NYC to Philadelphia navigation

[Catalina007]

Hi,
Doing a delivery to Phila in a couple of weeks.
Just curious if anything special to  know about Delaware Bay and up the river here from our group.
I know its shallow, current, ship traffic. 
Cheers

[Ron Hill]

007 : Make sure that if you have a Garmin chart plotter - that you have the Delaware Bay coverage. 

A thought

[KWKloeber]

Stelios

I did the reverse, delivering a C42 from Worton Creek to Great Neck; pretty much 24 hrs continuous except for a weather layover at Atlantic City.
If you contact the canal control they'll alert you about down bound traffic exiting the ditch.

What I would avoid is a moonless night with damn radar that the "I know what I'm doing" owner set up, left out the bolt at the base of the pole, and left the display uselessly spinning to and fro with every swell.

I seem to recall (caveat: CRS) that on the upper bay the west side had more shoaling close to the channel than on the east side.

[Bill Shreeves]

I took my '87 C34 from the Barnegat to Worton Creek on the Chessy via the C&D canal several years ago.   Pretty much any NJ inlet South of Ocean City & North of Cape May should be approached with utmost caution, especially near low tide without local knowledge.  Same thing goes for Delaware City Marina.  Especially if you draw more than 4 foot.  For DE City, Marina they're happy to give detailed directions over VHF.  My low tide approach in to DE City Marina 4 years ago from the South was to keep #1 buoy in to the Delaware City Branch Channel, within a boat length to port then follow a direct path to the docks on the Northern side of the channel.  I think once in the channel slightly favor the Southern side but that detail is a little fuzzy.

Enjoy the trip!

[Catalina007]

thanks all
I intend to skip any and all NJ inlets at any cost.

[Bill Shreeves]

LOL

[Catalina007]

Am I correct in saying there is pretty much no place to stop between Cape May and Delaware City for a sailboat?

[Bill Shreeves]

I've only made that run once.  if you mean marina's, what you said is my take on it.  Up the Maurice river is a possibility but, that's only about 15 or so miles North of Cape May on the Jersey side.  Further North on the Jersey side, and closer to half way between Cape May & Delaware City, is the Cohansey River.  I've never boated on it but, 25-30 years ago I used to frequent a restaurant in Greenwich on the Cohansey and remember it used to have a very swift current where the restaurant and marina was.   Certainly more then 3 knots and it wouldn't surprise me if it approached 5 at peak because its narrow, and winds like a snake with 6' tides.  One that I wouldn't want to deal with in my 34, given a choice.  Especially trying to dock with that because the marina had no protection from the currents.  I don't think there are any on the DE side so, you'd be left with anchoring.  In favorable weather, I'd think you could find a decent spot to anchor.  Its about a 50 mile run to DE City so, pick a good day, start out early and hope the wind & current aren't against you.

[Stu Jackson]

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Its about a 50 mile run to DE City so, pick a good day, start out early and hope the wind & current aren't against you.

Both of which should be entirely under your control.

[KWKloeber]

Am I correct in saying there is pretty much no place to stop between Cape May and Delaware City for a sailboat?

S,

There's a greater number of spots to anchor on the east side, typically you don't need to get too far out of the channel and into sketchy locations/depths/shoals closer to the shore.  There are some also on the west side of the channel, but not as many. 
So depending on the wind you have options. 
The only other marina besides what Bill mentioned that I know of is a short distance up the CnD, the depths at docks are around 10' I believe.
The channel is adequately marked and w/ gps is no particular problem traveling at night (given no weather issue.)

-ken