Without a highly specific destination in mind, we head out into the ocean not so much to get somewhere, but just to go sailing while generally meandering north.

Our track wandered basically from one fishing spot to another, in a few cases we stopped to search out a poorly charted wreck, and found one, and missed two. A sea bass was issued an invitation he couldn’t refuse to join us for dinner. 🙂

We got out as far as the “canyons” at the edge of the continental shelf, very popular fishing spots, and this was a Sunday afternoon with absolutely spectacularly beautiful weather, so the big sportfish boats were out in numbers trolling for tuna, and marlin. Many of them show up on our plotter display if they have their AIS transmitter turned on:

At the “magic hour” the dinner bell rings, and everybody heads home toward Ocean City, Maryland at once…

This was so sudden, and so closely timed, I suspect that the boats might have been involved in a tournament and all needed to be back at the dock at a specific time.

Anytime you are out in the ocean, you have the locals come pay a visit…

We stayed out, and trolled up along the continental shelf until we reached Baltimore Canyon, and then as the sun set a light southerly breeze picked up. We set sail, and headed in toward shore. Over night we saw winds of 5 to 10 knots, and moved along at a comfortable speed on a flat sea.

Early in the morning, we come into the port of Lewes, Delaware. Famous(?) as the southern terminus of the ferry that runs from Cape May, NJ to Delaware. Delaware is one state that doesn’t currently have significant travel restrictions or quarantine requirements, so we’ll take the opportunity to head into town here.