This day was one that I had been dreading for a few weeks. I had read that the Delaware Bay can get rough and our little boat is not so comfortable in a moderate chop. I was encouraged looking at the weather report that said waves would be less than two feet and winds 5 to 10 knots. 

The other important aspect of the Delaware River is the current. If you catch it at the wrong time you might face a 3 knot slowdown for several hours. Instead I carefully timed our departure to coincide with a favorable current that would give me a 2 to 3 knot boost for much of the trip.

So we left the C&D canal and entered the river. It was fairly calm and we were able to travel at between 14 and 16 knots for several hours. We got to within a half hour of the inlet when the wind picked up and started driving against the current. This created the kind of choppy conditions that are not much fun. We had to slow way down and hit each oncoming wave as squarely as possible. Instead of a leisurely 30 minutes, it took close to two hours of constant work.

The payoff at the end of that was the beautiful and well run South Jersey Marina at Cape May. We enjoyed walking the mile or so to downtown, along a tree lined neighborhood road. We met several other Loop boats, and we even got to go look at the beach for a few minutes! The relaxing day almost made up for the stressful morning on the water.