Georgetown, MD to Catskill, NY (Day 54 to 57)

Sunday, June 7th

44 nautical miles today, 1,284 total miles from Marathon

Air temp 72, water temp 74, winds N @ 10

When traveling up the coast of NJ to New York City, we try to sail with low seas (less than 4 feet) and can't travel with winds on our nose - we don't have enough horsepower to motor through seas with winds against us.  So I spend lots of my time before we leave watching weather forecasts for the 3 different phases of the trip.

    1) Getting to Delaware Bay

            40nm from Sassafras River

            7-8 hours

            Mostly east direction

    2) Down Delaware Bay and around Cape May

            50nm

            7-8 hours (with the tide helping)

            Southeast direction then turning northeast after Cape May

    3) Up the New Jersey coast to New York City

            110nm from Cape May to Sandy Hook

            20-24 hours

            Northeast direction turning gradually north

So you see from the direction we need to go, a couple days of winds, which are consistant from almost any direction, would be a problem for us.  We could travel with no wind by motoring but "light and variable" never lasts for 36 hours.  Our best scenario for traveling this direction would be winds from the north down Delaware Bay then from the west up the coast of NJ.  Guess what, this was the forecast (more or less) for Monday and Tuesday.  We had been watching this weather window for the past week and it hadn't changed so we were going.

We motored out of Georgetown Yacht Basis just after 8am.  There was a light north to northwest wind blowing which helped us back out of the marina slip to the south.  7 miles down the Sassafras River to Chesapeake Bay then turn NE up the last part of the bay to the Chesapeake and Delaware (C&D) Canal.  The winds helped a little until we got to the canal then they switched to several directions so we pulled in the sails.

It was a sunny, warm Sunday so there were lots of pleasure boats on the water.  I was surprised to see lots of smaller boats in the C&D Canal.  There were no big towns on either end so where was everybody going?  Here we are approaching one of the bridges on the C&D Canal.

I had been keeping in touch with our friends Raffi and Lisa on s/v Windfall.  They had passed us the day before and anchored in Chesapeake City (on the C&D).  They were taking their time getting underway today so we passed them this morning.

The canal is a little under 20 miles long and made big enough (wide and deep) for ocean-going vessels.  We didn't see any of them today so just relaxed and cruised through with no problems.

We motored out of the C&D at 2:20pm and turned south to our anchorage for the night.  There is a nice anchorages behind a breakwater at Reedy Island.  The only problem is getting in.  There is a channel through the breakwater marked with 2 channel markers.  One is lighted.  The other is not.  This is typically not a problem if you don't go in or out of there in the dark.  But, I planned on leaving at about 4am so it would be a problem getting out.

Oh yeah.  I forgot to mention another part of the equation for this trip.  The tidal currents on Delaware Bay can run up to 4 knots.  As a slooooow sailboat, we have to make sure we run with the currents, not against.  Otherwise, we wouldn't get anywhere...  The outgoing "ebb" tide would start around 3am tomorrow morning.  I figured if we left around 4am we could take advantage of it for about 3-4 hours.  Enough to get out of the narrow part of Delaware Bay where the currents are not so bad.

I had looked around on the charts and found a good anchorage about 5 miles down the bay that offered us protection from the north and northwest.  It was by Hope Creek on the north shore just south of the power plant.

Windfall passed us just after we came out of the canal.  I had talked to Raffi about this anchorage and he thought it would be good too.  He would be there first so could check it out.  Lisa took this picture of us as they went by.

We anchored about 1/8 mile away from Windfall behind the breakwater near the entrance to Hope Creek.  It seemed like a pretty nice place but I would hate to be there in winds from the south.  This anchorage was open to the south all the way to Cape May - 40 miles away.

After anchoring, Lisa texted me and asked if we wanted to go over for cocktails and munchies.  I declined because we had the dinghy and motor stowed for the ocean passage but invited them over instead.  Their dinghy was easier to deploy so they accepted our invitation and we had a nice "happy hour" with the 4 of us catching up on each other's history in the cockpit on Second Wind.

They left a few hours later.  We had a quick dinner and hit the sack early.  I set the alarm for 4am.  It was a colorful sunset tonight.  You can just see the reactor building from the Salem Nuclear Power plant over to the right.  Do we glow in the dark now?

