Great Bridge, VA to Oriental, NC

Thursday, November 18 - Day 17

It was a blustery day in Great Bridge.  Winds were cranking but we were in calm waters at the Visitors Center free dock.  Here is Second Wind at the free dock before Autumn Borne came and docked in front of us.

We had just passed the engine hour limit for our oil change so, in the morning after coffee, I ran the engine for 30 minutes to warm up the oil.  I then drained the oil, changed the oil filter, changed the transmission oil and refilled the engine.  It all went pretty quick and about 2 hours later I had everything cleaned up and our engine was ready for another 170 hours of work.

There is a nice walk through the woods next to the dock so we decided to loosen up our legs after several days without going to shore.  Laura and I bundled up a bit then had a very nice hour or so through the woods on the well kept paths.  The only problem was about 1/3 of the way through the walk, I tripped over a hidden root (under the pine needles) and "hit the deck".  I guess I still have some muscle-memory from my high school football days because I did tuck-n-roll so didn't get hurt too bad.  Just banged up my right knee a bit but we finished the walk without problems.

Autumn Borne was docked right in front of us but I guess Dean and Sue were on a different schedule than us today.  The few times I knocked on their boat during the day, they were out shopping.  We did meet up later and we both decided to leave in the morning even though the winds were predicted 20 knots out of the north which might make for a wild ride.  Saturday and Sunday look to be good travel weather so we should be able to make Oriental by Sunday afternoon.

Friday, November 19th - Day 18

The last few days I noticed our wind generator was looking a little crooked.  I woke up during the night hearing a "bang, bang, bang" and got up with a spotlight to look around the boat.  I saw the wind generator had broken off it's mount on our mizzenmast and was leaning back against the mast.  Since it seemed stable and didn't look like it was going to fall, I went back to bed thinking we would have to do something with it in the morning.

The next two low bridges heading south open on the hour and 1/2 hour.  The first one, Centerville Turnpike Bridge, doesn't open from 6:30am to 8:30am on weekdays for rush-hour traffic.  I had planned on leaving the dock around 7:45am as it was only about a 3 mile run to the Centerville bridge.

Laura and I were both up around 7am and decided she would go up the mast in a bosun's chair attached to a halyard that I would use to haul her up with the winch on the mast.  She was a trooper and went right up to about 30 feet off the deck where she used a short rope to tie the wind generator off the the mast.  Here she is just about done.  If you look closely, you can see the ropes holding the wind generator to the mast that she installed.

By 7:45am we were done with the wind generator (thanks Baby!), had coffee made and were shoving off the dock to continue our trip south.  Dean and Sue left a few minutes before us to get fuel and water at Atlantic Yacht Basin across the canal.  They would be about 1/2 hour behind us all day.

The forecast had changed a bit to the better with winds predicted to only be in the 15-20 range.  No problems with the two bridges as I lowered our boat speed to get to the bridges just before they opened.  I was surprised at the number of boats this late in the season.  There were 5 or 6 powerboats that passed us in the morning and we traveled with 3-4 sailboats in sight most of the day.

It turned out to be a very nice day for traveling south with the north winds helping quite a bit with out boat speed.  No problems as we crossed the most open section of the trip - Currituck Sound.  I was a little worried that we would see bigger waves throwing us around through here but they were never over about 1 foot.

We used the jib for extra speed when the wind angle allowed and crossed into NC around 11am.  We anchored early at 2:45pm on the north end of North River.  There were no decent anchorages for the north winds tonight that we could have made before dark if we kept going.

After shutting everything down on the boat from our cruise, we relaxed and watched a few shows with our Smart-TV connected to the hot-spot on my phone.  The wind was still cranking near 20 knots but we were anchored only about 1/4 mile from the shore so the boat stayed very calm.

41 nautical miles today.  572 total trip miles.

Saturday, November 20th - Day 19

The weather Monday and Tuesday looked to be stormy with high winds so we had to hustle a bit.  We had about 120 statute miles to Oriental to cover in the next 2 days.  Right in the middle was the 21 mile Pungo-Alligator Canal.  If we didn't get all the way through the canal today, it would be very difficult for us to make Oriental on Sunday.

Dean and Sue were anchored about 1/4 mile next to us and he texted me last night asking what time we were leaving.  I don't think he was too happy when I told him anchor-up at 6am in the dark.  The North River is pretty wide open with plenty of water almost everywhere for the first hour or so of our trip today.  There should be no problem doing 1/2 hour or so in the dark through here.

