The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal

 

We leave Baltimore Harbor Tuesday morning after the Man Overboard Board drill. We will motor east to the Chesapeake Bay then northeast through the upper bay, into the C & D, down the Delaware Bay and finally into the much anticipated (by me) Atlantic. The Pride of Baltimore II is averaging about seven knots. (7 knots = @ 8 miles/hour.)

When “A” Watch musters at 3:45 this afternoon we’re in the northern part of the Chesapeake and soon motor into the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal. Visually the C & D is not particularly interesting except for passing ships and boats and for the cool bridges we pass under. The canal is a sea-level cut through the 14 mile-wide land mass separating the northern Chesapeake from the upper Delaware Bay. The sides of the canal are steep and mostly wooded/vegetated. There are no canal locks to go through. The C & D is a deep draft, sea level passage crossing the states of Delaware and Maryland and joining the Delaware River with the Upper Chesapeake Bay.

But it wasn’t always. European colonists as early as the mid-17^th century recognized the potential benefits of a canal between the two large bays on the eastern coast of the continent. A canal could connect the cities of Baltimore and Philadelphia with an inland water route. By the last part of the 18^th century serious discussions about the potential canal were ongoing; steps were taken to survey the best route and to secure financing for the canal. When it first opened in 1829 the C & D had four locks to lift boats up over the land then back down to sea level on the other side. It was much narrower and shallower than it is today. Teams of mules and horses towed freight and passenger barges, schooners and sloops through the canal.

Today, the C & D is used by pleasure craft and commercial shipping. It’s owned by the federal government and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. And the POB2 motored through it on May 21^st, 2013 on her way to the Great Lakes.

Our passage through the canal was mostly uneventful – no sails to set or shift. Our only job is to steer the boat and check the bilges for unusual water levels and the readings on the engines for any indication of malfunction. And shooting the breeze, which we did very well.

 

Bonus PostScript

The C & D Canal today is an interstate highway compared to the country lane it was when it operated in the 19^th century. The POB2 would never have made it through the canal back then. Its keel would have struck the bottom of the canal while its masts would have been broken off by the bridge it had to pass under.

While I appreciate progress, I also lament the loss of some excellent thing to that progress. Our canal systems are no longer, now only artifacts of a bygone era. The C & D is a great ditch, but it’s only a ditch. (I don’t mean to denigrate it!) Ah life! So sweet, so sad. But always interesting.

--Bob Kerber