Great Bridge (Norfolk) to Belhaven, NC

Saturday, October 27th (Day 21) - Broad Creek to Dowry Creek Marina

64 degrees this morning.  Water temp still high 60s.  Winds 10 from the SW

63 Nautical miles today (630.5 total trip miles)

It was very calm at our anchorage and there were about 12 boats anchored along this shore - a couple at least a mile from shore.  Many had left before we pulled our anchor at 7:30am when the Sun was just starting to rise in the east.  We were up earlier but we needed daylight to see the multitude of crab pot floats between us and the ICW channel.  I would not want to go through here at night.

But first, Yesterday, I forgot to post the beautiful sunset here last last night.

I thought the Albemarle Sound was going to be very flat because the winds at our anchorage were less than 5 knots.  But, as we motored back to the ICW and our position became more open to the sound, the winds increased to over 10.  Not a big deal (in terms of high wind speeds) but enough to throw a 2-3 foot, short chop across the sound right on the bow.  

It was a bumpy ride for an hour or so before the winds died a little and the seas calmed because we were closer to the lee shore (winds were coming from that shore).  But, in terms of the 30+ times we've crossed here, it was definitely one of the calmest.  

Laura took a short video of our motoring into the small chop.

A couple hours later we had crossed the 12 mile sound and headed down the Alligator River.  After only a short wait, the Alligator River Bridge opened for us and we motored down the almost smooth river.

Another couple hours and we entered the 22 mile Alligator-Pungo Canal.  This is one of my least favorite sections of the ICW as we are in a narrow channel for 3-4 hours where I need to keep a close watch on our autopilot.

The usable channel is only about 1/2 as wide as this picture shows because of tree stumps on the sides.  It was a nice ride on a sunny, warm day through the long canal.  For some reason, we only saw 2-3 boats today and we were only passed by 1 powerboat in the whole 22 mile canal.  I think that was a first.  What happened to everybody?

Just after 5pm we exited the canal and were back in the ICW.  I decided to anchor along the south shore of the Pungo River (before Belhaven) because of light south winds tonight.  That anchorage was only 45 minutes away so we could easily make that before dinner.

About 15 minutes from the anchorage, we heard a loud tapping from the engine that changed in frequency with the engine RPM.  Oh boy.  Our poor 42 year old Perkins engine was having a problem.  I changed RPM from idle to cruise speed and the tapping came back each time the RPMs were increased.  I also opened doors to the engine room and verified the tapping was coming from the engine and not maybe something on the propeller.  This was not good.

I could see Dowry Creek Marina from where we were so called them to see if they had a mechanic that could look at the engine.  They gave me the number of a local mechanic who agreed to come down to the boat tomorrow after church.  Oops.  I didn't even think about this being a weekend but finding someone was awesome.

I called Dowry back and booked a slip for the next two nights starting tonight.  I didn't want to take the chance of anchoring and the engine being worse or not running at all in the morning.

We slowly motored into the marina which was only 1 mile from where we had the problem.  Pretty lucky, right?  Approaching the assigned slip I used reverse to slow the boat.  When I went back to forward, the tapping stopped.  ARRRRGH!  You might think that this is a good thing.  "It fixed itself!".  Nope.  That was not good for many reasons including now I have no way to verify a fix unless it starts tapping again.

We tied up, walked to the office and paid for 2 nights dockage - very reasonable at $168.  This was our first time here and everything seemed very clean and nice.  Laura and I took a little walk around the marina and saw the small store, pool, boaters lounge and showers.

The boat was pretty warm so we turned on our air-conditioner for the first time in 3 weeks.  We had a nice dinner aboard and watched TV for a few hours.  

Thanks for questions about my arm.  It does feel a little better today and I'm able to do just about everything on the boat (and for myself like dress, poop, etc.) except for things that require raising my elbow more than a couple inches.  Hot packs and Ibuprofen help.  No flute yet.

