C&D Canal (Chesapeake City) 10/5-6, Swan Creek/Rock Hall 10/6-9

C&D Canal (Chesapeake City)

We left the Cohansey River at sunrise after a windy bumpy night and headed up the Delaware Bay to the C&D Canal. It was a glassy-calm-uneventful-day and we motored the whole way, again staying just outside of the shipping channel. New Jersey was off our starboard and Delaware was off our port. We timed our trip so we hit the canal when the current turned in our favor. There are places, canals, rivers and bays mostly where there are strong currents and we have to plan our days so they are going in the same direction as we are, if we hit them at the wrong time it can take us a lot longer to get to our destination.

After going all the way up the Delaware Bay and almost all of the way down the C&D Canal, we tied up at the small public dock at Chesapeake City. There were some tricky muddy shallows in the harbor, it reminded us of home! There was a beautiful park and a quaint old village to explore - the town dated back to the construction of the canal. We had homemade peppermint patties at a local general store, yum! The original canal had a series of locks but was eventually upgraded and widened and the locks were removed. "According to the US Army Corps of Engineers timeline, the history of the C&D Canal dates back to the mid-1600s when a mapmaker noticed that a short isthmus of land separated the Delaware River from the Chesapeake Bay, which, if navigable, would shorten the water route between Philadelphia and Baltimore by nearly 300 miles. A canal building craze swept the nation in the late 1700s, leading to a survey of possible routes. Actual construction of the canal started in 1804. That project stalled. It was reorganized in 1822, and construction started again in 1824, but with a different route that only used 4 locks rather than 14. The channel's built 66 feet wide at the waterline, 36 feet at the bottom, and 10 feet deep. It opened for business in 1829." Benjamin Franklin was the person who lobbied for it's construction. A popular local pastime in Chesapeake City was packing a picnic and watching the boats travel down the canal. The musical Showboat was inspired by a ferry that used to travel the canal. I don't know what Showboat is but my parents tell me it is an old famous Broadway musical that is not as good as Hamilton. Chesapeake City has free wifi and we sat on a bench in the park and caught up on schoolwork. The next morning we waited until the current in the canal was favorable and left for Rock Hall.

One of the railroad bridges in the C&D canal

One of the old shops in Chesapeake City

Rock Hall

We left Chesapeake City for Rock Hall at around 11:00am. Stan, Jessie, and I decided to play pirates and then I had the idea to put on our pirate costumes which our neighbor from home Diana Anderson gave us before we left (she made them!!!), and then soon everyone but mom was dressed up as a pirate. Mom couldn't dress up because Jessie was using her costume and she was steering. Another boat went by that was also flying the Jolly Roger. We were yelling pirate stuff at each other and Stan was waving a plastic sword at them. Dad talked to them over the VHF and told them about the pirate festival on Ocracoke and they said that they would try to be there, they are heading to the Bahamas too. A giant tanker went by and we saw more than one person staring at us through binoculars. Stan gave them the arm horn signal and they honked for him, he is so excited whenever he gets a honk!

We got to Swan Creek (other harbor at Rock Hall) near dinnertime and anchored out near a beautiful marsh. Dad and Stan went out in the dinghy while Mom, Jessie, and I made vegan chili and cornbread. Mom is getting really good at vegan cooking that everyone enjoys (she tricks Dad and Jessie into thinking they are eating meat, I am the only full time vegetarian.) Dad and Stan went to the office at Haven Marina to see about using the showers. We had an awesome dinner and then went to bed early.

All of Swan Creek/Rock Hall/Haven Marina kind of blended together, but I will tell you about our favorite parts. We came to Haven Marina in Swan Creek mostly for showers but they had everything there, pool, playground, restaurant, bikes, laundry, games, workout room and marine store - and the people who worked there were so friendly. After the first night we ended up getting a mooring at the marina for the rest of our stay.

We had not had showers in a very long time. One of the first things we did when we got there was we took showers. It felt so nice. The shower that I went into had the best water pressure. The showers there were also really clean. I did not ever want to get out of that shower.