Monday, June 8th - Tuesday, June 9th

229 nautical miles (2 days including overnight), 1,513 total miles from Marathon

Air temp 70, water temp 68, winds N @ 10

I had the alarm set for 4am but woke up around 3am and couldn't get back to sleep.  I woke Laura up and told her to just help me with the anchor and she could go back to bed.  She quickly agreed.

After pulling the anchor, we motored out onto a pretty calm Delaware Bay.  I rolled out the jib which helped our speed just a little with the 5-7 knot apparent winds.  The ebb current had already started and we ran 7.5 - 9.5 knots (speed over ground) for the next several hours.  It actually started getting light in the eastern sky around 4:30am and it was a pretty sunrise around 5:30am.

The winds picked up a little as we got into the lower bay and the boat was rocking and rolling just a little down the 2-3 foot waves coming from behind us.  We lost the ebb current about 10 miles from Cape May and ran the "Inside Prissywick Channel" course at 3.2 knots.  It's always interesting to me how the water roils in this area with the tidal changes.  At night, it sounds like you are going over a waterfall.  Check out the current line in the water here.  Notice how the right side has waves while the left side is calm.  This is not a boat wake - it's just a line in the water that is not moving.  Weird...

On the way down Delaware Bay, the engine didn't sound right to me.  It was missing / skipping every 10 seconds or so.  In the past, sometimes a fuel injector gets dirt or something inside and a few seconds at full throttle clears it up.  That didn't work this time and it was getting worse.  Oh oh.  My poor engine was sick.

After rounding Cape May it was another hour to the Cape May inlet.  I decided to go in and anchor to try and fix our engine.  The anchorage in Cape May is fairly close to the inlet so it didn't take us long to go in and anchor.

I was 90% sure the problem was a bad fuel injector.  Two years ago I had purchased (4) spare injectors and installed them in our engine.  I also took the old injectors to a local shop for rebuild so my spare injectors were basically brand new. 

Laura helped while I pulled the top of our engine apart including the fuel return lines and wire harness.  Working on a 200 degree engine in an enclosed space on a warm day is not much fun.  I tried to be a quick as possible while forcing myself to be methodical and careful so I wouldn't break or loose anything.  Here I am starting the work.

I started on the injector nearest me by unscrewing the fuel input line,  unscrewing the two nuts holding down the injector, prying out the old injector, inserting the new injector (making sure the new washer is seated properly) and hooking back up the fuel line.  One done!  Repeat for the other 3 injectors and job almost done.

Now I had to put the fuel return line back on top of each new injector including the small banjo bolt and two tiny crush washers.  This all went well until the last banjo bolt.  The tiny bolt stuck in a fold of my rubber glove then went flying across the engine room.  Laura and I heard it bounce several times - probably down into the bilge.  Oh no....

We spent about 20 minutes looking for the wayward bolt under the engine and in the bilge while I had thoughts of calling every boatyard in the area to see if they might have one.  The boat was now inoperable so we would have to take the dinghy if we found one locally. 

While looking, I started thinking that maybe I had a spare bolt in my "fuel system" parts.  Now, where were the "fuel system" parts?  I spent another 20 minutes looking for the spares and eventually found a small zip-lock bag of parts down the bottom of a drawer.  You wouldn't believe how happy I was to see a small banjo bolt in the spare parts bag!  YES! 

I installed the spare bolt, tightened all the injectors and banjo bolts to specification (with my torque-wrench fingers) and loosened the injector fuel input lines to bleed the air out of the fuel system.  After turning the engine over with the starter for about 5 seconds, I could see fuel coming out of each line.  I tightned all the fuel lines.  As I went upstairs to start the engine, I told Laura, "Keep your fingers crossed!"  It started right up.

After letting it run for a couple minutes, I shut it off and went back downstairs to put everything away and clean up.  15 minutes later we were motoring back out of the Cape May harbor onto the Atlantic.  The engine sounded really smooth.  It was fixed!

As we turned northeast up the NJ coast, the winds were light from the southeast so we rolled out the sails to help us along.  I took this picture a short time later to show how nice it was.

