CHESAPEAKE CITY

It was a beautiful morning - warm, still, a little haze in the air to make everything look just a little ethereal. We needed the Spa Creek Bridge lifted to leave our mooring area, and it doesn’t open between 7:30 and 9:00 AM, so we got up early enough to leave before 7:30. Chesapeake Bay was as still, I think, as I have ever seen it. Very few boats out, compared to the weekend, so the water surface was smooth and reflective in the early morning sun.

Our initial plan was to go over to Rock Hall (our old home port for our trawler when we lived in Philadelphia) where there is a free town dock not far from the grocery store. We needed to stock up on a few things and we wanted to stop by to say hello to our friends, the marina owners. As we thought through the next day or two, we realized that we could be in a good position for the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal and on into Cape May on Tuesday if we left Rock Hall early afternoon and anchored out in the Bohemia River, so we got our groceries, said our hellos and took off again. Keeping our plans flexible, we passed by Bohemia River and kept on going to Chesapeake City, which is on the C&D Canal. We anchored in the basin with another PDQ 34, TIGER (Bill & Carole). There was quite a discussion, all around, about the tides and currents in the Canal and down the Delaware River. Leaving early, we’ll have a favorable tide going through the canal, but run into an incoming tide going downriver on the Delaware. However, the wind will be more favorable early, so we plan on leaving around 7:00 tomorrow morning.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge, leaving Annapolis, early morning

On our run from Annapolis to Rock Hall this morning, we decided to travel at our slow, trawler speed since the conditions were so nice. Sitting at the helm on the flybridge I could only see the expanse of the mirroring water surface as I looked in all directions. The slight haze obscured the sight of any land, so there we were, cruising in our little boat, with nothing but calm, smooth water all around us, early on a warm morning. I got that strange deja vu feeling as I realized this was the exact scene in my fantasies a little over a year ago. I was lying in my bed exhausted, the pain dulled by narcotics, as a war raged inside me between my immune system and the cancer which had been successfully taking over my body. I kept trying to relax, to think positive, peaceful and pleasant thoughts and the scene that developed was what I was living this morning. It felt good.