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June 4 - Chesapeake City, MD

Waiting on Weather
Chesapeake City Free Dock

We are waiting for the weather to improve so we can move down the Delaware River to Cape May, NJ. We spent most of the day hanging around the boat watching people and boats move in and out of the basin. We also walked over to the C&D Canal Museum, which is located in the original lift wheel pumping plant that was used with the lock that was located here when the canal first opened. Here's a short history of the C&D Canal: The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal (C&D Canal) is a 14-mile long, 450-foot wide and 35-foot deep ship canal that cuts across the states of Maryland and Delaware. It connects the waters of the Delaware River with those of the Chesapeake Bay. The Canal provides a shortcut of about 300 miles for ship traffic between the Port of Baltimore, and the northeastern U.S. cities and Europe. The C&D Canal is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering landmark. It's the only major commercial canal in the U.S. that is still in use, among those, which were built during the heyday of canal building in the early 1800s. The original C&D Canal was built privately in the 1820s. It opened for business in 1829, it had 10 feet of water depth, four locks and it carried barges and sailing vessels that were towed by teams of mules and horses.  In the 1920s, the canal was excavated and deepened to create a sea-level facility with a channel 12 feet deep and 90 feet wide, with no locks. Through the years there have been many other expansions, the latest was completed in the mid-1970s. Today's canal is a modern sea level, electronically controlled commercial waterway, carrying 40 percent of all ship traffic in and out of the Port of Baltimore.

The Liftwheel Pumping Plant - now the C&D Canal Museum 
This is what the original pumping plant looked like
One of the large engine that turned the lifting wheel (water wheel)
Everything is in bloom here
This man was kayaking around the Delmarva Peninsula...that's over 300 miles. He said it would take about 16 days, but he had food for 22 onboard. His kayak is equipped with Hobie Cat pedals and a sail. He sleeps in the bow of the boat. Sounds impressive to me...glad we are on The Pearl.
It's getting a little crowded here! (that's another Monk 36)
This is a Trumpy yacht named Freedom, it was built in 1926 and is 103' long. It took 14 wooden boat specialists four years and over 6 million dollars to restore. There aren't many of these yachts left...they were made of wood and each one was specially made for the owner.

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