Jenny & Danny's Great Loop Adventure on "The Other Woman"

Staten Island, the 5th Borough of NYC...           Our weather worked out well as we travelled our last leg in the ocean from Manasquan into New Y ork  Harbor.  Totally different than 2 days earlier.  We chose to stay at Great Kills Yacht Club in  Staten  Island.  The yacht club founded in 1906 had a beautiful building and grounds.  In addition, the people could not have been nicer.   Our  "sponsor" for the holiday weekend, John, had done the loop in 2003.  Since 2008, he rents out slips for those people who do not have their boats in their slip.  The accessibility to the Staten Island Railroad which can take you to places on the island and to the Staten Island Ferry was about a 20 minute walk.  There was also an Italian market, Frank and Sal's which was really good.  Needless to say we got a number of items.  After we arrived, we went down to the Flagship brewery and had food from a tapas place.  Roxanne and David from Beach House went with us.                       Satu

 Delaware Bay to the New Jersey Shore... Danny and I left Delaware City Marina with our flotilla of boats towards the Delaware Bay at 5:22am!  The winds and waves were promising as wells riding the tide down giving us 2 knots of current to improve our speed.  As you can see, we saw much commerce on the Bay and stayed away.  I did take a close up picture of the movement of water at the front of this tanker- looks like a sheet of water.  Tim told us it takes 3 miles for them to stop, so just think about that if you got in their way.                   Ship John Shoals Lighthouse                                Miah Maull Shoal Lighthouse                                                                                                      Cape May Lighthouse                 As we came down the Bay, we were making such good time and there was bad weather and winds projected for later this week so instead of our planned stop in Cape May, NJ, the captain decided we wanted to move up the coast f

Delaware City,  Delaware... Loopers & Jazz Danny and I made the decision to bypass Havre de Grace, unfortunately due to weather concerns and the desire to get up to the Hudson Valley sooner rather than later.  This required for a longer than normal day to be on the water going towards the Delaware Bay.  Another very early start and we had a fair amount of fog to travel through from 5:45am until about 8:30am.  You can see how crowded Annapolis is in the harbor and the appreciation of the fog at the US 50 bridge going to the Eastern Shore. When you get up to the top of the Chesapeake Bay, you go into the C&D Canal (Chesapeake and Delaware Canal) and at the end of the canal, you are in the Delaware River going into the Delaware Bay.  There are special considerations for the Delaware Bay- the tides, the way the current comes in, winds, waves, and BIG commerce ships!  Many loopers associate one person with traveling in the Delaware Bay to get your information prior to travel.  This

Up the Chesapeake Bay to Annapolis...   We finally left Solomons following our delays.  Good weather and no issues while traveling except for one large log which we escaped!  Lighthouses  we passed were Cove Point and Thomas Point Light which is above.  Once we got tied up and straight at Annapolis Yacht Basin, we walked over to the US Naval Academy for our tour.  The grounds and buildings were absolutely beautiful.  The tour was great.   We arrived one day after the plebes (1st year  midshipmen) raced to the top of the Herndon Monument.  The plebes work as a group to climb a well greased obelisk to replace the plebe hat with a upper class midshipmen's hat.  This event marks the end of their plebe year.  We saw Bancroft Hall and a sample room.  The building is massive and the largest dormitory in the world.                                    The docent explained to us that the USNA was founded in 1845 on land given to the Navy by the Army.  The population is usually 4500 midshipmen

Solomons Island... Leaving Point Lookout Marina, the crab boats were out checking pots.  When we got back out into the Chesapeake Bay, we were able to clearly see the Point  Lookout  Lighthouse.  When we travelled this area many years ago, we did not travel as close to the land as we did this time.  The Captain also didn't let me get closer to Point No Point Lighthouse continuing north. We had good travels all the way into Spring Cove Marina.  Nothing has really changed in the last 20 years from when we were here.  People are nice and they take great care of the property.  Luckily, we were able to connect with Joy and David Lazarus who did the Loop previously and lived in Marina Bluffs with us in Virginia.  We enjoyed dinner which included my crab cake! We enjoyed riding the dinghy  around Solomons and caught this family of Canadian geese. For Mother's Day, I went to Calvert Marine Museum to tour the Drum Point Island Lighthouse and see the museum.  The Lighthouse built in 1883