Our 14th wedding anniversary! (and they said it wouldn't last 😀).
We slept in a little this morning before a light breakfast and working a few boat projects. Wind has increased to steady 15-20 knots but we are in a good spot and no worries right now about being on the anchor.
Current forecast for Wed, Thur and Fri are scattered rain and storms with winds 25-35, gusts over 40. If the off-shore storm moved toward land just a little, the winds will be over 50. I'm glad I decided to spend the money on a good mooring even though we have an excellent anchor and chain.
We can see an open mooring near where we should be going today so I dropped the dinghy and rode over to see if it was W5 - our assigned mooring. As I got closer, I saw it was Y5 and there was still a 40 foot sailboat on W5. At least now we know which one to watch. As soon as he leaves, we'll motor over and hook-up.
While looking around the anchorage, Laura spotted this Bald Eagle just sitting on a post by the breakwater entrance. She zoomed in and was able to get this great picture with her Nikon camera.
In terms of when we can leave here for the sail down the coast of NJ, it's still up in the air. These big winds are supposed to die on Saturday but the seas will still be 8-10 feet. Sunday looks better but some of the forecasts show winds Sunday night down the coast changing to South which would be right on our bow. Not good as we cannot motor into winds and seas with our 58 horsepower engine pushing 42,000 pounds of boat. That's still a ways away so I'll just keep watching the updated forecasts.
Around 2pm we see some action on the boat tied to W5 and a short time later they leave. We start our engine, pull up the anchor (which always takes considerable cleaning in this harbor), reconfigure lines on the bow for attaching to a mooring and motor over.
Laura is really good at hooking up to moorings as she's had lots of practice to hone her skills. Unfortunately, this mooring hookup is a little different from all the other moorings we used. Most moorings have a large mooring line attached to the ball with a thimble braided into the end loop. As I try to hold the bow of the boat near the mooring ball with the engine and rudder, Laura picks up the mooring line with an extended boat-hook, runs one of our lines through the thimble and attaches it back to one side of our bow cleats. Then she repeats this on the other side for redundancy and stability in high winds.
Instead, this mooring has two very long (15 feet?) 3/4 inch, double-braided mooring lines attached to the mooring ball with large loops braided into the "boat" end. We can see the other boats have attached these mega-lines to their bow cleats. One of the lines also has a very tall pennant attached which makes it easier to grab the line with the boat-hook. We decide to use our normal procedure to run our boat lines through the mooring line loops then eventually pull the large mooring lines through our bow hawse holes for attachment onto our cleats. There were two problems today. First, the winds were now over 20 knots which was blowing the boat around quite a bit making it difficult for me to keep the bow near the mooring ball. Second, the pennant was pretty big and Laura had to try maneuvering it while holding the boat-hook and running our lines through the large mooring line loops. We eventually "got 'er done" but it took us quite a bit longer than normal.
By 1/2 hour later, we were all secure to the mooring and I was happy with the setup.
The waves here were quite a bit less than where we were anchored because we are farther behind the breakwater. Laura and I discussed going into town for an anniversary dinner but the weather forecast for later in the evening was for more wind and rain showers. We decided to hang in the cockpit with white-wine, music on the stereo and read a bit while talking about where we wanted to go this winter. Lots of options but we're still not sure.
There was a boat near shore that had been aground for several days and we thought it was a derelict. At low tide, it was almost all the way out of the water. This afternoon I could see someone on the boat and they had raised the jib and main sails - I'm assuming to try and get off the mud. High tide was at 4:30 so I thought he'd make it. Around 3:30 I saw him sail off the sandbar but then the craziness began. He still had his anchor out and the boat sailed several 360s around the anchor while he was trying to pull in the sails. I only saw one person on the boat so I guess he was single-handing. He eventually got the sails in but had run aground again trying to pick up his anchor. I dropped the dinghy, got in and motored about 1/4 mile over to where he was. I asked if I could help and he said he didn't think so. I did see that he was trying to motor off the sandbar so I put my dinghy against his bow and ran full throttle to push him off the bar. It actually worked pretty good and he was zooming around the anchorage again trying to pull in his anchor. I sat around for awhile but it seemed he was OK so I motored back to Second Wind after receiving a big "THANK YOU!".
A short time later I see him trying to anchor near where he was aground. He did anchor pretty close and the next morning I see his mast leaning over again at low tide. Guess some people refuse to learn from their mistakes.
Pretty sunset tonight over the mooring field. Look at all the boats!
Laura made us a very nice dinner of crab-stuffed Flounder, homemade rice-pilaf and apple sauce, and steamed broccoli. Our dessert was an apple kuchan she had made earlier in the day. (We have lots of apples on the boat ...). It was all excellent but we ate in the salon instead of the cockpit because the winds and temps had taken a change for the worse.
After dinner we watched another Daniel Craig James Bond - Skyfall, then hit the sack early.
Wednesday, October 9th
Neither of us slept well last night which I blame on the honkin' winds and lots of white-wine for our anniversary party the evening before. Usually we use about 100 amp-hours overnight from our batteries to run the refrigeration and other few things on the boat. This morning I checked and we had only used 10 amp-hours because our the wind generator had just about kept up. Nice!
Not sure of the plans for today. The winds and waves will make it difficult to go into town but maybe we'll chance it anyway just to get a little exercise.
The wind was really blowing so we stayed on the boat. We ran the heat all day off the Honda generator and the boat stayed a toasty 76 degrees even though it was mid-50s outside and blowing 25-30 knots. My work before leaving Catskill enabled us to run the heater this year and it could really spoil us. Heat and comfort all day for about 1 1/2 gallons of gasoline. Very worth it to us.
We watched the last Daniel Craig James Bond movie (Spectre) off the computer then a few TV shows off my phone connected to the TV using the AT&T WatchTV app. Our AT&T Unlimited plan gives us about 30 channels including the Food Network. It worked pretty good except for having to watch commercials again. We watched some Chopped and Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.
Thursday, October 10th
The winds don't seem so bad this morning or maybe we're just getting used to them. Laura and I slept in a bit then decided to dinghy into town after breakfast for a little exercise. Tonight are the BIG WINDS from this storm with the forecast gusts into the mid-40s
Around 10am we dropped the dinghy and motored into the Atlantic Highlands Marina dinghy dock. The winds were on our beam for this course so I motored into the wind first, toward the breakwater, to cut down the waves. It worked pretty good except I didn't go far enough before turning west. There was still enough chop for the wind to blow the spray on me, even at full throttle. Oh well...
We decided to walk to the grocery store again because it was only about a mile each way and Laura "only needed milk and cream". We ended up with 3 bags again (of course) but it was only $46 this time. I thought about maybe seeing a movie at the theater but the winds were supposed to increase thoughout the afternoon and I didn't want a wetter ride back.
Our ride back was uneventful and I enjoyed being out in the fresh salt air. Here is a picture of Second Wind on her Atlantic Highlands mooring I took from the dinghy.
Back to the boat and we're ready for another 36 hours of big winds. Laura is already talking about baking something...
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