Winds were 7-9 knots - nice for helping but not enough to sail at a decent speed.  We lowered the engine RPMs and spent a quiet day on the ocean.  Laura took over for a while and I went downstairs for a great 2-hour nap.

Laura made chili for dinner and it was so calm we were able to eat on the cockpit table.  A short time later we were treated to a colorful sunset over the New Jersey coast.

I took the early watch as Laura went to bed around 9pm.  I would try to stay up until around 1-2am then wake her for my turn in bed.

It worked out pretty well and we both slept about 3-4 hours off-watch.  That's unusual for our first night at-sea.  If we're doing a multi-day sail off-shore, it's much easier to sleep the second night because you're a lot more tired.

Click on this link for a cool video Laura took just before sunrise.  Laura's Video Just Before Sunrise

We always try to catch the tidal current in our direction through NY harbor.  Otherwise, it takes forever to get through the city and the ferries, tugs and other boats rock the heck out of us.  This morning the flood current started around 8am at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.  We adjusted our engine RPM during the night so our chartplotter showed we would arrive around that time.

It worked really well and we were at the bridge right at 8am.  Here we are sailing to the bridge and NY harbor.

The current was just a little against us as we entered the main harbor.  Tidal current predictions are not super accurate.  They change with rainfall, wind direction and high / low pressure areas.  This was fine for us.  It meant we would have the flood current for most of the day up the Hudson River.

Laura took this video of NY Harbor as we sailed through.  Click on the following link to see the video - Laura's NY Harbor Video

Autumn Borne and La Bella Vita had made it to Sandy Hook, NJ last evening and anchored for the night.  They had gotten underway early and were only about 5 miles behind us as we motor-sailed through NY Harbor.

Our speed increased with the flood current and settled at 6.5-7 knots for most of the day.  It was very calm as we motored up the Hudson River under the George Washington Bridge and Tappan Zee Bridge.  The sometimes rough Haverstraw Bay was very flat and we continued past the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant and the Bear Mountain Bridge.

Autumn Borne decided to make it an early day and anchored in Halfmoon Bay.  We kept running north and anchored off the eastern shore near Wappingers Falls.  The winds for forecast to be calm most of the night so I wasn't looking for a more protected area.  I just wanted to get as far north as possible so tomorrow would be a shorter, last day.  La Bella Vita anchored about 2 miles behind us.

I grilled pork chops for dinner as we spent our last night at anchor for the trip.

As it had been 90 degrees today and not much wind to cool us off, I ran our Honda generator and air-conditioned to cool down the boat.  At 9pm it was still 82 degrees outside.  I decided to let the generator and AC run while we slept.  It would run out of gas in about 5 hours anyway.  After short-sleep last night, we both hit the sack early and slept well.  I got up at 3am, turned off the generator and opened the windows.  It was much cooler out now.  Was back asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow

Wednesday, June 10th - END OF TRIP

41 nautical miles today, 1,554 total trip miles from Marathon

Air temp 76, water temp 74, winds light and variable

Both Autumn Borne and La Bella Vita were underway early and passed us before we got moving.  I slept in a little and we didn't pull the anchor until 8:40am.  Getting underway a little later wouldn't matter too much as we were bucking the ebb tide all morning.  By waiting a little longer, we wouldn't fight it for so long and the current would eventually help us later on.

It was another warm day with temps in the high 80s.  The wind was light so not much help cooling us down. 

As we approached Kingston, I saw a boat I recognized off the the western shore.  It was the schooner Appolonia which is owned by my friend Sam Merrett. 

Sam purchased this boat a few years ago out of someone's backyard in Massachusetts.  He had it trucked to the water then they motored to Kingston.  He's been working on the boat since then and, just last summer, installed the masts and rigging.  His goal is to run the boat to educate folks about the Hudson River and how sailboats were used to haul freight and cargo.  Check out their Facebook Page at Schooner Appolonia.

We stopped and chatted for a bit.  Sam and his crew were working on raising sail for the first time this season so we eventually left them to their work.

At 4:30pm we entered Catskill Creek and, a few minutes later, tied up at our home slip for the past 12 years.  It was nice to be back but we were both sad the trip was over.

