Wednesday, September 30th
Air temp 65, water temp 72, winds W-SW @ 5-10
Last night was a doozy. Storms blanketed the whole area and we had winds into the 30s at the anchorage. The boat stayed pretty solid with only a few sideways gusts that happen when the wind clocks and blows from the side of the boat in a storm. The sideways gusts are always the worry. If they are high enough, they will put so much strain on the anchor that it could come out. So far (knock on wood) that hasn't happened with our Rocna in over 10 years and probably 300 times we anchored with it.
We use AquaMaps on our iPad and iPhone for navigation and it has an excellent anchor watch. At anytime during the night I can just pick up my phone and see exactly were we are in relation to where we anchored. It creates a safe-circle around the anchor that you specify how big the circle is by typing in how much anchor chain you let out. It's accurate enough that I see "feet from anchor" change if I walk forward or aft on the boat with the phone in my hand.
I hadn't slept well the night before (pre-trip jitters) and figured I'd be awake much of the night for the storms so I hit the sack at 7:30pm. I slept pretty well until about 12:30am when the bigger storms came through. Then I was awake on-and-off the the next 5 hours with the storms. Around 6am I finally got back to sleep for a couple more hours.
Here is a screen shot from Google Maps showing where we are. We're at the blue dot over on the left side in that little cove near the town of Haverstraw.
This was a much needed "down day" for Second Wind. We just hung out on the boat and relaxed. It was actually was hard for me to relax and it seemed like I should be doing something after working on the boat almost every day for the past couple weeks. I practiced my flute for over an hour going through my entire list of 47 favorites on 8notes.com. Laura baked cookies and worked on Christmas presents (she always like making crafty-stuff). I did work on a few projects I found but nothing more than about 15 minutes.
It was a pleasant afternoon with temps in the low-70s but the winds stayed in the mid-teens. We were very comfortable in this anchorage for our off-day. Our wind generator and solar panels kept up with our power requirements nicely but I did run the Honda generator for about 1/2 hour to give us hot water for showers.
Laura made shrimp and broccoli Alfredo over linguini for dinner and it was very tasty. In the evening we watched a fun movie on the computer - Two Weeks Notice with Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant - then hit the sack early again. The winds picked up during the night into the mid-20s which woke us up a few times.
Thursday, October 1st
Air temp 52, water temp 71, winds W @ 5-10 (increasing during the day)
50 nautical miles today - 115 total miles for this trip
Winds had finally died down this morning and we were up at 7:30am getting the boat ready for our travel through NY Harbor. I always try to time our NY Harbor passage so we have the ebb tide helping our speed. Otherwise you are a victim to the ferry boat wakes for a much longer time. We only make about 4.5 knots if the current is against us. Today I had figured if we leave the anchorage by 8am we'd be fighting the flood current until it changed around the George Washington Bridge. Then we'd have helping current all the way though the Verrazano Bridge.
Pulling the anchor and 140 feet of chain took us about 15 minutes because it was very dirty and caked with mud. We have a washdown pump on the bow which pumps seawater through a hose we can use to wash the chain. But it was caked so much it didn't want to come off so it was slow going pulling in all 140 feet. By 8am we were underway and no problems leaving the anchorage today with about 2 feet of tide keeping us away from the bottom.
We approached the Tappan Zee bridge a couple hours later. I love the looks of this new bridge. Here is a picture Laura took from behind us after we passed under the bridge with the morning Sun on the cables.
Our timing worked out excellent and we held 7-8 knots all the way through the upper NY Harbor. The Ferry Boats didn't seem quite so bad this trip. Maybe the slow economy from COVID has then running at less than full strength.
We were able to get over by the western shore and Laura took this nice picture of Lady Liberty. It chokes us up a little to think about all the immigrants that saw her on their way into this country.
We had the mainsail out most of the day and it helped our speed a little. The winds were only 30-40 degrees off our bow and the boat can't sail that close to the wind. But, our mainsail added about 1/2 a knot to our speed. Hey! Free power!
The harbor opens up after passing Liberty Island and the wind move to 50-60 degrees off our bow. Now we can sail! We rolled out the jib and I lower the engine RPM to let the diesel cool down before shutting it off. Laura took this video of our sail. Watch it all the way to the end for the fun part. Even after running this boat over 100,000 miles, we still make mistakes. Who forgot to put the bungee cord on the Hibiscus plant in case we were pushed over by a wind gust?
After running under the Verrazano Bridge, we were able to sail for over an hour, with the engine off, across the lower bay. We anchored behind the breakwater in my favorite, most protected spot just before the mooring field at 4:15pm.
There are squalls coming through tomorrow morning and this should be a great spot to sit them out. We will also stay here through tomorrow until Saturday morning when we have a great weather window for sailing (probably mostly motoring) down the coast of NJ, up Delaware Bay and into the Chesapeake Bay.
We could leave tomorrow but the winds are predicted to be N to NW both tomorrow and Saturday. That's great for sailing down the coast but turning up into Delaware Bay would be right into the winds. Sunday the winds are supposed to die and actually move south later in the day. If we leave here Saturday morning around 7am, we will be rounding Cape May sometime around 3-4am on Sunday (110 miles at 5.5 knots = 20 hours). That is when the flood tide starts at Cape May up Delaware Bay. We should be able to run up Delaware Bay, through the C&D Canal and down Chesapeake Bay to the Sassafras River during the day on Sunday. Then maybe Monday to Annapolis where we will sit out another batch of bad weather for a few days.
Did you find the cause of the overheating? Have a eventless trip!
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