Friday, October 2nd
Air temp 52, water temp 70, winds NW @ 10-15
Today was a down-day on Second Wind. We could have left for the NJ coast today but the winds were predicted to stay NW for the next 2+ days. That would not have been good when we sailed around Cape May and up Delaware Bay. The course up Delaware Bay is NW. But, if we had wanted to hustle south like in the past, this would have been excellent weather for the 3-day, 2-night trip to Norfolk. But, now we take our time...
Instead we puttered around the boat a bit and mostly relaxed. I again checked all my work from the past few weeks on our engine and everything looked ready. Winds are supposed to be pretty light the next few days so we will be running the engine just about the whole time.
I grilled pork chops for dinner while Laura made mashed cauliflower and brussel sprouts. We had dinner in the cockpit listening to some Howard Livingston on the stereo. It was very relaxing and good company!
After dinner we were treated to this colorful sunset over the Atlantic Highlands mooring field.
We hit the sack early anticipating a comfortable run to Chesapeake Bay over the next couple days.
Saturday, October 3rd and Sunday, October 4th
Air temp 56, water temp 70, winds NW @ 10
195 nautical miles over these two days. 310 total miles for the trip
We had ourselves and the boat ready for the off-shore trip by 7:45am. Right at 8am, after pulling up the anchor, we were motoring out behind the Atlantic Highlands breakwater heading north to round Sandy Hook.
Lots of boat traffic this morning on a sunny Saturday with light winds. Sport Fishing boats were heading out to their favorite spots while cruising powerboats and sailboats were working their way south. Of the 15-20 boats in the anchorage last night, we were the second last to leave. The place was almost empty. "Will the last boat leaving please turn off the lights?"
As we rounded Sandy Hook and turned south, the apparent wind fell off to our starboard quarter and was running about 8-10 knots. We rolled out the jib and mainsail then adjusted for the broad reach. As I figured, the winds would only push us 4-5 knots at this angle so we kept the motor running and averaged 6-6.5 knots all day.
Seas were probably less than 1 foot all morning with the light SE swell gradually diminishing. I considered that since the winds were light, the sea-breezes might take over and move the winds toward shore. Sea-breezes happen when the Sun heats the air over land. It rises and pulls are from the cooler ocean. This creates breeze from the sea - sea-breezes. This did happen later in the morning and we jibbed our sails to a port tack with the light winds out of the east.
Laura put out her fishing line and a couple hours later I heard the clothespin snap. We had a bite! I slowed the boat while Laura pulled in a little 12" bonito tuna (sometimes called Skipjacks). There are two types of these tuna and this was the "not very good" type - we could tell from the vertical stripes. I don't think he was much larger then the lure. What was he thinking?
Laura gave him a reprieve and threw him back. Grow bigger for next year!
We love to watch the ocean and are always looking for stuff to happen. Shortly after turning south from Sandy Hook, we saw the water was being churned up in spots. After checking it out, we saw it was small fish jumping out of the water. We assumed they were fleeing bigger fish? Laura took a short video of the action. What looks like big raindrops hitting the water is actually all the little fish jumping. A few times I think the boat scared them and a whole line of 100s would jump away from us.
The boat ran well and seas were mostly calm. Later in the afternoon the winds built from the SW which was the direction we were heading. I checked the PredictWind app on my iPhone and it showed SW winds until about 7pm when they were supposed to turn NW. The windchop gradually built to about 1-2 feet right on the nose. Any higher and we would start losing speed from bashing into the waves.
The sunset over Long Island wasn't very colorful. Clear skies and no clouds.
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Shortly after sunset the winds shifted to the NW at about 6-8 knots. Again we ran out the jib and main configured for the beam reach (winds on the side of the boat). We passed Atlantic City a little while later.
I was texting my friend Dean and this was how I described the sail - "Pretty good night out here but a little chilly. Currently 59 going down to 49 tonight. Almost all the windchop is gone that built while we had light winds on the nose. Boat is barely moving around. Apparent wind is 7-8 knots at 70 degrees off to starboard (from shore). Big moon is lighting everything up. Only running 1,300 RPM (cruise for us is 2,100) to keep our ETA around Cape May after low tide."
From experience, we know that if we arrive at Cape May around low tide, we can catch a helping current up the Delaware, through the C&D Canal and down Chesapeake Bay. This makes the trip much shorter. Low tide at Cape May was 3:30am. We were adjusting engine RPM to get there around 4am.
Our usual watch schedule for off-shore is I stay awake until about 2am then Laura takes over until after sunrise. Because we'd be rounding Cape May during her watch, we changed shifts. She went to bed around 8pm and would rest until about 11pm. Then I would sack out from 11pm to 3am when she would get to sleep again.
Even though the boat wasn't moving around much, Laura couldn't sleep more than an hour or so. When I sacked out at 11pm, I was almost instantly asleep and probably slept 3 1/2 hours on my 4 hours off.
Laura woke me up just before we got to the Cape May inlet. There were several fishing boats heading in and out at 3am and I had to keep a close watch on where everyone was going. Once past the inlet, the boat traffic calmed down except for the line of sailboats I ended up joining. Because this was such a nice weather window for the NJ coast, it was pretty busy. I was 4th in line of 6 sailboats rounding Cape May through the Prissywick Shoals. This is a shortcut that runs close to shore around the Cape May lighthouse which saves about 2 hours from going all the way out to the ship channel then up the bay. The only problem is you have to carefully follow your chartplotter to navigate around the shoals. I've been through here probably 20 times so tonight was no problem.
