South, south, south, we are heading south! Ooops, except for today which found us going north all day up the Delaware Bay. Why on Earth would we do that, you ask? We were about to get hit with nasty weather on the coast and we had basically two options–wait it out, or take a little detour through the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays, where the weather is supposed to be a bit calmer. We decided it would be interesting to check out these areas, which are renowned as excellent sailing grounds.
The Delaware Bay turned out to have much rougher waters than we expected, and we dealt with the biggest waves we have encountered on our trip so far. We even reached our all time record speed of 9.6 knots while surfing down one of the big waves today!
We also had our first (and hopefully last!!!) close call with a gigantic tanker ship. It was just after nightfall and we were nearing our anchorage. I was stressing out about navigating in the dark, and K. was reassuring me saying “there’s no other boats around, there is nothing to worry about!” We had just turned into a channel and
were in the midst of taking our sail down. Suddenly we heard an extremely loud horn behind us. If we had a podcast recording of the scenario, it would have sounded a little like this:
“HONK! HONK! HONK!”
“Oh look, there is a huge tanker coming up behind us.”
“HONK!HONK!HONK!
“Is he honking at us? There is plenty of room for him to pass, what is the problem?”
HONK! HONK! HONK!
“Maybe we should move over more, he’s definitely honking at us”
HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!
We veered more sharply to the side and then realized that the tanker was closer than we thought – there is a strange phenomenon that happens at night that makes it difficult to judge relative distance. It really did look like there was plenty of room to pass and we were not in the way, which is why we were questioning him honking at us. No sooner had we moved out of the way, but the tanker was RIGHT where we had just been– he was moving FASTER than we thought too!
Thank goodness K. had enough wits left about him at that point to do a quick U turn so that we hit the wake of the ginourmous tanker head on, and what a wild ride that was! The spray from the wave covered the whole boat, and we were hanging on like we were on
a roller coaster.
Holy Crap that was terrifying! Our guardian angels are really working hard to protect us!
Now we are at our anchorage, cozy in our wee cabin, and so grateful to be alive!
PLEASE don’t have any more stories like this one. Or if you do, please have a safe ending again. Ohhhh, look at your cats! Nice photos. I wonder what they were thinking during the encounter?! Safe travels!
I think I have firmly decided not to try sailing at night anymore if at all possible. The two times we have done it it has been too stressfull! I just read a post on a sailing website by a VERY experienced sailor who had the EXACT same thing happen to him in almsot the same spot in the Delaware Bay, and he said the exact same thing as what happened to us- the ship was surprisingly difficult to see at night and it came upon them quicker than it would seem. That makes me feel oddly better knowing it wasn’t just us being idiots!
I dont know what the cats think…..they do seem a little frightened when the boat rocks a lot, but they have never totally freaked out. They are total troupers!
I’ve read that those shipping lanes can be quite dangerous. There are several big ones in the gulf stream as well. Who would have thought that in such a bit ocean a collision would even be possible. Thank you for the stories. I often think about your journey and the beautiful freedom that you both are experiencing right now.
Glad to hear you are safe and getting to warmer waters. Remember that you are not a pedestrian. During the time I was crew on the Talofa we learned that, whoever has the least ability to turn has the right of way. That tanker could not have avoided you even if it wanted to.