Sunday, October 28th (Day 22) - Start of week3

Light winds and sunny

Didn't move the boat today.

We both slept great with the A/C off and windows open.  I slept over 10 hours.  Wow!

After a slow morning, "Big Mike" showed up just after noon.  We both agreed that the place to start was checking valve adjustments.  He went right to work pulling off the valve cover and checking the rocker arm adjustments which were were all much higher than the .012" spec.  I've never adjusted them for the past 17 years.  It's something that is supposed to be done every 2,000 hours (per the manual) but I guess I've just treated it as "if it's not broken, don't fix it."  Not in the future....

Mike spent a little over 2 hours adjusting the valve clearance which would have been much longer if he had to run for gaskets or other parts.  One of the boaters I know changed from this same engine to a Beta last year.  I purchased all the spare parts from his old Perkins which included a full gasket kit for the engine so I had everything Big Mike needed.

Big Mike working on Gertrude...

The engine started right up and sounded fine.  Why shouldn't it?  It sounded fine when we tied up (GRRRRR).

Plans are to head to Oriental tomorrow which will be our first test of the "fixed" engine tapping.  If we can make it 7-8 hours of normal running, I'll feel much better.  If not, Big Mike said he could travel to Oriental too and dig a little deeper.

Total bill was $500 which I was OK with for a knowledgeable mechanic on a Sunday afternoon.  I also included a tip.

Arm is a little better again today and I'm able to do things I couldn't do yesterday so progress is in the positive direction.  Still can't hold my arm our straight or to the side but getting closer. Tried playing flute today.  Nope.  Still can't hold it up but closer....

While I was working on the blog, Laura was carving her annual pumpkin.  Here she is starting the work.  You'll have to wait for the next blog to see the finished product.  It's gonna be awesome!

 

Fun With Friends in Reedville Then On To Norfolk

Thursday, October 19th to Monday, October 23rd (Days 12 through 16)

Temps 70s with lows in 50s at night.  Calm winds that picked up on Sunday and Monday

Thursday and Friday we borrowed Walter's truck and drove to NJ for some personal business.  It was a nice drive each way until we crossed the Wilmington Bridge over the Delaware River on the way back.  Then it was stop-n-go for a few hours.  It didn't help that the rain started as we crossed over the Annapolis Bay Bridge and continued for the next several hours back to Reedville.

The Fall colors in NJ were very nice!  Sorry but the pictures from the car were blurry.

Our plans were to stay in Reedville until Tuesday when the winds would calm a bit.  Now, you might say, "Wouldn't you want the winds for a sailboat?"  Yes, but we can get too much of a good thing.  We wouldn't go with winds out of the south because it would really slow us down.  Also, the ride isn't very comfortable with a 20 knot wind behind you.  It sometimes causes the boat to do a corkscrew motion as the 3-4 foot waves pass the boat and pick it up then set it down.  We were not in a hurry so stayed put and enjoyed Walter and Mary's company.

Monday afternoon was warm and sunny so we had cocktail hour on the porch with good friends.

Laura and I cooked dinner our last night there for a small repayment of Walter and Mary's awesome kindness.  I grilled pork loins on the boat BBQ while she made the fixin's in the kitchen.  I was able to finish up my last few "shore" jobs of fill the water tank and put away the hose while grilling.

We said sad good-byes and retired to the boat shortly after dinner.  Early alarm for tomorrow so we can maybe make Norfolk.

Tuesday, October 24th (Day 17) - Reedville to Hampton, VA

Temp 52.  Water temp 63.  Winds light from the west.  Sunny

55 nautical miles today (502 total trip miles)

We had the alarm set for 7am and were off the dock at 7:50am.  No problems using a spring line to work the stern away from the dock then slowly motor out of Cockrell Creek back to the Chesapeake.

