Stuff we saw on August 5th:

• Bridges. The William Preston Lane, Jr. Memorial Bridge, known as the "Chesapeake Bay Bridge" (or sometimes the Kent Island bridge,) is right there outside Whitehall Bay. Dual-span bridges are painful to line up against, since there is all that structural steel at varying distances. Parallax is annoying.

• Baltimore. It's really close to the Bay. It's just 14 nm from Bay to Inner Harbor. How cool is that?

• Gaia II. We spoke Gaia at about 1100. We were t0o dumbstruck to grab cameras and take pictures.

• C&D Canal. The guidebook (and many boaters) have horror stories of trying to bash against the current. In our case, at about 1324 we computed that we could just squeak through on the favorable current. At the time, we were making almost 8 kn over ground because of the flood tide up the Chesapeake.

• Bridges. The Canal has six bridges. All immensely high and far away.

• Ships. The Canal has ships. All immensely big. And close.

Lessons Learned:

• Racing from Chesapeake to Delaware at the end of the day isn't the best idea. There's no place to go in the Delaware River except Delaware City.

• Anchoring near Reedy Point is a terrible idea. The river current is ferocious, and if there's any wind, you will bash around, pushed one way by wind, the other way by current.

• To transit the canal from Chesapeake to Delaware, consider this. Anchor in the Bohemia River to wait for the wind and tides. When there's wind out of the North, depart pre-dawn (or early morning) on a favorable tide to give yourself a full day to down to run down Delaware Bay.

Bottom Lines

Passage duration 0740 to 1720 = 9:40.

Passage distance from Whitehall Bay to Reedy Point: 6nm to Bay; 39nm to Canal; 15nm of canal = 60nm.

**Our Joy Is Now Complete** (to the tune of *Blest Be The Tie That Binds*)







Our joy is now complete,



we've spoken another Whitby,



they were heading down to Annapolis



to get a bite to eat.







We saw them in the bay,



while bound for Cape Henlopen,



we talked about our coming route,



and the beauty of the day.







We agreed to meet again,



at the Whitby rendezvous,



the fellowship of kindred minds

is like to that above.