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...
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.
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