The Sun quickly warmed up our enclosed cockpit and the winds did picked up a little to 7-10 on the beam so we rolled our the main and jib to help with our speed against the flood tide and lowered engine RPM.  Even with 1/2 - 1 knot of current against us, the boat never slowed to less than 6.5 knots.  Turns out our average speed for the day was 6.9 knots.  That's about 1 knot over our normal speed.  Thank you wind!

Just after lunch, winds died and we had a flat calm Chesapeake. Our ETA to Norfolk harbor entrance was now 4pm and we should get helping current in a few hours.

As we crossed the York River entrance, we saw a pod of dolphins a couple hundred yards in front of the boat.  When they saw us, it was like an excited bunch of kids looking at a playground.  They were jumping out of the water and heading right at us.  Woo Hoo!

Laura and I went up on the bow and watched them play for several minutes.  They were some of the biggest dolphins we've ever seen.  6-7 feet long. 

I took this video of the dolphins zooming around the bow of our boat.

Now we had a choice - where to head tonight?  We would be at the Norfolk harbor by about 4pm.  We could probably make the Gilmerton Bridge (first bridge that has to open for us to pass under) and Top Rack marina before dark.  I looked on-line and Top Rack had a set rate of $90 / night which wasn't terrible. 

We had anchored in Old Point Comfort on the way north last Spring and it was very nice.  After we discussed the options, our decision was to make it an early day to enjoy the nice weather at anchor.

At 3:50pm we dropped anchor in Old Point Comfort with 21 other boats.  Geez.  When we anchored here last Spring there were only 3 other boats.

We had cocktail hour in the cockpit and I grilled chicken breasts for dinner.  It was a very calm evening and we slept well.

Wednesday, October 25th (Day 18) - Hampton to Great Bridge, VA

Temp 61.  Water temp 64.  Winds light from the SW.  Sunny.

22 nautical miles today (524 total trip miles)

Our goal was to tie up at the free dock in Great Bridge today so we started early with hopes to find an open dock before they filled.  Most boats leave in the morning to continue the migration south and the docks fill up during the day.  We pulled the anchor on a calm, sunny morning at 8am.  I think this was the first day of this trip I started out with shorts.

A short while later we passed the Norfolk Naval Base with MANY huge ships at the docks.  Think Air Craft Carrier size.  I always love this part of the trip and seeing all the Navy ships reminded me to put up our American flag which I had taken down for the storms in the past week.

Today starts our Intracoastal Waterway passage with limited open water.  Now I have to start paying attention to where we are going and the boats around us.

We knew the tides would be against us on the Elizabeth River today and only averaged about 5 knots.  Around 10am we passed Hospital Point - ICW mile 0.  The ICW runs 1,200 miles from here to Miami.  Much more protected waters than the Atlantic or Chesapeake Bay but also LOTS of boat traffic - most of which will be passing us over the next several weeks....

Here is Hospital Point.  The channel marker to the left of center is ICW mile 0.

The boat traffic increased over the next few miles and we were passed by the first two ICW powerboats.  Let the ICW dance begin!

We passed under the first couple train bridges and had a clear shot to the Gilmerton Bridge.  As we approached the bridge, I could see that they were opening just before we could get there.  Oh geez.  Would we have to wait for an hour or so at the first ICW bridge?

As I turned the last corner, the bridge tender called me on the VHF radio and said I would need to hurry to make this opening.  I increased engine RPM to 2,300 (our normal is 2,100) and the boat zoomed up to 6.5 from 6 (HA!)

We passed under the bridge about 5 minutes later and I watched the road bridge and railroad bridges close behind us.  Yep.  We would have been waiting a long time for those to clear.

I throttled back to normal on the engine and we proceeded another couple miles to Top Rack marina for our second fuel stop of the trip.  There was a large powerboat just backing out of the big fuel dock slip and I pulled in shortly after they left.

