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L.T. and I had to shortchange the Chesapeake Bay, and even travel in some weather we normally would have sat out to meet my kids who flew into Baltimore to boat with us for a few days. It was worth it. We enjoyed several of the softball sized, best crab cakes in the world at Faidley’s, our favorite take out in Baltimore’s famous Lexington Market and boated to Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. 

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Up the Chesapeake from Baltimore, through the big boy Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and down the east shore of the Delaware Bay to Cape May and into the New Jersey ICW. I don’t want to say stressful because that’s a no-no word on the Loop. But the ICW through New Jersey is somewhat a pain due to heavy recreational traffic from the  numerous beach towns and lack of love.

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The channel is poorly maintained and often poorly marked, probably because it’s a low priority for the Corps of Engineers since there is virtually no commercial thru traffic. The course takes some mind blowing zigzags through very shallow, large bays and the banks become increasingly industrialized north of Atlantic City.

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Many Loopers stay ‘outside’ on the Atlantic, diving into numerous inlets for nightly anchorages. The ICW ends at Manasquan, New Jersey so L.T. and I joined them through the Manasquan River Inlet for the last 40 miles around Sandy Hook and into the Lower Bay of New York Harbor.

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