6:45 a.m. woke up to rain...closing hatches
7;45 a.m. back from showers trying to get the internet to work...no good!
10:15 left the dock - nice turn around in a small area on the channel....no incident today...
10:30 a.m. heading out under high powerlines in the Delaware River when the Corps. of Eng. boat that came out at the same time, then left us in the dust (powerboat)was up ahead of us and heading back right at us....called "sailboat under power lines" I responded "this is the sailboat" he said" we are surveying" I thought ok, start asking questions...on no, not that kind of survey...surveying water, and probably what is below the water and could not alter his course....We told them we would stay out of their way...and we did and kept going...towards Philadelphia....5 hr ride away.
11:00 a.m. passed by Pea Patch Island that is a Del. state park now -Fort Delaware, Union Fortress dating back to 1859 is located on the island...It once housed Confederate prisoners of war...Orig. built to protect ports of Wilmington and Philadelphia....It is located at the mouth of the Delaware River as we head north to Philly... It is a granite and brick fortress and they have a Living history there.Costumed interpretors take you back in time to the summer of 1864 with hands on history if you want to help a blacksmith hammer out new parts for a cannon or work with a laundress....They have many artifacts from the Island's past....we didn't stop there this time...(by ferry only) but maybe on our return back down the river, if we stay at Delaware City Marina again, we will just take that ferry over...
12:10 PM just passed the Delaware Memorial Bridge, but not before the Capt. or Pilot on the large ship Johann something called us on the radio...Sailboat approaching the bridge, the johann is under it...to watch out and basically stay the heck out of the way....we were crossing to the red buoy to the right just to get out of their way....no worries.....
1:15 PM as we are still heading up the Delaware River, getting closer to freighter traffic, an orange coast guard runabout came buzzin down towards us, turned and came right up beside us...had the big guns on the front, but not aimed at us....said" we are security for that big tanker, to stay way to the right...yes sir...no problem...and they took off..
Big exciting day for us to get the heck off the water and stay out of the way...the commercial channel is not that big and these big boats need room, but we need to stay our of shallow waters, so constently keeping an eye on buoy's and boats....
2:15 PM just went past Philadelphia airport
2:55 PM great just great....lightening, thunder and the rains came again....I am so
trying to send this weather to the SOUTH! poured and poured..just prayed it would stop by the time we found a marina....by golly it did!
3:30 PM docked at Penn's Landing Marina in Philadelphia...great docking by Ken..the dockmaster helped (Jim) super guy...gave us all kinds of information,etc..and gave me a little welcome bag of sample hair and lotions...
5:00 PM First thing to do is have a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich...so after talking with several people and reading about it in a local magazine, we headed to "Jim's Steak" We got there at 5:25 PM..quite a walk...then waited in line 35 min. before we got our sandwiches...then we went to the back of the little place and up these stairs to some tables to eat....good, but not worth that kind of wait...
7:30 back at the boat after stopping and looking at a few historic sites on the way back...Old St. Mary's Church..est. 1763 and was first Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Diocese of Philadelphia..George Washington & John Adams and other members of the first continental congress attended Sunday Vespers there in 1774..
***Site of the First pulic religious commemoration of the Declaration of Independence.
Went by the 2nd Bank of the United States...charted to combat "debt" & inflationary pressures the U.S. Gov't faced from the War of 1812.. now houses a great portrait gallery of history painting of that time. We hope to go inside on Friday.
Went by the 1st Bank of the United States, a few blocks away ...It was Initially chartered in 1791 to combat "debt" the U.S. incurred from the war with Great Britain..bldg. was completed between 1797 - 1799...it was our country's original central bank....
We walked thru Vietnam War Memorial Park ..very nice and Independence Hall Park
Everything was closed for the day, so we just looked.
shortly after arriving at the marina...we had quite the lightening show, wind gusts, rain..glad we were safe in the harbor and not out in it....I hate these stinkin storms that follow me everywhere....good nite for now...more tomorrow.....
Mary and Ken,
ReplyDeleteI was born in New Castle, DE, right there off the Delaware Memorial Bridge. My great-great grandfather was a prisoner at Fort Delaware, William Tidwell (fought for the Confederacy evidently!) and married Susan Burns at the end of the war, who came here from Ireland as a young woman with her sister and worked originally as a maid -- then as a cook at the prison where she met William. I lived in New Castle til I was 8 - my grandfather used to run the ferry back and forth across the Delaware River before they built the bridge. We're following your travels -- a little jealous, though we're having a great time here!