Ummm.  I tried to pull in nicely but the outgoing river current caught us about 1/2 way into the dock and quickly pushed us sideways into the dock much harder than I had planned.  BANG!  Oh well....  Nobody got hurt and the dock / boat were not broken.  Successful docking!

The (rookie?) dockhands were less than helpful as we took 80 gallons of diesel and 5 gallons of gasoline.  The gasoline was our generator usage for the past 18 days including several days of running the heat in cold anchorages.  I was happy with that.  Diesel was much cheaper than Atlantic Highlands - $3.88 / gal instead of $4.90.

We were able to make the 12:30pm Great Bridge Lock and had no problems going up 1.5 feet.  You never know about this lock.  It "swings both ways".  North end is tidal current and south end is not.  As we exited the lock, it looked like the free dock was full.  Oh boy.  I started a quick analysis and found it was 42 miles to the next anchorage we liked.  That would be hard to make before dark.  Oh well, if there was "no room at the inn", we would just keep going.

I did find an open dock at the north side of the bridge a short time later we tied up between a couple other boats.  Yea!  Now we can relax here for a couple days before heading south to our next destination.  Next extended stop will be Oriental where we hope to pick up a slip and spend a few days with our friends D and Don on Southern Cross.

Dalliance was docked behind us with our friends Erica and Steve we knew from Catskill.  We had them over for cocktails and munchies.  It was fun to catch up with them and hear their plans of sailing to Bermuda then the Virgin Islands in a couple weeks when the hurricane season ends.

We took a short walk to loosen up our legs a little then decided to skip dinner.  Starlink is still working great and we streamed a episodes of our new favorite - New Amsterdam on Netflix.

No plans for tomorrow other a walk to the grocery store and Laura's soft ice cream fix at Dairy Queen.  Our friends Raffi and Lisa on Windfall should be here in the morning and will hopefully dock nearby so we can get together.

It was a quiet night as the boat traffic out of the lock finally died.  I thought I was hearing wind in the night and couldn't understand because the winds were supposed to be calm for the next few days.  Turns out it was road traffic over the Great Bridge Bridge right in front of us.  Funny how the bigger trucks sound like wind when they go over the lift-bridge grating.

Thursday, October 26th (Day 19) - Great Bridge

Temp 55 this morning going to low 80s this afternoon.  Water temp 69 (finally getting warmer).  Sunny

We had open windows and the bedroom fan on when we went to bed last night because it was mid-70s inside.  A few hour later I was chilly so turned off the fan.  Then I was still chilly (eventually got down to 61 in the bedroom) so I closed the windows and pulled on another blanket.  Now I was toasty...

The day started slowly for us.  Laura got up before me for coffee and I did my bed stretches and exercises a little while later.  By 10am we were eating some breakfast and hanging in the warm cockpit.

Raffi had been texting me the last couple days and they just missed 9:30am lock so wouldn't be here until sometime after 10:30am.  Many of the boats around us had left so there was lots of room for them of other boaters coming out of the lock first didn't fill it up.  

By 10:45am they motored up and docked right in front of us.  We helped them tie up and had a great reunion.  

We first met Raffi and Lisa at Nettles Island marina (in Jensen Beach, FL) in December 2006 on our first trip south.  They had been chartering for a few years and we were thinking of starting a charter business "some day" so picked their brains over the following few weeks.  In the 17 years since then, we've met up again several times including in Marathon during COVID when they anchored out and dinghy'd to our dock for a grocery and hardware store run.  They are fun-loving and down-to-earth (like us I hope) so we always seem to get along great.

After tying up the boat and a nice reunion, I took this picture of Windfall and Second Wind together again.  Laura, Raffi and Lisa are also included.

We walked with Lisa and Raffi into town - laundry for them and groceries for us.  An hour later Laura and I walked back to the boat with a full backpack and a couple hanging bags.  We didn't over-spend and have to carry lots for once!