I had the alarm set for 5:30am but didn't want to get up.  It was only 56 degrees in the cabin (41 degrees outside) and we were toasty under 3 blankets.  But, I willed myself to move and started the portable propane heater (Mr Buddy) which pretty quickly brought the temp up in our cabin.  I also turned on the inverter and ran our central-heat off the batteries for a bit to warm up the rest of the boat.  Once we started the engine, our Balmar 150 amp alternator would quickly recharge the batteries.

I had to use a flashlight to see and wash the anchor chain as we pulled it in.  It wasn't too muddy except for the last 10-15 feet.  After I have the engine running and all the instruments setup, our process is for me to run the anchor windlass up on the bow while Laura is down in the forward cabin making sure the chain coming in sits nicely in the locker.  Once I get the anchor up near the surface, I yell down to her and she comes up to clean the last few feet of chain and the anchor while I get on the helm and get the boat moving in the right direction.  It all worked good this morning and it was just starting to get light in the eastern sky as we left the anchorage.

Dean and Sue were about 15 minutes behind us as we motor-sailed down the North River to the Albemarle Sound.  The Albemarle Sound is 13 miles across on the ICW route and shallow - only 12-20 feet deep.  Any winds over 15 can really kick up the waves.  Today, the winds were about 10-15 out of the north.  We rolled out the full mainsail and jib.  With the winds behind the beam (broad reach) the boat ran 7 knots the whole crossing with only a little help from the engine.  It would have been a nice sail but I wanted to keep the speed up to make sure we would make it through the canal before dark.  Here is a picture from the helm as we were crossing the Albemarle Sound.  We are still bundled up from the cold outside.

By 9:30am we were across the sound and sailed through the Alligator River bridge.  This is one of the few bridges on the ICW where they don't make you drop the sails.  Now we only had about 15 miles to the canal so I knew we would make it through before dark.

It was a very nice day and warmed up in the cockpit after I rolled in the mainsail and put up the aft panel of our clear windows to keep the wind.  When we run the mainsail, one of the back panels has to come off because it would interfere with the mainsheet. 

Even with the short daylight this time of year, we made lots of miles because of our early start.  We made it through the 21 mile canal and even another 10 miles to anchor on the north shore just east of Behaven at 4:30 pm.  Pretty sunset for our last night at anchor for a while.

67 nautical miles today.  639 total miles from Catskill

Sunday, November 21st - Day 20

The winds had gradually died during the night and we woke up to a calm morning on the Pungo River.  We slept in a bit and were underway at 7:10am.  No wind to help today so it was all motoring for the final 40 miles to Oriental.

Temps gradually rose into the mid-60s and we peeled off layers after the cold, 44 degree start this morning.

The day was quiet and peaceful and we motored on calm waters.  Even the Neuse River was almost flat calm which seems so different from other times we have bashed through the steep waves along this section. 

Just before Oriental, we motored slowly up the channel into Whitaker Creek.  This is another area that is tricky and, depending on the water level, we typically run aground at least once. I only run the boat about 2 knots through here and watch the depth sounders closely.  

No problems today as we motored through the shallow channel and pulled into our designated slip at Sailcraft Marina.  We have reservations for a month (or more) at this marina and we will fly back to Albany next week for some personal business then probably drive our car back here a few days later.

Here is Second Wind all snug in her slip at Sailcraft Marina.

41 nautical miles today.  680 total miles from Catskill.

Our friends D and Don (s/v Southern Cross) are here and we had dinner together the next two nights on Second Wind.  It's great to see them again.  We will be here a while and will miss the cruising life (for a bit) but are happy that now we have full-time heat!

To be continued.....

Reedville to Great Bridge (Norfolk)

Thursday, November 11th to Saturday, November 13th - Days 10, 11 and 12

We stayed three fun days with Walter and Mary sitting out big winds and a few storms.  It was nice and cozy at their dock up Cockrell Creek plus we had power to run our heat - almost constantly because of the cooler weather.

Friday afternoon I took a walk around Reedville.  It's just a little town on the western shore with many houses and a few restaurants.  They were just past peak fall colors in this area but there were still a few nice scenes.

One of our favorite things to do here is attend the "Wine Down Friday" at the Lucky Cellars winery.  They have a large hall with a wrap around porch all around for sitting outside when it's nice.  Folks bring munchies, purchase wine from the winery (of course) and dance / listen to the live music.  There is also a food truck outside for purchasing more substantial chow.

