The gulls were escorting the Motor Vessel Delaware
as she carried us confidently over the calm sea.
According to a fellow observer in the know,
the yellow-beaked flyer at the top is a Herring gull.
The guys with red-tipped black beaks and merry eyes are laughing gulls.

A Fine Old Motor Vessel
Makes a Smooth Crossing
from Jersey to Delaware.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Seaford, Delaware

The sea cruise with its cooling breezes, pale pastel tones, and unhurried pace across calm waters changed the tenor of the day's journey in ways much pleasing to me 'n Godzilla.  Two days of New Jersey intensity and impatience were very much with us when we rolled onto the parking deck of the Motor Vessel Delaware at half past four o'clock of a muggy afternoon.  Godzilla was the third from the last vehicle to board the trusty old ferry boat. 

Our voyage across Delaware Bay from Cape May, New Jersey, to Lewes, Delaware, skirted the edge of the Atlantic Ocean on a 17-mile path that took about an hour and a half of quality time.  Sea nettles and dolphins floated and splashed in the steel gray water.  Behind us to the port I spied a tall lighthouse. A powerful little tug boat pulling a huge ocean-going barge crossed our path to the starboard, headed for the port of Philadelphia.  Rays of white sunshine penetrated the overcast sky to form circular patterns on the surface of the bay.

Able Bodied Seaman George Baranchulk asked about Godzilla, whose resting place on the last row about 10 feet from the sea allowed her to be admired by all.  George was kind enough to answer a few questions about the Delaware. 

Her twin Fairbanks-Morse opposing piston diesel engines generate about 4,000 total horsepower, plenty sufficient for ferrying her cargo of a hundred vehicles, a few hundred passengers, and several tail-wagging dogs across the bay.  Rated at 2,108 gross tonnage and 1,416 net — that's how much she weighs, so to speak, and how much she can carry — the Delaware was built at Houston, Texas, and launched on 17 May 1974.  She is tended by a crew of ten to fifteen with a captain, mate, four able bodied seamen, a chief engineer and his assistant, and a few bartenders and cooks. Master Captain George Nason commanded our voyage. 

The Motor Vessel Delaware is steaming back to New Jersey
in the late afternoon of Wednesday, August 19.
The pilot house reminded me of the design favored by inland towboats.

Pete, a tanned and fit lifeguard at Cape May Point, said the water temperature dropped from 78 to 75 degrees overnight because of heavy rains.  The Delaware rocked gently from side to side as we chatted.  "That's caused by the incoming tide from the Atlantic.  The ocean begins just a few hundred yards over there," he said, pointing casually to the east from our vantage point beside wooden rails on the stern.  "It's exceptionally calm today." 

Eager to see his family in south Delaware, Pete said he takes the ferry twice daily on his commute to the beach.  Two-way fares cost between 25 and 32 bucks each way, depending on the season.  The one-way ticket for me 'n Godzilla sold for $36.   

What a bargain!  My first sea voyage as a swaddled infant on a swift ferryboat from Bremerton to Seattle over Washington's vast Puget Sound must have left an indelible and sweet impression somewhere deep in the centers of memory and desire.  I've been attracted to seas and rivers and the vessels that ply them ever since.  O, what stories I could tell — of the harbor tender Martha Anne and Cap'n Donoho on the twisty Cumberland, of the Russian cruise ship Mikhail Lermontov on the gale-swept Atlantic, of the ten-thousand horse Exxon Mississippi on the Great River at flood stage from Baton Rouge to Memphis. . . .

But there's ne'r enough time, neither for the telling nor the listening. I heard the Delaware's horn blow.  The fine old vessel was scooting into her berth at the Lewes terminal.  People were scurrying to their cars and trucks.  Me 'n the Atomic Road Lizard agreed, we were eager to discover more of our destiny along the next stretch of endless highway.  As we maneuvered toward the gangplank, there was Able Bodied Seaman George Baranchulk, standing close, waving and smiling.  "Be safe," he sang.  "And take good care of Godzilla!" 

Able Bodied Seaman George Baranchulk waves farewell to me 'n Godzilla.

Lifeguard Pete's bright white truck is parked close to Godzilla.
The truck carries Pete's rescue surfboard.

ebenezer@corndancer.com

To read the previous dispatch in the narrative,
kindly click the crow!

Notices of new dispatches from my Travels with Godzilla are sent by e-mail express to my list of family, friends, students, and fellow travelers. If you've come here by some other means than an e-mail invitation, and would like to receive notices, please write me so I can add you to the list. I share the addresses with no one but Godzilla, who can't type and doesn't do e-mail. 

     Ebenezer Bowles
     threadspinner@corndancer.com

The stories
linked below
form the narrative "Travels with Godzilla."

The Journey Ends:
Bye, Buck Bowles.

Dispatch Eighteen
Fayetteville,
Arkansas
Monday, August 31

Tobacco:
By the Hand of Man.

Dispatch Seventeen
Benton,
Kentucky
Thursday, August 27

Shy and Wonderful:
In Pursuit
Of the Wild Image.

Dispatch Sixteen
Bowling Green,
Kentucky
Wednesday, August 26

Mullens
It Wasn't the Flood.

Dispatch Fifteen
Williamson,
West Virginia
Tuesday, August 25

What Coal?
So Many Mountains
They're
Giving Some Up.

Dispatch Fourteen
Beckley,
West Virginia
Monday, August 24

Illustrated Man:
Pay Is Pay
On the
Honorable Path.

Dispatch Twelve
Morgantown,
West Virginia
Saturday, August 22

Which Road?
Counting the Lanes.

Dispatch Eleven
Bel Air,
Maryland
Friday, August 21

An Easy Puzzle:
Shade Drenched,
Flat and Tidy.

Dispatch Ten
Seaford,
Delaware
Thursday, August 20

Sea Cruise:
A Fine Old Motor Vessel Makes a Smooth Crossing from Jersey to Delaware.

Dispatch Nine
Seaford,
Delaware
Wednesday, August 19

Mighty Joe:
From the River Valley To the Sandy Pine Barrens On a Road to Heaven.

Dispatch Eight
Vineland,
New Jersey
Tuesday, August 18

Sugar Hollow Road:
Not too Far
down the Way
from Mehoopany.

Dispatch Seven
Scranton, Pennsylvania
Friday, August 14

Lucky Stars:
Godzilla Wrestles
a Bear.

Dispatch Six
Scranton, Pennsylvania
Thursday, August 13

Erie:
Off Balance, Agitated.

Dispatch Five
Erie, Pennsylvania
Tuesday, August 11

Purpose:
Success and Fear On the Sly Peripheral.

Dispatch Four
Kent, Ohio
Monday, August 10

Indiana:
You Want to Take Forever.

Dispatch Three
Howe, Indiana
Sunday, August 9

Army Truck:
Carry Me Home.

Dispatch Two
Watseka, Illinois
Saturday, August 8

Road Trip:
Go Fast.

Dispatch One
Muscatine, Iowa
Friday, August 7