Cocktails and munchies on Windfall led to Lisa making Armenian Pizza for all of us.  It was a fun evening talking about boating, sailing and running sailing charters.  We retired from chartering 7 years ago after over 500 charters.  They're still going so we both have lots of stories.

Back to the boat for an hour of TV than off to bed.  No alarm for tomorrow as we only had about 45 nautical miles to our intended anchorage.  Night night.

Friday, October 27th (Day 20) - Great Bridge, VA to Broad Creek, NC

57 degrees (rising to high 70s).  Water temp 69.  Winds 10-14 out of the SW.  Sunny

43.5 nautical miles today (567.5 total trip miles)

For once, I was up before Laura - she didn't sleep well last night (too much red wine?) - because I wanted to tighten the engine belts before leaving today while the engine room was cool.  Laura got our coffee going while I worked on the front of the engine.  Just a few light tweaks and it was ready to go.

We untied our lines and pushed away from the dock at 8:40am.  I knew we needed to wait for the bridge opening at 9am to go anywhere but we could see a barge in the lock heading our way and I wanted to get in front of him.  Good thing too.  There was another barge heading north and they both slowed to cross just south of the bridge.

It was a pretty morning which warmed up quickly.  Both of us changed to shorts just a little later.  No problems with the two bridges south of Great Bridge that had to open for us and I anxiously waited for the powerboat armada to catch us after the next couple lock openings.

The ICW weaves around for the next 10(?) miles before the water opens up at the North Landing River.  This is part of Currituck Sound and, even though it looks wide open, the deep water is a narrow channel.  Winds were 10-15 off our starboard bow so we rolled out the jib for a little help and lowered engine RPM.  Our ETA to Broad Creek anchorage was 4:30pm so no need to hurry.

We were caught by 6 or 7 powerboats which was much less than I expected.  Yesterday it seemed like 10-15 boats (mostly power) went by our dock with every lock.  Today wasn't that bad!

One of the boats was a beautiful, long, wooden "Presidential" yacht.  When we passed Coinjock Marina, they were docked in front.

A couple hours later the waterway opened up at North River where we dodged 100s of crabpots to anchor near Broad Creek at 4:40pm.  

It was a very nice day on the water except for ....

Sometime while we had the jib out and the boat was moving around a bit in the wind gusts, I went out on the deck to pull in some towels we had on the rail to dry.  As I walked back toward the cockpit (with towels in my left hand) the boat rolled a little and I stumbled just a tiny bit.  But, it was enough to smash my toe on "something" and I quickly raised my right arm to steady myself.  As my elbow went up, I heard a "Pop" from my upper arm and it hurt a lot.  Seems like I pulled a muscle in my upper arm that is used to pull up the elbow.   It swelled a bit so we used an ice pack (frozen peas) to reduce.  I'll work on heating it later and take some ibuprofen.  I can still type but no flute for a while....  Yep.  I'm officially old now.

Plans are to make it past the Pungo Canal tomorrow to anchor then pull into Oriental on Sunday.  We have a slip reserved right next to our friends D and Don and plan to spend a couple days before continuing our trip south.

 

Sassafras River, MD to Reedville, VA

Sunday, October 15th (Day 8) - Sassafras River

Temp 58.  Water temp 64.  Winds out of N-NW 15-20

Very windy today (as predicted) and we spent a quiet day on the boat.  In the past, the only electronic entertainment we would have had while anchored here was movies off my computer.  (I have over 700 movies and mini-series that I've ripped off our DVDs on the computer so we have lots of choices.)   But this time, we have full Internet access off our Starlink so it's a different world.

It rained quite a lot last night and this morning and our wind generator was pumping amps into our batteries.  With keeping the inverter on all night for the Starlink, we would normally use about 180-200 amp/hours overnight.  Last night we were only down 70.  Nice!

I started the generator and rain it for most of the day to give us "house like" heat.  It was chilly outside (only went into low 60s) but toasty in the boat.

Later in the afternoon, the skies cleared a bit and the winds died to 10-15.  I took this picture of our anchorage in the late afternoon.