This day the food truck was not one of Walter and Mary's favorites (hot dogs) so we decided to have happy-hour(s) at the winery then head to one of the local restaurants for dinner.

I just love the atmosphere at the winery.  Most everyone is AARP qualified and a large percentage are up dancing to almost every song.  We did dance to a couple songs but did not join in with the line-dancing.  Those dances were pretty complicated and we just enjoyed watching.  Watching "rural" Americans have fun in this kind of atmosphere just makes me feel good and smile a lot. Walter and Mary were even up dancing...

A while later we drove to a local restaurant - LeadBelly's.  I love that name.  Walter, Mary and I had their fried oyster dinner and it was some of the best I've every had - lightly breaded and cooked perfect.

Saturday, I helped Walter drain the water lines to the dock as we were probably their last boat of the season.  We also drove to a local marina where they have their sailboat on "the hard".  He wasn't too happy that someone had taken his big stairs that he uses to climb up and hand-pump the bilge.  He doesn't let the prosthesis slow him down much.  But, I borrowed a ladder , climbed up onto their boat and pumped out the bilge for him.  It's the least I could do for 3 days of free power and water.

Laura made dinner for the 4 of us and we sat around the table for a few hours chatting.  Later in the evening we said the sailors good-bye "See you soon!" before heading back to the boat.

The nice weather for traveling by boat is still spotty.  We decided to leave early tomorrow (Sunday) and motor / sail down to Fishing Bay near Deltaville.  There we would sit out stormy weather on Monday.  Then, hopefully, down to Norfolk on Tuesday.

Sunday, November 14th - Day 13

I had the alarm set for 5:30am but I think I hit the snooze a few times.  We were off the dock at 6:20am when it was light enough to see around the boat.

Here is the sunrise over the fleet of boats designed for Menhaden fishing which is Reedville's claim-to-fame.

An hour or so later we were back on Chesapeake Bay heading south.  Winds were 6-8 knots on the beam so we pulled out our jib to help the boat speed.  It was a pretty day on the water.  Here is a view from the helm.

We anchored on the south side of Fishing Bay at 10:50am.  About an hour later the south winds started building which is why we left Reedville so early.  We were now in a great anchorage and will sit for a couple days until the weather calms on Tuesday.

Our friends Dean and Sue on Autumn Borne are at the Fishing Bay Marina only a couple miles from us.  We spend summers together in Catskill and they left 2 or 3 weeks before us.  They have had some engine problems which Dean was able to fix just in the last day or so.  If he is confident, we will both head south on Tuesday.

25 nautical miles today.  468 total trip miles from Catskill

Sunday, November 14th - Day 13

Our anchorage was nice and calm last night even though the south winds were blowing in the 25-30 range.  But, this morning, the winds clocked to the west and we were getting a swell around the headland making it a little difficult to walk around the boat.

I decided to move a couple miles and re-anchor on the north side of the bay near the marina.  My assumption was that anchorage would be better for the winds clocking west to north.

The winds were still honking in the 20s as I went to the bow to pull up our anchor.   No problems other than a really dirty chain which I washed off with our deck washdown pump.

We logged only 3 miles with our slow trip across Fishing Bay.  After re-anchoring 1/4 mile from the marina the boat was much calmer.

Tuesday, November 15th - Day 14

Another early morning as I wanted to give us every chance to make the Gilmerton Bridge in Norfolk before 3:30pm.  They are closed from 3:30pm to 5:30pm for rush hour traffic.

We pulled the anchor at 6am in the dark and slowly motored out of Fishing Bay around the sand spit.  It was a pretty sunrise about 1/2 hour later as we motored back out onto Chesapeake Bay.

After checking the tides, I could see we would have the currents against us most of the day.  Thankfully, this open part of the bay they are not usually more than about 1/2 a knot.  We did have a little help from the sails until we turned more south at Wolf Trap Light.  Winds then were light but on the nose so we pulled in the sails and just motored on a calm bay.

All morning I watched our speed drop as the flood tide built against us.  I didn't think there was any way we would make the Gilmerton Bridge by 3:30pm so we were thinking about alternatives like anchoring at Hospital Point.  At one point our GPS showed an ETA of 5pm.  Yuck!

As we turned into Norfolk Harbor, our speed gradually increased (with the now helping tide) and our ETA changed to 3:25pm.  I increased engine RPM to 100 over our normal cruise to help.  We zoomed passed the Navy base and downtown Norfolk.  The first two railroad bridges were open and it looked like we would make it.

