After spending a couple of weeks with my brother on Long Island and returning daughter Noelle to school, we prepared to go the "inside route" down to the Chesapeake Bay. This would involve going along the north shore of Long Island and down the East River past NYC. After that it would be a coastal sail down NJ with 3 stops, the long slog up the Delaware Bay to the C&D canal then down through the Bay.
This was all new territory for me and I was particularly concerned with the NYC leg after having heard tales of "Hell's Gate" all my life. We over-nighted in Manhasset Bay at got underway about 6AM in a light fog. It was neat crossing under the Throgs Neck and Triboro bridges and we timed Hell's Gate just right at dead high tide when it was like a pond. We had the tide with us for the rest of the day and we blasted past NYC at over 9 knots. Jan had a great time looking at the sights but it was white knuckles for me all the way with lots of commercial traffic, hi speed ferries and big wakes...didn't have much time to look around! Things finally calmed down as we passed the Statue of Liberty...what a beautiful sight from close up on the water.
We had planned to spend the night in Sandy Hook but with the lift the tide had given us, I decided to press on to Manasquan Inlet. Manaquan is an easy inlet to navigate but you have to then pass through a narrow railway bridge that can be tricky in the current with only a few feet on either side to squeeze through. Prices were high inside the basin but at least we could get off the boat and do a little walking and provisioning before departing for Atlantic City the next day. 
We got underway for Atlantic City but as we called around to different marinas which had no space we found that the Power Boat show was there and there was "no room at the inn". Fortunately we found some space at Gardiners Marina for just a buck a foot (compared to Trump's at $4/ft!!!) and we had a great time walking to the casinos and down the boardwalk... we even left $1.50 richer than when we came...truly a good day! 
Our final day on the Jersey Coast was to Cape May. We stayed at S. Jersey Marina and walked around the quaint Victorian town and all the shops and had a very nice afternoon and evening finding a really nice little town where we hadn't known one existed!
The next morning we came really close to doing some real damage to the boat as we left the slip. There was better than a 3 knot current flowing crosswise to the boat as we backed out of the slip and the turning radius was so tight that I couldn't get her headed up against the current despite several tries as we slid further down stream towards a very hard rock jetty. Finally I was able to lay my starboard bow against a piling and the current levered the boat around that and we were off at last...with about 30 feet to spare...WHEW! The rest of the day was just a long 84 mile slog up a benign Delaware Bay and I was a tired puppy when we pulled in at the C&D Marina after dealing with THEIR 3 knot currents as well!
Annapolis was next on our list and we picked up a mooring off the town dock for a night there before heading down to Solomon's the next day to see good buddies Tony and Kathy on Odyssey. It was sure great to see friends again after our long and mostly "quiet" summer. We plan to do the boat show with them in a few weeks where more Starbuck's will flow!
We beat a tropical storm back into Deltaville the next day and had Camaraderie hauled and enjoyed a great dinner with Tom & Trudy of Dakota Sky who have been marooned in Deltaville for a bit. They are in a condo on Wilton Creek off the Piankatank on the other side of Deltaville. What a beautiful little spot this is and we cruised the area for 20 years and never discovered it! Well...the  secret is now out!
And so ends chapter 2 of our journey. With 5000 miles under the keel we'll now take a little land break and then plan on heading south to the Keys and Florida's west coast...and perhaps the Bahamas again to see old friends! There's so much more to see!!...///GB