We streamed a few shows in the evening and hit the sack early.  Not too exciting, huh?

Winds tomorrow should be good for sailing down the bay.  Not sure of our plans yet.  The Annapolis boat show ended today so the city and especially the moorings will still be blocked by the boat show docks.  If we make good time, we could be in Reedville Tuesday evening which would be two 60ish mile days instead of three 40s.  We'll see what the weather and seas are like.

Monday, October 16th (Day 9) - Sassafras River to Choptank

Temp 52.  Water temp 63.  Winds light out of the NW.  Sunny

63 nautical miles today (384 total trip miles)

Anchor up at 7:30am with lots of work to clean the mud off the chain.  This anchorage has great holding (we've sat out 40 knot winds here in the past) but it is muddy.  It took me about 30-40 seconds to clean off every 6 feet of chain with our washdown hose and we had over 100 feet of chain out.  Yuck!

It was a pretty day as we motored the 5 miles back to the Chesapeake,  Winds were slightly off the starboard bow and I thought we would at least have help from the winds when we turned southwest then south once we got back to the channel.

Here we are motoring out of the Sassafras River under blue skies.

We turned more south an hour or so later and the winds picked up to more than single digits.  Woo Hoo!  Engine off and time to enjoy our first sail of the trip.

The tide was helping our speed a little as we sailed 7.5-8 knots on a pretty calm bay.  Second display from left shows 7.7 knots and the far right display shows 12 knot winds.  Perfect! 

A short while later we approached the Bay Bridge - still sailing.  Laura took this picture looking up at our sails.  You can see the Bay Bridge in the distance.

As we sailed under the bridge, the winds died as expected because they were blocked by the bridge and abutments.  We slowly sailed along at 3-4 knots waiting for the winds to pick back up over 5-6 knots.  They never did....

We started the engine and motor-sailed the rest of the day.  Plan was to turn up into the Choptank River and anchor behind the first bit of land.  This should be nice for the NW winds predicted for tonight.  

Here is a snapshot of our AquaMaps chartplotter showing our track into the anchorage where I drew a red circle.  North is up and Annapolis is upper-left.  The green lines going in and out of the anchorage were our tracks from this year and one other time.

The winds did pick up as we turned up the Choptank and were blowing about 15 knots as we anchored at 5:45pm.  This anchorage is only about 1/2 mile from the NW shore but closer to 1 mile from the north.  

Pretty sunset that lit up the bottom of the clouds around us.

A couple hours after anchoring, the winds moved to out of the north and increased to 20 knots.  What the heck?  The forecast showed single digit winds out of the NW all night.

We spent a fairly comfortable night anchored here but our alertness level was heightened by the high winds.  Several times I woke up in the night to hear the wind howling through the rigging but the boat was fairly stable with only a slight bobbing on the maybe 1/2 foot waves going by.

Tuesday, October 17th (Day 10) - Choptank River to Reedville, VA

Temp 56.  Water temp 65 (a little warmer).  Winds N-NW around 10 most of the day.

63 nautical miles today (447 total trip miles)

A few times I woke up in the night listening to the howling wind, I thought we would not be moving today or maybe just to a better anchorage close-by.  But, when I woke around 5am, the winds had died and I couldn't hear them at all.  Wow!  What was that all about?

We slept in a little and pulled our anchor at 8:30am.  It came up clean this time and we were under way in less than 5 minutes.

Winds were about 10 out of the NW as we made our way around the shallows and turned SW then S down the bay.  Once we turned south, the winds were behind us and the apparent winds were only 5-6 knots.  Bummer.  

We had pulled out the mainsail so I let the sheet all the way out to port which caught a little of the wind and helped us along.  The current was with us for a few hours and our ETA to Reedville showed 6-6:30pm.  I didn't think that would hold because the tidal current would turn against us this afternoon and the winds were supposed to die.