Here is the anchorage at Hospital Point - Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) mile 0.  Dean and Sue were about an hour behind us and wanted to know if there was room here to anchor.  Plenty!

As we approached the Gilmerton Bridge at 3:25pm, I called them on the marine radio to ask if they would lift for us before the 3:30pm lockout.  The bridge operator told me she would open but the railroad bridge right next to them was in the down position for maintenance.  Crap.  I tried calling them on the radio and nobody answered.  The ActiveCaptain write-up on our chartplotter had a phone number so I tried calling it.  Someone actually answered and, after I explained the situation, called the railroad bridge and the maintenance guys said they would open for us.  We only waited about 10 minutes and were able to get through both bridges without any other problems.

We wanted to get through this bridge today so we could get fuel at Top Rack Marina (only 3 miles away) then try and make the 4:30pm lock in Great Bridge.  Then we could walk to the grocery store tonight and be back underway south tomorrow.  We needed groceries in the next couple days and this was the only option.

Another part of the equation is we are trying to get to Oriental before Thanksgiving next week.  I never thought this would be a problem - we had over 2 weeks when we left Georgetown.  This section from Georgetown to Oriental would normally take us about 1 week without pushing.  But the crazy weather had really held us up.

The current weather forecast shows good travel weather tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday which would get us to Oriental on Sunday.  The next Monday and Tuesday are supposed to be not nice so, if we get delayed, we might not make it for Thanksgiving.

Ok.  So we made the bridge before their 2 hour lockout and did make Top Rack Marina for fuel.  But, after fueling I realized there was no way we could make the 4:30pm lock and they only open once each hour.  I gave up and stayed at Top Rack for the night.  They have free Wi-Fi and we would have power for heat all night.  I was getting tired of sleeping with 3 blankets on the bed.

We took 78 gallons of diesel which was our usage from New York Harbor.  The price was 70 cents cheaper than NJ.  I don't know how they do it but this is usually the cheapest fuel on the ICW.

Laura and I relaxed, watched a few streaming shows and hit the sack early.  We had been up since 5am.

56 nautical miles today.  527 total miles from Catskill

Tuesday, November 16th - Day 15

It was a nice night at the dock and we both slept well with the central-heat running all night.  We slept in a bit and left the dock at 8am to make the 8:30am lock at Great Bridge.

As we approached the lock it looked like a traffic jam.  There was a tug and barge entering the lock and one powerboat waiting.  After I called the lock on our VHF radio, the lock-tender told me we could enter the lock after the barge was tied up.  There would be enough room for us to motor alongside the barge and tie up on the opposite wall.  Oh boy.  It looked pretty tight.  Here is what it looked like from where Laura was standing up on the bow.

After we tied up, they brought in two powerboats behind us.  It was a very full lock!  Here's what it looked like behind us.

As we were going under the Great Bridge bridge a few minutes later, there was another tug and barge waiting to go north.  What was going on?

We tied up to the free dock at the Visitor's Center - we were the only boat on the 250 foot dock.  I guess most of the other cruisers are in Florida already.

After putting the boat to bed after our 3 mile cruise, we walked to the Kroger grocery store with our luggage wheelie and folding crate.  It's only about a mile round-trip and felt good on legs that hadn't done much in the past several days.  I was back in shorts!  It is forecast to be near 70 here today and tomorrow.  Then another cold front and back into the 30s at night.

Laura and I wheeled $168 worth of groceries back to the boat and she packed it away while I worked on the blog.  

Dean and Sue arrived a short while later and we helped them tie up in front of us.  We hadn't seen them in 5-6 weeks so it was a nice reunion.

That just about catches you up on our trip.

Tomorrow looks to be very windy.  The forecast is SW winds at 20-30 mph.  That would be a little crazy for running down the narrow ICW so we will sit here for another day.  Friday doesn't look to bad now so we will plan on heading south then.  We should be able to make Oriental on Sunday afternoon.  Stay tuned to see if we make it!

Georgetown, MD to Reedville, VA

Wednesday, November 3rd - Day 6 (cont...)

We motored into Georgetown Yacht Basin just after noon.  As typical for us, we didn't even leave the boat for a walk after not being ashore for 6 days.  Instead, we went through our checklist of putting the boat to bed and getting her (and us) ready to leave for "a few days".  Our schedule had many options and we were not sure when we would be back.  Earliest would probably be next Monday but it could be several weeks.

Here is Second Wind all snug in her slip at GYB.

