We all enjoyed our stay in Philadelphia. We loved how close we were to the historic district and several corner markets as well as the large Reading Market Terminal. Inconceivable did collect a large amount of soot and other funk from being under the Benjamin Franklin Bridge with car and subway traffic. There was also debris floating down the river due to flooding further up the Delaware River. She is in the process of getting all cleaned up.
Saturday we were underway by 6:00am to head down river with the current. Heading against the current 2 weeks earlier we were cruising at 6 knots and with the current on Saturday we were averaging a little over 10 knots. What a difference!
Penn's Landing Marina
It was nice to see nature taking back over the docks!
We saw the Nuclear plant in Delaware for most of the day.
Always nice to see the Coast Guard out and about.
Our sunset on Saturday night.
We arrived at our anchorage north of Cape May by 5:30pm our charts read 10 feet depth but the actual depth was 5. This is all due to the shifting of the sand and NJ not maintaining their waterways.
Sunrise on Sunday morning looking out over the town of Wildwood Crest, NJ. Due to the wave reports we decided to cruise the NJICW and leave on high tide. We were forewarned to cruise at high tide, watch the markers, crab pots in the channel, and keeping track of where we knew other boaters beached themselves. It was a long and slow move of 40 miles that took 8 hours. Over half of the travel was a no wake zone.
The narrow channel leading back to where we anchored for the night.
New Jersey marsh area. We saw lots of birds.
A small group of boaters fishing.
This was more of the group of boaters we saw most of the day. Below is a cigarette boat that waked us along with all the other boats in the picture above speeding by at his top speed. We were all saying what a wonderful and thoughtful boater, NOT. But hey the police got him as he rounded the channel! Our water depth at the time was 7 feet and we were in a tight channel. We were cruising slow so we wouldn't hit a sandbar. Neither Andrew or I felt it was safe to cruise fast with shallow depth readings. Our depth is 36 inches but still sand shifts quick and it forgiving up to a point. We had to pass the police and cigarette boat who were both drifting in the middle channel and it was TIGHT and scary to say the least. I took a picture after we passed them. We didn't want to hit either boat or ask to get boarded so we proceed as slowly/safely as we could.
One of the many cool offshoots to the ICW.
We saw this pirate ship and thought it was cool. Although cheating a bit with the 2 outboard engines.
While we were waiting for a bridge lift in Ventnor Beach we had some entertainment. A child on each side of the canal was playing with a remote control boat and it helped pass the time. The boat in front of us had to return one of the boats since it got out of range.
A view of the casinos on the oceanfront.
Atlantic City by night. These casinos back up to the ICW and is our port view. If the weather is looking good over the weekend we will be cruising in the Atlantic Ocean and not the NJICW if we can help it. We know that the next section of the NJICW is the worst maintained scection of the entire coast!
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