We were very exited to go to the pool at Haven Marina. We surprisingly, had not gone swimming since Sag Harbor. Jessie and I dove right in before testing the temperature of the water, and it was really cold. We quickly jumped out, but soon decided to go back in. Soon I got used to the water temperature. Mom had said that she was going to go in the water with us but she would only put her feet in. I found a float by the shed and there was nobody else at the pool so I figured that it was not somebody’s and I could use it. I floated around on it for awhile but the bottom of the float was made of mesh so I was still almost completely in the water using it. Soon it got too cold for me so I got out. I laid in one of the chairs decided to FaceTime my friend Phebe. I walked around the pool and I stepped into a puddle that was right next to the pool. It was very warm. The sun had warmed up the pavement and the pavement. I got the idea to take the float I had been on earlier out of the pool and onto the pavement. The water on the float warmed right up and so I laid down in the water from the float on the pavement. I went back in when dad came back from riding one of the Haven Marina bikes to West Marine. Dad dove in without knowing how cold it was and got right out because it was to cold for even him. There was another boy that was the same age as Stan but was a much better swimmer than Stan. He was swimming all around the pool and diving in. Stan is the same age as him and can't swim without some kind of pfd (personal flotation device). Stan lives in his pfd now. Soon we left the pool because nobody wanted to go in because it was too cold.

I heard that there were bikes that you could use at Haven Marina and immediately really wanted to use them. I had not rode a bike since about three weeks before we left. I was really exited to go on some errands with dad on the bikes. We rode our bikes to the store with our backpacks and got some food. We put some in our baskets and some in our backpacks. We brought it all back to the marina. Later we went to West Marine and got dad's inflatable life jacket from Wally fixed. After that we rode around town a little bit and then went back to the marina.

One of the days we were at Haven Marina was very rainy. Dad and I decided to take advantage of the free fresh water and wash the boat. So we put on our foul weather gear and got the scrub brushes and went out into the rain. First we scrubbed the decks, and then we went down in the dinghy and cleaned the hull. Mom, Stan, and Jessie stayed down below and made homemade coffeecake. It was so nice to come in all wet and cold and have nice warm coffeecake for breakfast. It was so good that I learned that you would feel sick if you ate too much the hard way. Soon after breakfast Dad got a call from a couple named Susan and Don. They were staying on their sailboat moored right next to us named Blue Dancer. Dad had met them the day before at the Marina. They were offering to come over and give us a math lesson, because Don was a math/chemistry professor before he retired. Dad said yes that would be great and they came over a little later. They were so nice!!! Don gave us a really cool math lesson about "base numbers", which I mostly forget. (If you are reading this, sorry Don!) Susan told us about her brother the lives in Charleston, who did a similar trip with his kids, and gave us his number. They also told us about St. Michaels, where they were going next and we decided to go too. They stayed and talked for a long time, Susan and Don are officially the first brand new friends we made on the trip.

Haven Marina had a small exercise room with two treadmills and a bike. Mom, Jessie and I went up there and mom ended up putting on music and dancing behind us on the treadmills and we ended up joining her, it was so fun. We do a lot of walking but it's hard to get a lot of exercise while we are underway. We had a lot of laundry so dad went to do the laundry while we were playing at the playground that Stan loved. Dad was doing the laundry for about 4 hours. We played at the playground for awhile but soon decided to try to learn how to play bocce. We watched a youtube video on how to play bocce, but we did not really understand how to play and kind of made up our own version. We were playing bocce when Susan and Don came over to say hi. We soon found out that Don was on a bocce team, and he taught us how to play it correctly. Susan told us about a board game that she had that Don really hated. She wanted to give it to us. We had to go back to the laundry but a little later we were going out to an early dinner and Susan gave it to us, the game is called Sequence (and we love it!). We walked to a crab place for dinner, where I tried crab for the first time and really liked it. We got Smith Island cake for desert, which is a 10 layer cake the women of Smith Island invented. The frosting on all the layers keeps the cake fresh longer and they would send it out with their husbands when they went out oystering. It was a long walk back. We tried to call the trolley to have it come pick us up, but they were not picking up. We went to bed early so we could get up and leave early for St. Michaels.