The next morning, Laura's friend Janet and her husband Guy drove down from the Albany area to pick us up for a ride north.  We arrived in Clifton Park just before 3pm and prepared for a busy weekend of personal business.

Monday, November 8th - Day 7

Everything went well with our business up north.  My sister Denise and husband Tom drove us back to Maryland and Second Wind in the morning.  We arrived around 1pm and said sad good-byes to them.  They were so awesome to put us up for 4 days and we had a great time with them.

The boat fared well being alone for 4 days other than being very cold inside.  I ran the heat-pump for heat plus turned on an electric heater in our cabin.  In 1/2 hour the boat was toasty.

I made sure everything was ready to go tomorrow morning as we were planning on leaving as soon as we could see good enough to motor out of the marina without hitting anything.  We even ran the engine for 20 minutes to warm it up.  It was pretty cold and took a little longer to start when I turned the key.

We hit the sack early with the alarm set for 5:30am.

Tuesday, November 9th - Day 8

When I had checked the marine forecast over the weekend, it looked like we had 3 (or more) days of very nice weather for motoring / sailing down Chesapeake Bay starting today.  Yesterday, it changed to just 2 days.  This is why we wanted to leave as soon as we could and would bypass Annapolis this trip.  We wanted to get to our friends Walter and Mary's in Reedville to be nicely protected for the storm predicted on Thursday night.

We were up right after the alarm went off.  It was nice and toasty in the boat with the heat running all night.  After dressing in many layers, we got ready to leave.  I started the engine and configured our instruments while Laura spent a lot of time cleaning our clear cockpit windows.  There was lots of dew this morning.  Yuck.

By 6:15am we were slowly motoring out of the marina and down the Sassafras River back to Chesapeake Bay.  It's about 8 miles from the marina to the bay so we had lots of time for breakfast and checking that everything was working right on the boat.  

Laura took this colorful picture of the sunrise behind us.

The bay was very calm today with just 4-6 knots of wind on the nose.  A few hours later we approached the Bay Bridge just before Annapolis.  I'm surprised how nice this picture came out considering it's right into the Sun.

The bay stayed calm all day and we picked up the ebb tidal current in the afternoon for a little help with our speed.

Our short-term goal was to stay in Reedville with our friends Walter and Mary, at their private dock, for the storms Thursday night into Friday.  It is approximately 120 nautical miles from Georgetown to Reedville.  We typically would break this up into 3 easy days of around 40 miles each - Georgetown to Annapolis, Annapolis to Solomons, Solomons to Reedville.  But, the weather would be deteriorating on Thursday so we needed to get there Wednesday afternoon or early Thursday.  

If there was a good anchorage between Annapolis and the Solomons, it would have worked out great for us to just keep going for a few extra hours today.  However, the only "close" anchorage was just 5 miles south of Annapolis.  That wouldn't gain us much distance to make Reedville tomorrow.  Instead, we decided to keep going to the Solomons with a estimated arrival of 8pm.  The forecast was for light south winds during the night so we would just pull into the big bay south of the Solomons and anchor along the southern shore.  This should be no problem in the dark because we wouldn't have to do any close-in navigating through the Solomon creeks with limited visibility 

Because it was a beautiful, calm day with the boat running nicely on autopilot, we just relaxed and worked a few boat jobs - mostly cleaning and picking up.  It was a pretty sunset as we motored past the Choptank River.

By 6pm it was totally dark but the crescent moon gave us a little light on the water.  The boat ran fine and there were no problems navigating the middle Chesapeake in the dark with great instruments and good radar.  

Just after 8pm we dropped our anchor along the southern shore in Lord Baltimore Bay (just south of Solomons).  We watched TV for only a short time before we both decided to hit the sack early.  It was a long, 14-hour day on the water but we should have a much shorter day tomorrow.

83 nautical miles today.  401 total trip miles from Catskill.

Wednesday, November 10th - Day 9

No alarm set for this morning but we woke just after sunrise.  We had slept well in this calm anchorage and were ready to continue our journey south on another beautiful day.

Winds were predicted to be from the W to NW so I was hopeful we would be able to get some engine-off sailing this morning and afternoon.

As we pulled the anchor, the winds were dead calm.  We motored out of the large bay back onto the Chesapeake just after 8am.  Our winds did eventually pick-up a little from the west at 6-8 knots and we rolled out our jib and main to help our speed a bit.  I was able to lower our engine RPM but there was not quite enough wind to turn it off and still make Reedville this afternoon.  It was another pretty day on the Chesapeake.