Here are our statistics for the trip -

Docked - 21 nights (4 free nights)

Anchored - 17 nights

Moorings - 16 nights

Overnight at sea - 2 nights

56 nights total from Marathon

This trip was my 29th up or down the Atlantic coast.  It was also the longest and one of the most enjoyable.  When we were running our charter business, we had to hurry between Marathon and Catskill because we had charters booked.  We almost never stopped to "smell the roses".  This trip, there were a lot of those stops.  Plus we were able to sit out and not travel through storms or rain and spend lots of time with friends along the way. 

What now?  Who knows...  We had planned on only being here a month or so then leaving to sail up to Maine and Nova Scotia.  But, with the COVID-19 problems, travel between states and countries is much more difficult.  We just might hang here for the summer, visit our families, try to stay in shape and work on the boat (of course).

I'll leave you with a picture of the sunset the night we arrived in Catskill.  This is a beautiful area.  We hope you enjoyed the trip.

Laura and I hope you've enjoyed the cruising blog and we will continue when we are on the move again.  Knowing us, that won't be too far away.  Stay safe!

If you would like to see more of the "Travels of Bill and Laura", we've published 4 books on Amazon covering our first 11 years of cruising including almost 2 years cruising the Caribbean, 8 years of starting and running a charter business, lots of work to make Second Wind a better cruising boat, then sailing to other Bahamas islands we hadn't visited before and Cuba! 

All the books are offered in Kindle version and the first two are also offered in paperback with full color pictures.  You can check out our books by clicking here - Amazon Books by Bill Soulier

Here is an overview of our published books...

Book 1 - Sail Away

Bill and his wife Laura travel on their 43’ sailing ketch Second Wind from the United States through the Caribbean for over a year to South America.  This book is written from the detailed Blog that they kept almost every day - from boat purchase to 4 months working on the boat, sailing to Florida, then leaving the United States to sail the Caribbean to South America, until just over a year later when they leave the boat in Trinidad for 3 months.  Details of their travels include over 130 full-color pictures of people, places and (of course) the boat, which they share in this book.

Book 2 – SAIL UP THE PACIFIC

Bill flies to Auckland, New Zealand where he continues his sailing life on the 48’ Ketch Capaz – sailing “up” the Pacific from New Zealand to Hawaii over a 2-month period.  Starting from Bay of Islands, New Zealand, they sail to Tonga, American Samoa, Suwarrow and Penrhyn (Cook Islands), Kiribati (Christmas Island) and Hawaii.  Included are over 50 beautiful, full-color pictures of the trip. 

At the same time, Laura flies to Seattle to be with her daughter who is pregnant and due any day.  Most of these entries are posted by Laura as she receives intermittent emails from Bill out on the Pacific.

Book 3 – SAIL HOME

Bill and Laura fly back to Trinidad in January 2008 and sail Second Wind to Venezuela then up the Leeward and Windward islands and, eventually, back to the United States and the Hudson River.  There they start a successful charter business in Catskill, NY (on The Hudson in summers) and the Florida Keys (Marathon during the winters).  They find many rewards and challenges in 8 years of running a charter business which are detailed in this book along with over 200 beautiful, full-color pictures from their travels and charters.

Book 4 – SAIL ON

Retired from chartering, Bill and Laura perform some major upgrades on Second Wind for a new cruising life – new galley and refrigeration, solar and wind power, new jib and main roller furling, and new bow pulpit.  No longer rushing up and down the coast for charters, they sail to new places including Cuba and Eleuthera in the Bahamas.  Over 130 full-color pictures of their boat upgrades and beautiful new places are included in the book.

Georgetown Yacht Basin (Day 53)

Saturday, June 6th

Air temp 72, water temp 74, winds W @ 10

Did not move the boat today

Ahhh.  I had a great night's sleep with the air-conditioner running.  The night before last, our cabin never got below 80 degrees.  This morning, it was 72.  Nice!

Our priority today was to get the boat (and ourselves) ready for a day-night-day at sea off the coast of NJ.  After breakfast, I thought it might be a good time to take the motor off the dingy and bring it up on the back railing.  As I started to lower the dinghy into the water, I had a great idea.  Let's go for a ride first!

