Thomas Wentworth wrote:
Hypothetical question ,,, if you were buying a sailboat somewhere up in
Chesapeake Bay. And you needed to sail the boat back to New England, to
downeast Maine ..

Would you go up the bay and take the Delaware Canal and then down Delaware
Bay toward Cape May or::; would you go down the bay and out to the Atlantic
?

If you decided to go to the Atlantic: once you turn north after leaving the
mouth of the Chesapeake are there good harbors along the stretch of coast
Virginia, and Maryland, Delaware, and then north along the New Jersey coast?

I always see postings that say the New Jersey coast has no place to put in.
Is it just that the harbors are not good for sailboats? What about along
the coast like near Ocean City Maryland?



We (like many here I suppose) traveled this stretch twice (down and
back) a few years ago. Here's a brief log showing where we stopped
each day:
http://www.sv-loki.com/The_Trip/Trip_Log/trip_log.html

If you're already up the Bay, there's no benefit of going back down
and around DelMarVa; Cape May is only two or three days from Annapolis
by the canal.

New Jersey is a pain because most of the inlets can be treacherous in
an on shore breeze. Atlantic City is the only one considered "all
weather" and even that can be "white knuckle" if you're not used to
rough inlets. As our log shows, it took us 12 days to go from NYC to
Cape May heading south around Labor Day. It was even fair weather,
but offshore storms kept the surf up. On our return the following
June, it was only 3 days.

NJ is the only stretch of the East Coast where you are forced to go
outside, and the options are limited. (There is actually an inland
route, but it is not used often by sailboats.) Of course, for a well
found vessel and experienced crew, doing 100 miles along the coast
isn't particularly difficult, but its not the same as always having an
easy refuge within sight.