One very unusual thing happened that was almost unbelievable. I knew the winds were supposed to shift from the NW to NE sometime near when we were going around Cape May. That could mean anytime from a few hours before we got there to a few hours afterwards. I had the jib and mainsail out and sheeted for a beam reach, As I started my turn through the Prisswick Channel, the winds clocked at exactly the same time. I turned the boat 90 degrees within about 1/2 hour and never had to adjust a sheet to keep the sails working. When I set my course NW up Delaware Bay, the winds were 70-80 degrees on my starboard side. Exactly as when we passed the Cape May inlet heading SW. This just cracks me up!
The winds built into the low teens and I was able to shut down the engine and give it a rest. I was hoping this would let Laura sleep a little better as she wouldn't have the drone of the engine only about 10 feet away. It was a pleasant sail up the bay with a pretty sunrise over Cape May a few hours later.
As we were running up the most open part of Delaware Bay, the winds caused the seas to build a little. But, it wasn't too rolly and we had a very pleasant day. Several hours later the seas calmed as we sailed through the more narrow upper bay.
Late morning we turned west again into the C&D Canal. This man-made canal is about 12 miles long and connect Delaware Bay to Chesapeake Bay. We averaged over 7 knots as we had the currents with us again. Lots of boat traffic on a pretty Sunday afternoon in Delaware.
No problems the rest of the day and we anchored on the Sassafras River in one of our favorite spots - just around the first bend. We call this "stroke point" because 2 years ago I had a stroke in the middle of the night and had to get evac'd off the boat at 4am to Easton Hospital. I was very lucky that the stroke went away quickly and we were back on the boat 3 days later. All's well that ends well.
Back to today....
We had a nice dinner of roasted veggies and chicken on the BBQ. Sunset was very nice at this calm anchorage.
After dinner I heard the bilge pump run. This is not usually a problem but, for some reason, I decided to check it out. After looking around the bilge with a flashlight, I saw some drips coming down the port side. I crawled down into the engine room and found the hose that brings ocean water to the engine pump (called raw water) had just about fallen apart. I have no idea how old this hose was but it had a leak just below the raw water pump that was a constant small stream ending up in the bilge. Oh oh. Time for some plumbing work!
A short while later I was tired and exasperated. Then I pulled the hose off the fitting under the raw water pump, I could see that the hose had de-laminated inside. It looked pretty bad. Here was a piece I cut off hoping it would be better farther down. Nope.
Laura pulled out our spare hoses and I told her we needed 1 1/8" hose to replace this (as was printed on the hose). We didn't have any on the boat. I was able to eventually use gorilla tape to stop (slow?) the leak and get it hooked back up but we couldn't go too far. I figured Georgetown Yacht Basin was only 5 miles down the Sassafras River and we'd alter our plans to go there tomorrow.
Also, while working on the bad hose, I turned off the seacock for the engine. This is the valve that controls the water flow from the through-hull fitting to the engine. While working on the hose, I could see that there was still a constant stream of water coming out even with the seacock turned off. No problems with our bilge pumps keeping up but I didn't want outside water coming in the boat if this hose leaked any more.
Monday, October 5th
Air temp 62, water temp 64, winds NW @ 10-15
39 nautical miles today, 349 total miles for the trip
Needless to say that even though I only had about 4 hours sleep last night, I didn't sleep well. After only about 5 hours I was awake thinking about this problem. I was thinking back on all the work I did the past few weeks on our engine cooling system. I had purchased a new raw water pump and I remembered that the fittings were 1". Not 1 1/8". By 8am I had Laura digging through our spare hoses for 1" which she thought she remembered seeing. She found a piece about 4 feet long which was exactly what I needed.
We both ended up working in the engine room for over an hour just to get the old hose off. It was pretty bad and frozen to the fittings. I had to cut it off the sea-strainer fitting and luckily found another fitting that would work there because the hose was welded to it. We eventually ran the new hose from the sea-strainer to the raw water pump which I had to take off the engine in order to attach the hose. Now I understood why someone had switched to 1 1/8" hose - it was much easier to install. Both ends of the 1" hose were tight as heck. I had to use vaseline jelly and a heat gun to get the hose on the pump far enough for the clamps. The other end went together a little easier. Here's a picture of the old hose. It was pretty bad. How was it working at all?
Afterwards I was pretty happy to fix this with a new hose we had in stock. I opened the seacock and started the engine. There was one slow drip on the sea-strainer that I fixed by tightening the clamp. It all looked good!
We pulled up anchor and left for Annapolis around 10:30am. A short time later we had the big sails up and heading down the bay. Here's a video Laura took of the nice sailing today.
I did run the engine for most of the day and checked it often to make sure the new hose, fittings and clamps were working well. All dry. Yea!
By 4:30pm we were tied up to a city mooring in Back Creek. Very nice and calm here. Tomorrow I will travel into the marina next to us and see if they have the right size hose I can buy for spares.
Plans are to stay here until Wednesday or Thursday depending on the weather. Winds tomorrow are supposed to be out of the south which would prevent us from traveling down the bay. Wednesday, the winds are supposed to clock to the NW which would make for nice sailing. It all depends on when they clock.
Longer term we are going to visit our friends Walter and Mary in Reedville - probably Friday and Saturday. They have a house with a dock where we can tie up and it includes power and water. Wonderful people we met through the Ocean Cruising Club (OCC).
Now I'm pretty tired and ready for bed. Hopefully, I will sleep better tonight now that the boat is running great again.
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