Laura packed a few things in the backpack as I got the dinghy dropped and the motor running.  We motored out of the marina then turned right to the bridge we'd never been through.  As we approached the bridge, we heard the alarms that they were raising the span for another boat.  We were at high tide and I don't think we could have made it underneath, even in our little dinghy, if it hadn't opened.

After the bridge I picked the boat up on plane and had a nice relaxing trip through the twisty Sassafras River.  It was very scenic and beautiful.  Here are a few pictures we took along the way.

We explored several different branches of the river for the next 1 1/2 hours.  Oh.  We did have one problem....  I had slowed the boat to idle-speed as we were motoring down one of the narrower channels.  The boat surprised us with hitting a branch under the water which bounced us up about 6 inches then it hit the motor shaft and stopped us dead.  Laura and I fell forward a bit but didn't get hurt or anything.  Man.  If I had been going even a little faster, it would have been much different.  No reason to zoom through the shallow narrows!

Around 11:30am we motored back through the bridge.  The tide had dropped about a foot so we could make it without opening for us.  We decided to try the Harbor Cafe for lunch which was just over the bridge.  Since it was a little early for lunch, we took a little walk around that side of the harbor.  It was a very busy Saturday with everyone enjoying their boats and marina life.

The Cafe had outdoor seating so we had a nice lunch outside.  A little while later the bridge went up again and I was able to get a picture from our table.

As we were heading back to our marina, the bridge opened and let 2 powerboats and 2 jet-skis through.  I love the name on this powerboat.  I just want to call him on the radio a few times!

Back at the boat Laura and I hauled the dinghy motor up to the deck rail where I secured it for our ocean trip.  It's much better having the 95 pound motor on the railing rather than adding to the swinging dinghy in bigger waves. 

After securing the outboard, I hooked up a fresh water hose to flush it out.  That's one thing I really like about this new Tohatsu motor.  It has a hose fitting built-in for flushing.  I think it's even more important considering our old motor died from the cooling water jackets filling up with salt and corrosion.  That shouldn't happen to this motor.

I then raised the dinghy on the davits and strapped it down with extra tie-down straps.  Here's the final result.  Motor on the rail and dinghy up on the davits (under the solar panel).  Only step left is to put Laura's custom cover on the motor after it cools down.  I just noticed in the picture you can see our blooming Hibiscus in the lower left.  It likes the heat and humidity.

Next I filled our fresh water tank so we now have 200 gallons of fresh water if we get lost at sea (only kidding Sis).  This afternoon I plan on checking everything on our main engine very closely.  The winds on Monday and Tuesday off-shore are supposed to be very light so we'll probably have the engine running for about 35 hours straight. 

Oh.  I forgot to mention that we decided to stay at the marina (with our AC running) for another night.  Today is the 4th straight day of highs near 90 degrees for us.

Autumn Borne and La Bella Vita will be anchored at the Harbor of Refuge in Cape Henlopen tonight and they will sit out the north winds tomorrow.  Our friends Raffi and Lisa on Windfall passed us about 2 hours ago and will also be in Reedy Island anchorage tomorrow night - where we plan to be.  Everyone will be using the dying winds and seas on Monday to head north so we'll have plenty of company.

Tomorrow morning we'll depart the marina for the 40 mile run to Reedy Island anchorage.  Then it's an early start on Monday (3am?) for the trip down Delaware Bay, around Cape May and up the NJ coast.  Should be fun!

Annapolis to Georgetown, MD (Days 50, 51 and 52)

Wednesday, June 3rd

Air temp 84, water temp 72, winds W @ 10

Didn't move the boat today

Today was basically a down-day on Second Wind.  Laura and I were recovering from our party last night so just relaxed, drank lots of water and hung out. 

Laura texted Chris (who we partied with last night) and, on my recommendation, cancelled our plans for them to pick us up for swimming and a cookout at their house.  None of us really felt like repeating the 7 bottles of red wine we drank last night.

We opened up all the hatches and tried to stay as cool as possible with the outside temps approaching 90.  It wasn't too bad in the boat since we didn't run the main engine today which normally would really heat the boat up.  I can run our air-conditioning off the Honda generator but didn't want to make so much noise in the mooring field with lots of boats close around us.

