We left Annapolis at 6:00 AM July 3rd and went to the top of the Chesapeake, through the C & D canal to Delaware City Marina. We overnighted there and left late at 9 for Philadelphia so we would have a following current all the way up. We cut back on the engines to maintain a 10 mph speed in the 2 mph current.

We saw the SS United States, docked just south of our destination. We were a bit past it when Sue noticed it tucked into a pier off the Philadelphia side. We’ll go in there and investigate further on our way back.

We timed our trip so we could enter Pier 5 Marina when the current died down. Even so we came close to hitting one of the sailboats parked along the marina entrance channel when our back swung out as we had to make a sharp turn. Sue was watching and yelled. A last minute gun of the engines kept us off them. The current had died down, but there was still enough that I could not take tons of time for the turn. You have to keep a bit of power on and move smartly or the side current can take you. They weren’t supposed to be there. The dock master arrived just after we did and cleared them out.

This marina is bare bones. I timed our trip to come when the current slacked off at high or low tide. We were lucky to come it at high, because we were not rocking later when it was low – our rear section had settled into the mud. Lucky our A/C has its cooling water intake near the front. No pump out here. The nearest upriver was 13 miles and the nearest downriver was back at Delaware City, 38 miles away. How can such a big city have so little in the way of boater services? What do other boaters do? Maybe I shouldn’t ask.

These problems were small compared to how great Philadelphia has turned out to be. About all we knew was Independence Hall, but it has a number great art museums with the top two competing well with anything in the world. We’ve been to great restaurants, the 4^th of July celebration along the way to Art Museum, the oldest continually used residential street in the US, the Eastern State Penitentiary and more.

We went to the Barnes Foundation which has the largest collection of French impressionist paintings in the world. More than France has. I’m afraid most of that went over our heads. Our audio guide explained a lot, but I thought they could have said the opposite and it would have made as much sense. I did get to know a lot more about Renoir’s wife than I felt necessary.

Jordan came in late July 7 and we have continued to see things. So many things we can’t see this time. We need to get back here next year for the WWI battleship (the WWII ship, the New Jersey, is just across the river in Camden. No time to see that either.), the maritime museum, another art museum we want to see. We didn’t even have time to get to Independence Hall!

Still time to see a few more things, then Tuesday morning we go south. We’ll stop at Delaware City along the way and then it’s on to Cape May at the mouth of Delaware Bay.