Day 338 – Georgetown, MD to Delaware City Marina, Delaware City, DE - June 8, 2012

Today’s travel was planned to take the best advantage of the current through the C&D (Chesapeake & Delaware) Canal.  The current in the canal can be over three knots at times, so we wanted to go with the current instead of against it.  And go with it we did – there were some stretches of the canal where we picked up almost three miles per hour over our usual speed.

Apparently it was a slow day for commercial traffic in the C&D as we saw only one commercial vessel – a tow, pushing a barge.  This is a rather tricky canal to navigate and the big, ocean- going vessels stop and pick up a local pilot before starting through the canal.

We were slightly apprehensive as we headed into the Delaware City Marina because we have heard about their very narrow channel and their strong currents.  We were pleasantly surprised at how wide the channel actually was – and the current we saw was not a big problem.  The marina is made up of four very long docks on one side of the channel and everyone does a side tie.  We took on fuel when we first arrived and then the dockhands slid our boat forward and turned it around right from the dock.  The turnaround procedure was pretty cool – they grabbed a stern line from the side of the boat opposite the dock and then let all the other lines go.  A gentle push of the bow into the channel (and the current) and the boat swung slowly around.  Then we re-tied the boat facing back out the channel.  This will be the preferred direction to be tied when we depart tomorrow morning.
 
            Miles: 37.4      Bridges: 6        Locks: 0

Turkey Point Lighthouse

this was one of the craziest things we have seen - this is a mobile home park
with over 500 homes in it - they are on a slight hill so you can see almost
all of the mobile homes from the water

the Summit Bridge with the open Conrail lift bridge in the background

the one commercial vessel we saw today, a tow with one barge

the Saint Georges West Bridge with the Saint Georges East
Bridge behind it (and below it in this picture)

this was one of the original locks on the C&D Canal - used from 1829 until
the locks were eliminated in 1927 when the canal was re-dug
to make it wider and deeper