There had been almost no wind for the past 2 days but, for some reason, there was a slight swell from the south that bounced us around a little.  Not the calm, steady ride we had yesterday.

Sometimes when crossing the Potomac River, it can be quite rough with west winds.  Today the winds stayed light enough that the crossing was very nice.  In fact, we had left Solomons just as the tidal current changed to the south so we had helping current all morning.  The boat stayed near 7 knots all day with our engine RPM down from our normal 2,100 to just 1,600.

We entered Ingram Bay just after 1pm, pulled in our sails and turned north up the creeks to Reedville.  Here is the downtown Reedville from the water.

A few minutes later we tied up at Walter and Mary's dock, put the boat to bed after our cruise and walked up to the house to say hello.  Here is Second Wind all safe in her slip for the next few days.

We had cocktails on the porch then dinner in the house together.  It was lots of fun being back together with Walter and Mary - we really look forward to stopping here twice a year.

42 nautical miles today.  443 total miles from Catskill.

Thursday, November 11th - Day 10

We both were restless in the night - probably a result of a little too much partying last evening with Walter and Mary.  Laura is going with Mary to a local woman's luncheon today and I'm working on the blog.  Walter and Mary had plans for dinner tonight with local friends so we are on our own for the evening.  Not a problem as we really enjoy each other's company.  

Geez.  Our weather forecast for the next week or so really turned to crap.  Yesterday, it looked like Saturday we could leave for Deltaville then Sunday down the Bay to Norfolk.  We would then have 3-4 nice travel days with light winds for getting to Oriental, NC when we have marina reservations for a month (or more) starting around Nov 15th to the 20th.  

Now it looks like the only possible travel days are maybe Sunday and Tuesday - and even these days don't look great.  The other days are winds out of the south or in the 30s.  I'm not sure I've even seen a stretch of bad winds for Chesapeake Bay last for 10 days before.  But, not to worry.  We are in a protected area with good friends to keep us company.  If we have to stay a little longer, oh well....

Atlantic Highlands, NJ to Georgetown, MD

Monday, November 1st - Day 4 (cont...) -

Happy Birthday to me!

We had the anchor up and left the nice anchorage at 11am.  I slowly motored around behind the breakwater while Laura finished cleaning the anchor with our washdown hose up on the bow.  I could see the whitecaps in the lower harbor over the breakwater so didn't want to motor our there while Laura was working.  She would not have been happy with the bouncing and flying water.

A short time later she had everything put away and the anchor secured in it's mount.  I increased RPM to 2,100 (our cruising RPM) and turned the boat north for the 3.5 mile run up and around Sandy Hook.  The wind was as predicted - 20 to 25 knots from the NW which made for a bumpy upwind ride.  The wind angle was too close to the bow for using sails to help us so we just slogged along with the motor.  By time we turned east around Sandy Hook, the boat was soaked with saltwater from the spray of the waves hitting the bow.  A few minutes later we turned south down the coast and everything calmed down as we pulled out 3/4 mainsail and 3/4 jib.  Second Wind surged to mid-7s with the nice broad-reach sailing and we were finally able to shut down the engine.

The seas were light with just a small swell from the north.  Since the winds were off the land, if we stayed close to shore it should be a calm ride.  I kept the boat 1 to 1 1/2 miles from the shore all day using the radar.  Here we are on our first sail of the trip.

We had nice sailing for over 6 hours.  As the winds dropped to low teens then single digits later in the afternoon, our apparent wind moved forward and made sailing difficult.  With the wind speed changing from 9-22 and angle moving around 20-30 degrees, the boat made much better time setting the autopilot on wind-angle then trying to keep the sails trimmed for best speed.  This means the autopilot monitors our wind instruments and turns the boat to keep the wind angle (close to) constant.  The boat stays powered up and our speed stayed near 7 knots the whole time.  The boat ends up making a slight zig-zag track down the coast but we never slow down.  It's much faster overall.

By 5pm the wind had died enough that we were below 6 knots so I started the engine for assistance.  I usually time our leaving Atlantic Highlands for about 24 hours before low tide at Cape May which is 110 miles away.  Figuring we would be averaging 5 to 5 1/2 knots, that would get us to Cape May in time for the flood tide to push us up Delaware Bay.

But, this trip was a little different.  The weather forecast had changed and the NW winds would be right on our nose if we turned up Delaware Bay around noon-time tomorrow.  Instead, I was trying to catch the end of the previous flood tide which would end around 7am.  Because the high winds had kept our boatspeed in the 7's for the first 6 hours, we had a good chance of making it.

