Learning the Loops

We rolled out of the berth just as the sun was rising. Not that we could see the sun. A dense fog had settled in, reducing visibility to three or four hundred feet. Waiting for the fog to lift was not an option as our departure time wasn't very flexible. Catching the currents going the right way in the destination marina was of prime importance and that window closed at 0930. The good news? I got me some RADAR complete with ASI and good charts, so the fog wasn't that much of a concern. Even with the current behind us we never did much more than then ten knots. The fog wasn't dense enough to make avoiding something we were approaching a problem. Anything moving in our direction resulting in a much higher closing speed would show up on the radar more than a mile away, giving us plenty of time to make for a safe pass. Running in the fog was actually kind of fun.

A tug pushing a large raft of barges through the canal was the only commercial traffic we saw in the C&D. Four sailboats took up in trail behind First Light and we passed one more along the way. The current behind us in the canal became the current on our bow as we turned north into the Delaware River. Shortly after joining the river was a turn to the SSW into the Branch Channel, home of the Delaware City Marina. That turn put a three knot current directly on our starboard side. There was a lot of online chatter about being careful when entering the Branch Channel because of that cross current. After making the turn the current moved to our bow, making docking much easier and the reason for our set departure time.

At the suggestion of Zack, who was working the docks and talking us in on the radio, we hugged the green marker at the inlet of the channel off the port side, then hugged the ferry boat on the starboard side, then idled up to the dock where he caught our line, tying us up to the fuel dock and pumpout station. Filled up and emptied out, we motored slowly down the face dock bow into the current. Zack then used the current to turn First Light around, putting us port side to the face dock and facing the exit for when we are ready to leave. It was all very low-key and pretty easy. Listening to and taking the advice of an expert is the way to go in a new situation.

The Delaware City Marina quickly climbed to the top of the list of our favorite places to dock. It is all face dock. According to Navionics the distance from our starboard side to the opposite bank is less than one hundred feet. I don't think we have been on a dock better protected than this one. Everyone working at the Marina has been friendly and professional. Another plus is the full-time mechanics on staff. We filled out a work order to have the gremlins in the Yamaha exterminated. Just a few hours later, one of the techs was at our boat pulling the cover off the outboard.

His original thought was the same as mine, some kind of fuel system problem. But after pulling the starter cord a few times I think he felt something I didn't have the experience to recognize. He plugged a spark checker in between the spark plug and its lead. Pulling on the handle produced no spark at all. No spark, no go. A few minutes later he and another tech pulled the motor off the Dink and hauled it to the shop. A little while after that we were told that a coil in the ignition system was toast. It looks like we will be here for a few days waiting for the part. It will be a more expensive stay than we had planned with several days on the dock, a maintenance bill, fuel, and pump-out. But we should leave here in good shape for the possibly challenging segments ahead. 

Yamaha Coil Lighting 68T-85533-10-00 New OEM

In the meantime, we will just enjoy this short stopover, putter around the boat some, and meet some more Loopers. So far we are finding the “Looper's community” to be as helpful and friendly as the Sailing Cruising community, though I don't know that we will make as many long time friends as we did with the Sailing Cruising community. It seems likely that the different cruising speeds of the boats will make it difficult to be in any one group for very long. At six knots First Light would seem to rank near the bottom of looper boat speeds. Then again, it also sounds like she is near the top of the list when it comes to miles per gallon. That's a trade off I can take.

We took a little tour of Chesapeake City before we left. I thought my granddaughters would get a kick out of seeing these houses that look so much like doll houses.

My grandsons would go nuts in this store. It's full of old train sets, old toy cars, antique toys of all kinds and since we played with most of them while growing up I'm guessing that means that we're antiques also.

There was an adorable little wedding chapel about a quarter the size of most of the Looper boats we've seen so far.

And a very very big chair that was just like the one I took a picture of my grandson in last summer when he was traveling with us from NC.

This one is for you Roo - I knew you'd never believe it unless I had photographic proof.

A favoring current is so amazingly sweet!

Finally

Sitting at anchor for a couple of days after First Light was lowered into the water had us take on a couple of projects while we waited on weather. The teak rails got cleaned and oiled though, truth to tell, they didn't come out looking as good as I had hoped. Better, but not good. A St. Louis project will be to (gently) sand the rails and coat them with Awlgrip Awlwood. Some LED strip lights were wired into the salon which came out looking really good when night fell. We tracked a small fuel leak in the starboard side engine that we might have finally caught and banished. Deb did a deep cleaning of the bilge to remove some very tenacious mold. Ah, but this morning...

