Salt Shaker on the Loop: Going to Delaware City

The trip from Baltimore took us up the rest of the Chesapeake to the Elk River. The Elk River leads into the C&D (Chesapeake and Delaware) shipping canal. The original C&D Canal was built around the 1840's and at first was very narrow and had locks to lift the boats up a total of 14 feet to go over the high point of the land. It was built first by private interests and in the 1920's was purchased from them by the US Army Corps of Engineers. They widened and rerouted a small length at the eastern end and carved the 14 feet of land out and eliminated the locks.

The C&D canal is a first class waterway. It is several hundred feet wide and if memory serves me correct is roughly 65 feet deep. It can handle ships of almost any size.

The marina at Delaware City is located on the section that was eliminated by the Corps of Engineers work. The Delaware City marina is a first class operation and has the capability to lift large boats (60 to 80 feet) out of the water and do extensive maintenance and repair. I have a video of their personnel taking a 60 foot (more or less) out of the water. It was noteworthy because they had to position the boat crosswise of a strong tidal current and maneuver it into the slings of the "travel lift" with out damaging or loosing control of the boat in this rather strong current.

We had the pleasure of one of my cousins (Janice) and her husband (Don) come to visit us there at Delaware City from their home in NJ. They were able to spend most of the day with us and we had a really enjoyable time having lunch at one of the local eateries and then driving over to Chesapeake City about midway along the canal where they have the operations center for the canal as well as an excellent museum depicting its history. It is estimated that the canal saves about 40 million gallons of fuel annually by shortening the distance between Baltimore, Philadelphia and other places quite a number of miles.

Pat and I later that evening had dinner at "Crabby Dicks" which is HQ'd in Delaware City. It was a hoot!

Another unfortunate boat rotting on shore. This one was on the north bank of the Elk River.

Here is a vintage speed boat on the same river.

Here is a "pick up machine" on the same river.

Here are a set of range lights at a bend in the canal. Notice the one close is lower. When you are on a line that goes thru both of them so that the back one is directly over the front one, you are in the center of the channel. This is important information for the big ships and the big tows as they go thru this part of the canal.

Janice, Don and Pat standing on the bridge that runs Delaware route 9 over the old section of the canal.

View of the old section of the canal from the same bridge at a 750 foot section of marina dock. The Salt Shaker is several boats down the dock.

The only remaining lock that is preserved in the Delaware City municipal park as a tourist attraction.

At the museum, they preserved for display the two steam engines that operated from the 1840's to the 1920's that operated a water wheel that lifted water from a nearby river into a canal to maintain proper levels in the canal.