Just before sunset I took this picture of our new instruments to show what they look like when sailing down the coast.  

I had the display set on "Charts" - not radar which worked great the whole trip.  If you blow up the picture, I'll talk about a few items....

First, the instrument in the lower left is our autopilot control.  Notice that it says "Wind Vane mode.  Wind:80 S"  The autopilot was changing the heading of the boat based on what the wind was doing.  If the wind moved a little forward, it turned the boat to port.  If the wind moved to more behind us, it turned the boat to starboard.  These changes were gradual as it averaged the wind direction over time.  It didn't jerk the boat back and forth.

There is a lot of information on the chartplotter but I'll let you scope it out.

Skies had cleared during the day and our first ocean sunset of the trip was a little subdued.

We changed our normal overnight watch schedule because I needed to be at the helm for navigating around Cape May through the Prissywick Channel.  I took the 8-12 first watch while Laura tried to sleep for a bit.  Most of the time we don't sleep well on the first night of an off-shore passage but the boat was not moving around very much with the calmer winds and low seas.  She was able to get a couple hours of sleep.

Tuesday, November 2nd - Day 5

Just after midnight, Laura relieved me and I slept fairly well until my shift at 4am.  We had just passed the Cape May inlet and were only about 1 hour from rounding the Cape.  Excellent!

I navigated us around Cape May at 5am and it was very nice to have the tidal current pushing us at 7 to 8 knots.  I was hoping our speed would keep up with the current so we would cover most of the bay before the NW winds built in sometime after noon.  If we were caught in the middle of Delaware Bay with 15 knot NW winds, it would be a very trying day pushing against the wind and currents.

It was a beautiful sunrise on Delaware Bay.  Here is a panorama video I took just after sunrise.

 

Our trip up the bay worked out much better than I had hoped.  Don't you just love it when that happens!  The currents helped us for the first 30 miles and we never saw more than about 12 knot winds on the nose until we turned toward the Chesapeake - Delaware Canal around the nuclear power plant.  We entered the canal a couple hours later and had a nice 12 mile trip to Chesapeake Bay.  We never saw one other boat through the entire canal.  Was everybody else south already?

I wrote in the last blog that we had the option of running down the coast all the way to Norfolk if the winds were good.  The forecasts from Windfinder.com and PredictWind.com both showed higher winds on Tuesday night into Wednesday moving to the north and northeast.  This would cause bigger seas off-shore Maryland and maybe a wild ride with the winds and seas behind us.  Plus, we didn't have a marina reservation in Norfolk and we heard they were very busy right now.  This, coupled with getting to Cape May a few hours early, made the decision easy.  Onward to Georgetown, MD via Delaware Bay!

The Sun was setting behind us as we turned east into the Sassafras River around 5:30pm.  All the wind forecasts were wrong as the afternoon and evening N to NW wind increase never happened.  I expected to have some help from the sails for the 15 mile trip down northern Chesapeake Bay but the winds stayed calm all afternoon.  We ended up anchoring in the dark around the "S" turn at 6:30pm.  I gladly turned the engine off after 26 straight hours.

Laura and I relaxed and watched some TV but we were both falling asleep on the sofa.  We hit the sack around 9:30pm and I fell right to sleep.

Wednesday, Nov 3rd - Day 6

It was a cold night with the temps dropping into the 30s outside.  Since we were going to a marina today, I had kept the inverter on all night to run our new electric blanket which drained the batteries a bit.

Temp was 59 inside our cabin when we got up.  Laura was up earlier and I slept in a bit.  I had about 10 hours of great sleep in the calm anchorage and felt much better.

We relaxed a bit in the morning and got the boat ready to head into the marina.  Tomorrow we will leave the boat for a bit (a few days?) for some personal travel.  Hopefully, we will be back in a week or so to continue our trip south.

Halfmoon Bay to Atlantic Highlands

Day 2 - Halfmoon Bay (cont....)

We sat out the storms and big winds in our nice calm anchorage 1/2 mile west of Halfmoon Bay Marina.  As I was writing the blog in the early evening, our Honda eu2200 generator died and I figured it was out of gas.  It had been running our heat for several hours and I had just turned on the water heater for showers.

After posting the blog, I went out on the back deck and filled up the generator with gasoline then pulled the starter rope a couple times.  Running out of gas empties all the fuel lines so I figured it needed several more pulls to get the gas into the carburetor.  Well....  after 50 or more pulls I knew something was wrong.  

