Sprint up to Philly

April 26, 2018 – Tony heads home from Cape Canaveral and with the goal of making it up to Philadelphia for Thach’s Wharton 30^th reunion on May 9^th we plow the well-trodden route up the East Coast and ICW: Beaufort Inlet, Belhaven, Coinjock (for a big diesel refill), Portsmouth/Norfolk, Deltaville (new anchorage), Solomon Island, Annapolis, Delaware City, then through the C&D canal and up the Delaware to Philadelphia.  The trip up the Delaware to the Philadelphia Marine Center is a bit of a flotsam dodging run.  The Marine Center staff are super friendly but the marina itself is somewhat tired and sad with a shortage of boats as the season has yet to get under way.  We make the decision to move Emmanou to Penn’s Landing, nextdoor on the other side of the Ben Franklin Bridge for the Friday evening class party where the opening night of the Spruce Harbor Fair adds to the party ambiance.  Miles Kubo (from Hawaii), Simon Pillar (from England), Marcy Trent Long (from Hong Kong) and Paul Froelich (from Denver) join us to stay on board as does Evan.  Jim Costello and his family also drop by.  The Friday night class bash turns out great with 150 guests reacquainting after 30 years, nose-to-nose and shoeless on Emmanou.  At the peak of the evening, after many guests asking “what is the capacity of this boat”, Thach becomes aware that Emmanou is actually sitting on the bottom of Penn’s Landing – she’s done this before at low tide in other shallow marinas, but this time it seems that this might have inadvertently saved her from taking on water through the scuppers – as they say, better to be lucky than good!