Bye Bye Oak Harbor Marina

This morning we crawled out of the berth early, ran our pre-departure checklists, fired up the engines, hauled up the anchor, and headed down the river. Though we are thousands of miles and months away, we were headed for home. A thought that made me smile. That home lay on the other side of a new adventure and new territory for us was good for another smile.

As we cleared the river into the Bay the smile faded a bit. The wreckage of the Key Bridge was off to our port side and barely a couple of miles away. The magnitude of that disaster is hard to grasp by looking only at pictures. But looking at the container ship with parts of the bridge still draped over its bow, seeing the expanse of the bridge that fell and the cranes, barges, and boats all assembled to handle the job? Whoever is in charge of the salvage operation, and the experts gathered together to get the job done, appear to be doing a remarkable job. But it was a somber reminder of just how bad things can go when things start to go bad.

Not a terrific picture but it was very foggy

We turned away from the bridge and got about the business of moving over the water. It was a perfect day for trawler travel. And overcast sky kept the temperatures comfortable and the sunshine bearable. The winds were basically calm. About the only waves we encountered were created by the racing power boats that were out playing. A lifetime pilot and long time high performance motorcycle rider, I certainly understand the need for speed. Yet I am tempted to say some less than friendly things about those boats and drivers. Still, I suspect I would just be repeating words once spoken about me by car drivers startled by my passing them at speeds double and triple the posted speed limit, and by others who were not expecting to get buzzed by a low flying airplane, sometimes inverted, sometimes much bigger than your average “puddle jumper.” What goes around comes around I guess, so I will not begrudge the boat racers their perfect day of making obnoxious amounts of noise while creating killer wakes. I hope they had fun.

Roughly eight hours after pulling the hook out of the river where we first started our adventures many years ago in Kintala, we dropped First Light's hook it in a place we have never been. It is a tiny anchorage in Chesapeake City. We are surrounded by boats flying “Looper Flags”. Except for our disaster of a training sail years ago around Long Island, this is as far North as we have ever been on a boat. From now on, virtually every place we visit will be a place we have never visited by water before.

So day one is in the books. There is no telling what happens next. After last year's aborted attempt to make this trip we make no assumptions. Instead we will just keep going and do the best we can to handle whatever comes up. Hundreds, thousands, of people have gone this way before us. In Kintala we were often just part of the migration of cruising boats making their way south in the winter and north in the summer. Now First Light appears to be just another boat in the “Looper” migration. Having some company is a good thing.

LED light install

MV Pipe Dream a gorgeous DeFever 44. This would have been our choice had money

been no object...

I loves me some Nebo

Next Day

Looking at the wind plus tide plus likely wave height forecast, we decided to spend another night in Chesapeake City, then move on to Delaware City to top off with fuel, water, get a pump out, and see what day looks best for the run down Delaware Bay to Cape May. So with a day to spare we dropped the Dink in the water and putted over to the Dingy Dock for a look around. After spending some time chatting with another couple doing the loop we took a walk around town. After stopping for a quick lunch, along with the best cup of Coffee I've ever had, we decided to go visit the C&D Canal Museum. It was located on the other side of the Back Creek anchorage from where we were standing so we decided to putt over to in the Dink. But the Yamaha 9.9 HP 4 stroke engine that started on the first pull after being silent for months, would not start. I pulled until a blister formed on my right hand and my wrist cried “Uncle!” No luck. So we rowed back to First Light.

After fumbling around poking at this and looking at that, I tried again. It fired on the first pull, ran just fine for a few minutes, then sputtered to a stop once again. In spite of all efforts, it wouldn't start again. There is clearly a fuel issue but the filter is clean and, so far as I can tell, the remote fuel tank and hook-up is as it should be. Carburetor and fuel pump are next on the suspect list but we are at anchor. Working over the water is an invitation to loosing things in the water. There are no parts available, and the maintenance manual we found on line is nigh on to useless. So, remember all those nice things I said about the Yamaha? Yeah, forget it. It is just another outboard frustration source. Since we are going onto the dock in Delaware City the hope is we can find some kind of support to get the thing running again. Personally I'd like to use it as a spare anchor and get a motor I can trust but, a) $$$ and time, b) it would actually make for a pretty poor anchor and, c) I seriously doubt any such an outboard motor actually exists. But to live and travel on a boat means to row with the punches, so we will likely figure something out.