Wednesday June 1: Delaware City. DE

Yesterday at Chesapeake City turned out to be a nice evening. We met Bill and Jean (MTOA port captains for the area) for pizza at the restaurant next door. They live in the area and are kind enough to provide local information for any MTOA members who happen to be traveling through the area - all we had to do was to call! They have a 40' Heritage. Jean was thoughtful enough to bring a jar of her homemade relish - can't wait to try it on a sandwich! The city docks are right next to a cute park near the waterfront. Concerts are held in the grandstand one night a week (unfortunately not the night we were there!).

Chesapeake City is an old town - as are many of the small towns on the east coast. After all, it IS where the first settlers came. Many of the homes/buildings had plaques with the history of that particular sight. The downtown is pretty much what you would expect to see in an old eastern town. We found a nice restaurant for breakfast and then walked around a bit. The third picture is of the dock area.

Most unusual thing spotted in Chesapeake City? This pickup truck with the exhaust pipe in the bed of the truck!! Apparently it's quite common around here - hopefully Joe won't see this as it seems this would be right up his alley :-)

As the tides and currents are again a real issue, I was working on figuring out when we should leave this morning. Due to anticipated severe thunderstorms (which by the way NEVER HAPPENED) we decided to travel a short 17 miles here to Delaware City. We will most likely be here again tomorrow as the wind kicks up (up to 20 knots) and the run down the Delaware Bay is about 60 miles. At least I finally have figured out how the tide vs current charts relate! The opening to Delaware Bay from the C & D canal is immense! Really would not want to be caught on it in severe weather. We arrived here at the marina about noon with a number of other traveling trawlers joining us at the dock throughout the day.

Delaware City is also an interesting place. We rode around town (even though it was again in the 90's) keeping to the shade so it wasn't bad. Found a seafood place to purchase shrimp and possibly tomorrow some crab cakes - Steve wanted his picture as a crab :-) There was also a blacksmith shop in town (never saw that for real) but it was actually the workplace of an artist that worked in metal (like the bird below). When the couple in front of us walked in, the owner said "Don't just stand there - buy something!" So they did :-) A triangle with a striker - like a dinner call thing.

And since the opportunity was there to lunch out in an air conditioned place while we were out riding we took advantage of it. Crab cakes are everywhere around here! Anyway, we got to talking with a couple of guy in the restaurant (started with dad's Tilly hat he left hanging on his bike) and it turn out one of the men is a retired Major in the Marine Corp! He was in 28 years having enlisted and worked his way up to Major - which he said was the best rank :-) He has been retired for 30 years - really nice guy - gave us a reference for a person in Oswego, NY where we will be later this year. He's on the board working to get a museum built here in Delaware City. And to boot - one of his friends joined him later: a retired Colonel!

Also seen today on our tour of the town was the old original lock on the C & D canal. Very small of course and wouldn't handle the tows that go through these days. Very similar to the Erie Canal.