Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Chesapeake City - at anchor in a dredged anchorage!

Lots of ships waiting outside Annapolis
The winds were predicted to be 5 to 10 out of the northwest and for the morning, that was the case. However, in the afternoon the winds picked up to 15 kts with gusts to 19 and that was not in the forecast. Luckily, by that time we were in the upper bay where it starts to narrow so it didn't affect us all that much. None of the five apps I'm using nor NOAA predicted the afternoon high winds.

We've seen ocean-going ships barely make it under that bridge
Chesapeake City was a 56 Nm run for us from Rhode River and we got an early start at 7:00 am and reached CC by 3:00 pm. It was a pleasant surprise to find that the Chesapeake City anchorage has been dredged. There's 12 MLW everywhere and even 10 to 12 MLW by the free docks. The entrance is now just down the middle as opposed having to hug the east bulkhead. The turn to port into the anchorage itself is also down the middle. The word is not out yet I guess since there are only three boats here tonight. After dredging, you can expect a very muddy anchor and chain in the morning byt at least you will get a calm night.

Just the three of us here tonight
There seems to be a period of calm weather coming and we intend to take advantage of it to make progress north. On Thursday, we intend anchoring out at Cohansey Island to stage us for reaching Cape May the next day around noon to get under the two Cape May Canal bridges (55 ft each). Looking at the weather, we'll stay there two nights and then, hopefully, head for Atlantic City for just one night and then on to the Atlantic Highlands. At least that's the plan. Time will tell.
Evening at Chesapeake City Anchorage

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