It was a very warm evening and I don't think our cabin got below 80 degrees all night.

Thursday, June 4th

Air temp 83, water temp 74, winds W @ 5

40 nautical miles today, 1,236 total miles from Marathon

I surprised Laura with my announcement that we were leaving today.  We had tentative plans for visiting Bob and Chris at their house but, with the iffy weather, I wanted to start working our way north to stage for the New Jersey off-shore run. 

We were off the mooring at 9am.  I love the safe feeling of moorings and how easy it is to leave.  I just untie two lines and let them slip through the mooring back onto the boat.  That's it!

About 1/2 hour later we approached the Bay Bridge.  Check out how smooth the water was -

No help from the wind today as we motored north.  Plus, the tidal current was against us which slowed our speed to the low 4s.  I ran the boat on the autopilot all day and read quite a bit on my iPad with Kindle app.

We entered the Sassafras River just after 4pm.  Our friends Dean, Sue, Pete and Bunny were at the Georgetown Yacht Basin so I was thinking of heading there for an overnight at the marina.  But, I didn't think I could make it there before closing time so decided to anchor on the river instead.  South winds were predicted for tonight with a chance of thunderstorms.  I thought about anchoring just a mile or two inside the river entrance but then decided to keep going for another couple miles to a more protected spot.  I'm very glad I did!

This evening we did run the AC off the generator all evening and the boat was very comfortable even after running the main engine all day.  Our cell service here was very spotty so we had to go up into the cockpit and hold the phone over our head to even get 1 bar.  Using this technique, we watched a pretty big band of thunderstorms heading our way.  The weather app estimated they would be near us around 8pm.  At least while it was still light out...

For the past couple weeks, we watched storms heading our way only to see them break up or go around us.  It didn't happen this time.  Turns our they held back until after dark around 9:30pm.  There was a wide band of "red shit" coming our way on the weather RADAR.  Oh oh.  We were in for it this time.  I'm glad I had anchored in a spot protected almost 360 degrees and there were trees only 1/4 mile away to our south and southwest which should block some of the wind.

When it started to lightning and storm around us, I turned off all of our circuit breakers to try and isolate the boat systems from a lightning strike.  I won't get into lightning protection on a sailboat other to say it is an art, not a science.  We know from experience as the top of our mainmast was struck by lightning in 2012 to the tune of $22,000 worth of damaged electronics.  Yes.  We had insurance and they covered it.

I have to say that since then, Laura and I have gotten over most of our lightning fears and just try to protect ourselves and the boat as much as possible.  I remember only a couple months after our lightning strike, we were running off-shore Cape Canaveral when thunderstorms came at us.  I tried to change course and miss the bigger ones but there is not much you can do at 6 miles an hour.   We eventually learned to just run our course and work through the storms.

We sat in the cockpit trying to get cell coverage to see the storms on our weather apps.  It was partially successful.  Good news is we had an awesome view of nature's power as the whole sky was lighting up around us.  Here is a screen-shot I took right after the worst had gone by.  That big line of red went directly over us.  We were at the blue dot.

I estimate the bigger wind gusts at around 40 knots.  Everything on the boat was turned off so I didn't have instruments for measuring them.  A few times the boat heeled over about 20 degrees with a gust from the side but our anchoring system is excellent and never had a problem.  Oh, but the bigger winds were from the west, not south. There was land in front of us but no trees to help block the winds. If I had anchored near the river entrance we would have had huge waves.  Tucked in where we were, there was only a gentle swell coming around the corner.

Laura was able to get this picture of one lightning strike on her Nikon.  Notice how bright the sky was.  This is 10pm in the dark.  The lightning strike is just over the tree-line in the picture.

We hit the sack after the main storms passed (and I turned the boat power back on).  I had two little side windows open in our cabin and one had a fan blowing on us.  It was the only way to survive in the 80 degree, humid night.  Smaller storms with wind and rain came through almost all night so I didn't sleep very well.

Friday, June 5th

Air temp 84, water temp 75, winds S @ 10

4 nautical miles today, 1,240 total miles from Marathon

It was a sunny, pretty morning when I finally got up around 8:30am.  The winds were light out of the south and we enjoyed our slow wake-up in the cockpit.

