BAY RANGER had a good run up the Delaware Bay on August 21. Had a bit of a beam wind and the current wasn't exactly with us, but winds were fairly light. That bay has a reputation for getting pretty nasty in a blow, so we were glad to get it behind us one again. We reached neat little town of Chesapeake City on the C&D Canal around 4 p.m. Fortunately we were able to find a place on their newly-renovated free city dock - very nice. There's a 24-hour limit and water and electricity are available for a fee. There happeed to be a festival going on in town so we helped ourselves to some of the local fare for dinner and listened to the live music.
A guy on the dock came up and asked "Didn't I meet you guys last fall on the ICW last fall at the NC Visitors Center?" Well, it was two falls ago, but we remembered Capt. Ron Ivea on his sailboat Last Dance. At that time, he had recently lost his wife to a brain tumor and was writing a book about her entitled Sailing with Carol. His book has been published and we purchased a copy from him at Chesapeake City. It's a well-written true love story of liveaboards Ron and Carol and well worth a read.
On the 21st, we left Chesapeake City and spent the night at anchor on the Sassafras River. It's a beautiful river with sections of high wooded bank It is sparsely populated and has a number of good anchorages up river. August 22 turned out to be a gorgous day for a homecoming and we clicked off the last 45 miles down the Chesapeake with sunshine, blue skies, and a following current.
The bulkhead and slips are being replaced at our marina and our section was finished while we were gone, so we came back to a new slip, threw on some new dock lines and we were home. We spent yesterday starting to catch up on all those things that a 2-month absence requires - you know, landlubber things!
As kind of a summary, we ended up covering about 1,700 miles in 54 days on this cruise. The variety of waterways we covered varied from the shallow grasslands of the New Jersey ICW to the a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean and everything in between like the beautiful Hudson River,and the challenges of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers. Fortunately we spent time in the beautiful Thousand Islands area at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River which we had not originally intended to do. We negotiated 93 locks on the Erie, Rideau, Richelieu and Champlain Canals and the St. Lawrence Seaway. We encountered the remote lakes of the Rideau region and sampled the wonders of Lake Champlain. We also were awed by sailing right by the Statue of Liberty and skyscrapers of New York City. We had nice visits with friends in Cape Vincent, NY, Ottawa, ONT and Ocean City NJ.
We put 245 engine hours on BAY RANGER and went through 390 gallons of diesel for an average of about 1.6 GPM. We spent $4,400 for the 2-month trip which included groceries, meals out, marinas, fuel, canal locking and mooring fees, misc. shore expenses, and one very expensive repair - replacement of the alternator. Had it not been for the major repair expense, we would have been well under our budget of $4,000.
For those trailering to the area, I'd suggest considering Kingston, Ontario as a possible base. From there one can (1) head north to the fantastic Rideau Canal area and back, (2) do a big clock-wise loop up the Rideau to Ottawa, down to Montreal, then down through Lake Champlain and across the Erie and Oswego Canals and back up the east end of Lake Ontario to Kingston, (3) do the Thousand Islands area and back, or (4) a smaller clockwise loop through the Thousand Islands area, out the St. Lawrence to Montreal and Sorel and south through Lake Champlain and back thru the Erie Canal route mentioned above.
Throughout this cruise, we continued to marvel at the enthusiastic comments we received from other boaters about Ranger Tugs. The comments ranged from those usual "cute little boat" comments we all hear, to "you are driving my dream boat!" Wish I had a buck for every "tour" we gave of BAY RANGER.
I enjoyed sharing this cruising experience with you all. If all goes well, our next major cruise will be to the Florida Keys from October 2011 thru May 2012.