I removed the fuel line going into the carb and there was gas.  I squirted a little gas into the carb, pulled the starter rope and the engine did run a few seconds.  The problem was now isolated to the carburetor.  I pulled the carb off the engine to bring downstairs, take apart and clean out with carb cleaner.  I figured running the engine out of gas had sucked up something (dirt, grit, etc.) from the bottom of the fuel tank and maybe clogged the carb jets.

This was the first time I had taken the carb off our 1-year-old eu2200 but I had done this several times with our old eu2000.  After taking the float bowl apart, I squirted carb cleaner through all the lines.  Then I started putting it back together.  Oh boy.  The o-ring around the float bowl was too big and wouldn't stay in the groove.  With Laura's help I used some grease to keep the 0-ring in the groves and a heat gun to soften up the rubber.  It took us about 1/2 hour to get the o-ring into the grove and put the float bowl back on.  Success!

When I went out on the back deck it was dark already so I set up a few lights to see what I was doing.  I had removed the electronic governor from the top of the carb and, now that I looked closely, it wasn't very clear how it went back together.  I tried a few options and eventually had to call Laura again to assist with holding a tiny spring in place and the flashlight while I tried to squeeze everything back together.  I even tried searching on YouTube for videos on putting the governor back together but couldn't find one.

After another 1/2 hour Laura had an excellent suggestion of trying a different assembly strategy and it worked the first time.  Thanks Baby!

I gave the engine about a 50 / 50 change of starting after I had it all back together.  With all the problems we had, I figured something wouldn't be right.  Second pull and it started!  We ran the heat all evening watching TV down in the salon.  It was toasty....

Day 3 - Halfmoon Bay to Atlantic Highlands

We both slept well last night and the weather seemed better this morning.  Time to go!

After engine checks (added a little oil and tightened new alternator belts), we pulled anchor and motored south.  Winds were mostly on the nose so no help with the sails.

About an hour later we approached our first bridge of the day - Tappan Zee (I know it's been renamed but it will always be the Tappen Zee to me....)

The river wasn't quite as empty as Friday with a few more commercial and pleasure boats around.  It was a quiet ride and the tidal ebb current helped us zoom through New York City.

I think this building in Jersey City is cool.  We called it the Ganga Building.  Would you want to live or work here?

Manhattan from the south.

Winds were from the SW most of the day (right on the nose) and picked up to mid-teens in the afternoon.  As we turned more south under the Verrazano Bridge, we were finally able to put out about 3/4 of our jib and we zoomed the rest of the way across the lower harbor to Atlantic Highlands.

Those that know me understand I am big on planning.  We had been watching the weather for the next couple days and had scheduled to be here today for the off-shore window down the NJ coast tomorrow.  The window still looked good with NW winds helping us down the coast.  But, they would also be N to NW when we took the turn around Cape May and up Delaware Bay.  Anything more than 10 knots winds on the nose and we have problems motoring into them.  If the winds stayed N to NW for Tuesday into Wednesday, it might be better to just keep going to Norfolk.  We've done that trip several times.  It's about 260 miles and takes us 3 days and 2 nights from Sandy Hook to Norfolk off-shore.

So.....  Sometime tomorrow when we are sailing down the coast of  NJ, we need to decide if the winds down Delaware Bay will be light enough for us to motor against.  Or, we will keep going down the coast of Delaware and Maryland for Norfolk on Wednesday.  Stay tuned for the result!

Since we might be spending the next 3 days off-shore, I decided to fill up our fuel tank at the Atlantic Highlands marina.  $3.94 / gallon for off-road diesel.  Geez!  But, we only needed 56 gallons from our fill-up here last June.

Pretty sunset around the clouds at the Atlantic Highlands anchorage.

We relaxed, watch TV and listened to the wind howl during the evening.  Big winds (20-30 from the SW) continued all night.

Day 4 - Atlantic Highlands to ..... 

It was a quiet morning as we prepared the boat for our off-shore run.  No hurry as we were waiting until late morning for the 20-30 knot winds to die a bit and hopefully turn more to the north for better sailing.  Once we get around Sandy Hook and turn south, it should be very nice sailing in the lee of the land.  WindFinder predicts 2 foot, 8 second seas and falling during the day.

I worked on the blog while Laura cooked up a storm.  She is preparing our next 2 nights dinners so they can just be reheated at sea.

Generator is still running great.

Ok.  Time to post the blog and finish my preparations for the ocean.