Around 9:15am I decided to pull the anchor and slowly motor the 4 miles to Georgetown Yacht Basin.  I had called yesterday afternoon and made reservations for tonight so we could have air-conditioning with the hot, humid weather.

I had been hoping to maybe sail these few miles but the winds were only 3-4 knots most of the time.  Not enough to move the boat at a reasonable speed.  We motored instead.

10 minutes after getting underway, we passed Dean and Sue on Autumn Borne and Pete and Bunny on La Bella Vita coming the other way.  They had been at the marina for the past 2 nights and decided to head to Reedy Island anchorage up on Delaware Bay today.  Their plan for the coast of NJ is different from ours.  Pete and Bunny don't like doing overnights so they are going to do the coast in day trips.  We will stage the boat at Reedy Island on Sunday then leave early Monday morning down the Delaware and up the coast.  We'll run overnight and be in Sandy Hook Tuesday afternoon.

Truth-be-told, I would rather not do overnight sails either.  But, if it will allow us to travel in better weather and not get stuck somewhere for several days, it's not a big deal.  Plus, I have been in every NJ inlet and they can be really nasty sometimes with wind against the current.  Big, close seas are not fun.  Running this section overnight and missing all that stuff is fine with us.

Ok.  Back to the cruise....   We fueled up at the marina since it was much cheaper here than NJ or NY.  Only $1.45 / gallon for off-road diesel.  Plus, it would be a little more piece of mind for running the 100 miles off-shore from Cape May to Sandy Hook.

A short time later we were in our slip for the night.  I walked up to the office to see if their loaner-car was available while Laura put the boat to bed and organized some laundry.  A short time later we were in the marina car on our way to Walmart about 15 miles away in another state - Middleton, Delaware.  That was the closest Walmart.

I was running low on my prescription and hoped I could talk them into transferring my prescription from NY to here.  I could do it through the Walmart app but they typically want 3 days.  Maybe they would be quicker if I was standing there in front of them.

It didn't start out well.  The gal at the Pharmacy told me they couldn't transfer the prescription from NY and my doctor would have to call it in here.  Oh boy.  The last time I had called my doctor, it took them 3 hours to call me back.  But, it turns out I was able to get a hold ot the right person in NY and, about an hour later, I had my prescription just before the pharmacy closed for lunch.  Yea!

Laura picked up a few groceries and we drove back to the marina.  On the way, we stopped at a little diner we liked to see if they were serving lunch.  They were so we decided to put our groceries away then walk back about 1/4 mile to the diner.

It was just too hot and humid for us to walk back to the diner.  After stowing the groceries, we had a small lunch on Second Wind and relaxed the rest of the day.  We both took naps to make up for the lack of sleep last night.

I haven't decided if we will stay another night or anchor on the Sassafras River again tomorrow.  It's supposed to be humid and near 90 again but should cool down later in the day.  Tomorrow night is going into the 60s.  Yea!  I'll probably decide to stay after sleeping in the AC tonight...

Tomorrow is a day off waiting for weather and Sunday we will run around the top of Chesapeake Bay, through the Chesapeake - Delaware Canal and a little way down Delaware bay to Reedy Island anchorage.  Then I plan on leaving around first light Monday to catch the ebb tide down Delaware Bay.  If everything works out, we should be up the coast to Sandy Hook or the Hudson River Tuesday.  Stay tuned!

Reedville to Annapolis (Days 48 and 49)

Monday, June 1st

Air temp 61, water temp 66, winds N @ 10-20

41nm today, 1,145 total from Marathon

It cooled down quite a bit last night and I had to get up and close all the open windows because our cabin was chilly.  No alarm set so we slept in a bit.

We wanted to get underway before we lost the helping tidal current around 10:30am but the winds were still pretty high from the north through the morning.  As we would be going north up Chesapeake Bay, 20 knot winds on the nose, and the associated wave action, would really slow us down.

Just before 10am the winds seemed to start dying down so we brought in fenders, unhooked power and got the boat underway.  I wasn't sure the best way to leave the dock since there was shallow water in front of us and 2 big poles behind us in the water.  I decided to try backing up through the poles which is problematic because single-engine boats don't like to back up straight.  They always pull to port or starboard depending on the propeller rotation.  Our right-hand propeller pulls the stern to port.

