise and sunset, bayside NJ just would not be the same without them. Their larve feed the fish, and the flies feed the birds, but we are food for the flies.
I use a sunscreen with citronella in it when near the shore line, it does not stop them swarming but I don't get bitten.

Denise
The bar at the entrance to the Cohansey was at about 17ft depth when I entered just after low tide, and depth in the river was 20, 30 and 40ft +++. The bay near the entrance has shoal areas in all directions but not less than 9ft.

I will check the tides and plan a September trip, should also be less bugs. A 2 days sail for me from Essington.

Read the post from Gary as I was typing, I kept close to the green day marker pylon and followed the crabbers.

[deniseO30]

Nice! I brought it up on ActiveCaptain has it listed at a $1 a foot for dockage. cheap! (if true) Is there an anchorage area at Hancocks?

[Ulladh]

Denise
Yes $1/foot, plenty of space and deep water other side of river to drop anchor, mud bottom.
The tidal current is as strong as Essington, but slack lasts longer.
If it was closer to Philadelphia this would be my home port, but some folks based at Hancocks live further than that.

[deniseO30]

sounds great! (except the bugs) Just thinking lately my Idea for a group called "Delaware River Recreational Sailors, DRRS" is really not growing very much. Oh well.

[Ulladh]

Sunrise at Hancock Harbor.