TUESDAY AUGUST 17TH

An early start again as we are headed to Chesapeake City and the city free docks. Its first come first served so we need to be the early birds. Lucky thing too, because we barely fit in the space available when we arrived.

The scenery has changed as we leave the Chesapeake and travel up the river. This is Turkey Point lighthouse, which marks the start of the Elk River! (Elk River is where I grew up, but in Minnesota) What I found interesting about this specific lighthouse is that a keeper’s wife tended it for over 20 years after he passed away. And when she got old, their daughter moved in and tended the light for another 24 years. There was also another older woman who tended the light for many years after that. It looks like there has been enough erosion along the riverbanks that the lighthouse is about ready to topple in.

The area along the Elk River is rolling and green. We see many farms along it. What an amazing view these farmers have while working the fields.

We are leaving the Elk River and entering the C & D canal. It is a manmade 12-mile long canal connected the Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware Bay. It is the 3rd busiest canal in the world and shortens the travel time (for ships) between Baltimore and Philadelphia by 13 hours.



The canal was built back in 1829. At that time it was 10 feet deep and 36 feet wide at the bottom. It was also operated with a series of 4 locks.

This is one of the steam engines that turned a huge wooden wheel that filled the locks. Mule teams or horses would pull the ships along through the canal.

Later the canal was deepened and widened to accommodate larger vessels. It is now 450 feet wide and 35 feet deep. This is a photo of a “deep cut” barrel. When the widened the canal, the dirt would slide back down the bank into the channel. Workers would fill these barrels with that dirt and pull them by a rope back up a 90 foot slope to the top and empty them. Over 375,000 cubic yards or dirt were removed this way. I have no clue as to how many barrel-fulls that would equate to, but the amount of labor involved is mind boggling to me!

Our destination today is Chesapeake City. I know I have over used the word picturesque, but this place IS picturesque. It is more like a village and filled with quaint old houses. Many are now B&B’s.

We are tied up at the city free dock. We pay $15 a night if we want power. Yes we want power/air conditioning! Next to us is a park and there was a painting class going on.

We rode our bikes to the C & D Canal museum. It is housed in the original buildings which controlled one of the locks back before the canal was improved.

As we left the museum there was a flowering shrub that was covered with butterflies. Most all of them were Swallowtails, but there were a few Monarchs. Amazing little creatures, and so beautiful.

I can’t express the overwhelming enormity we felt watching this ship pass though the canal. We were sitting up on the fly bridge and the photo doesn’t do it justice. This is the same ship we saw the other day when we left Baltimore and the pilot boat was along side of it.

You can tell a bit better from this angle how much the ship fills the canal.

It took us over 3 hours to get here today by boat. A couple we met last night at Georgetown drove over here in 15 minutes. Barbara and Robert from the boat Come Aweigh, joined us for dinner at the Bayard House. Robert at one time did some modeling and is an ex-Marlboro man! He’s giving me the “Marlboro look” for the picture! And no, he doesn’t smoke and can’t even stand the smell of it. We had a fun evening and a very good meal.

The restaurant we had dinner in was built in 1780 and is the oldest house in town. It was turned in to a tavern in 1829. That’s the same year the canal opened.

The Bayard House's local claim to fame is The Hole in the Wall Bar. The name comes from a hole in the wall behind the bar where blacks could only be served by reaching their hands in for a drink. They would not have been allowed inside.