At the dock, the boat was pointing north with the winds right on the nose.  As I started backing up, the winds changed a bit to the NW and blew the bow away from the dock.  Perfect!  Change of plans....  I let the wind push the bow around and easily motored forward away from the dock.

We wound our way out of Reedville and, about 1/2 hour later, turned north on Chesapeake Bay.  The winds were down to 10-15 knots but there was a 2-3 foot close wind-chop coming at us.  The boat slowed to 4 to 4.5 knots.  I decided to try running out the mainsail and falling off the wind a bit for some motor-sailing.  This would be a little away from our desired course but the boat picked up to over 6 knots which should make up for it.

As I got far enough out to where I could tack around Smith Point Light, the winds died and we just motored back to our desired track.  Hmmm.  Looks like it would have been better to just keep motoring on our course this time.  Ya never know.

It turned out to be a nice day as the winds and seas calmed down.  I took this picture a little later in the afternoon.

The protected, pretty anchorages in Solomon's Island are quite a way in from the bay.  It would typically take us an hour or more to go in the creeks to anchor, then another hour the next morning to get back out.  Since the winds were supposed to be light and from the S and SW tonight, I instead decided to anchor in a small bay just in the Patuxent River on the south shore.  It was a pretty anchorage with a nice beach right in front of us.  This is right next to the Patuxent River Naval Air Station so we had a special show from a few Navy planes taking off and landing. 

Sometimes we would get a little wave action from boats on Chesapeake Bay but, overall, the anchorage was calm.

Tuesday, June 2nd

Air temp 58, water temp 65, winds SW @ 10-15

42nm today, 1,196 total miles from Marathon

During the night the winds had moved to the west (as predicted) but were lots higher than the forecast.  It was chilly on the bow as I pulled up the anchor at 8am to start our cruise for today.  As we got underway, I quickly changed clothes from my shorts and t-shirt to sweatpants and foul-weather gear.

We rolled out the mainsail and jib as we turned the boat NE toward the bay.  As we rounded Cove Point and turned north toward Annapolis the winds were much better for sailing so we turned off the engine for our first sail in a couple weeks.  The boat was running nicely at 6 to 6 1/2 knots as Laura took this video.

Our sail only lasted about 1/2 hour as the winds died for the rest of the day.  We motored back up but kept the sails out for a little help.

We entered Annapolis harbor at 3pm.  It was a little busy with sail and power boats but seemed less than normal.  I got this picture of a pretty schooner sailing past us in the light winds.

By 3:30pm we were tied up to a mooring in the inner harbor.   Laura had made plans with our friends Chris and Bob to meet for cocktails and dinner.  This was only the second day Maryland had opened restaurants so we really didn't know what was available.  I called Davis' Pub and they were open for outside seating.  At least we had one option.

We dropped the motor onto the dinghy and motored over to the dinghy dock.  As we were tying up, we could hear a protest rally going on in the square near the water.  There were 100s of people in a peaceful protest with loud chanting.  There were a few tables open at restaurants in the square but did we want to stay and watch the show or do someplace more quiet.  We decided it would be better to try and eat outside of town and not get in the middle of this rally.  Chris and Bob picked us up and a short time later we walked into Davis' Pub.  As it was early (4:30pm?) we easily got a table outside and spent the rest of our evening enjoying lots of crab appetizers and good friends.  Our waiter took this picture for us.

4 hours (and 5 bottles of wine) later, we left and drove about 10 minutes back to the Annapolis waterfront.  The rally had left but there was still high police presence.  We managed to find a pub with outside seating on Main Street.  The typically very busy downtown was pretty quiet.  Only a few people out and a few cars on the streets. 

Just over the houses across the street, we could see the top of the Maryland State Capital.  It was a pretty picture on a clear night.

We will be staying in Annapolis for a few days as the weather is unsettled and the off-shore forecast up the coast of NJ doesn't look good until early next week.  Plans are to maybe leave here Thursday or Friday to anchor in the Sassafrass River than get to Reedy Point anchorage maybe on Sunday to stage for the final big leg of our trip down Delaware Bay and up the NJ coast to NYC.