It was a pretty day on the water and the Sun warmed us up in the cockpit.  Just a light following-sea and nice ride.

The winds eventually died and we pulled in the mainsail.  We continued to motor south on a calmer and calmer Chesapeake.

Several hours later, about 1/2 way across the Potomac River, the winds filled in from the NW-W so I rolled out the Jib for help against the tidal current.  The clouds also came over us and it was cloudy to the west but clear to the east.  The sky stayed that way for the rest of the day.

We were now only about 15 miles from Reedville and our ETA was still before dark.  Nice!

1/2 hour before Smiths Point Light, the wind increased to over 15 knots.  We could have rolled out the mainsail and probably sailed for the next hour or so but I didn't think the winds would last.  The prediction was still for single digit winds.  We motor-sailed passed the light and turned SW toward the Great Wicomico River.

Our wind did die a little while later and we pulled in the jib to motor on calm waters now that we were in the lee of Virginia.  We wound our way through Reedville and tied up at our friends Walter and Mary's dock right at 6pm.  

It took Laura and I about 1/2 hour to secure the boat, hook up power and clean everything up a little from several days on the water.  We cleaned ourselves up a bit too then headed up to the house for dinner and catching up with good friends.

We had a very pleasant evening of pot-luck leftovers and hearing all about their latest adventure - a 30 day cruise through the Northwest Passage above Canada.  Of course, we all enjoyed a few glasses of wine to help lighten the party.

Back to the boat a few hours later and we retired early.

Wednesday, October 18th (Day 11) - Reedville, VA

Our plans are to stay here several days enjoying the company of good friends while catching up on some personal business.  It will probably be early next week before we set sail again for points south.  Current plan is to spend the winter in Marathon again with our friends at Burdines Marina.  

Here is Second Wind at her temporary home in Reedville.

Laura and I enjoyed a short walk this morning - our first in many days more than 40 feet - while we also made use of the house laundry.  

I'll continue the blog when we are underway.

More???

If you've enjoyed our blog, it goes back through 5 years of our travels on the U.S. East Coast and Bahamas.  We did keep a detailed blog before that and I've used it to published 4 inexpensive (less than $5) books on Kindle if you would like to read about more of our travels from 2007 to 2018.  You can find more information on our sailing books by clicking HERE.

Thanks for traveling along with us!

Atlantic Highlands, NJ to Sassafras River, MD

Tuesday, October 10th (continued)

I did end up doing a few small boat jobs and we were forced to move the boat again just before sunset.  In the late afternoon, a large powerboat (60' Nordhavn?) came into the anchorage and dropped their anchor right next to us between Second Wind and another large powerboat.  I was down below and didn't see him anchor there or I would have complained right away and asked him to move.

Powerboats and sailboats behave differently at anchor - especially when the winds go light and the boats start drifting around instead of riding on their anchor.  It was hard for me to understand why he had to anchor between us and the other powerboat when there was lots of room on our starboard side and behind us where he wouldn't have been close to anyone.  

I was up in the cockpit around 5pm - playing a few songs on my flute - watching the Nordhavn drift closer and closer to us.  At one point, the boats were only 20 feet apart.  This was nuts.  I never saw anyone on the boat as I guess they just all went inside and stayed there.  I wasn't going to be able to sleep thinking about us bumping into each other.  I'd rather move now than at 3am.

Laura wasn't too surprised when I went below and said, "We're moving....".  I turned on the electronics then started the engine.  We pulled our anchor, moved back about 200 feet and re-anchored.  Now the A-hole Nordhavn could drift wherever he wanted and couldn't get near us.  

The rest of the night was quiet.  We set our alarm for 4:30am and hit the sack early knowing tomorrow would be a long day.  

Down the coast of NJ - 

We normally take this trip down the coast of NJ in one big day-night-day run from Sandy Hook to the upper Chesapeake Bay because the calmer weather doesn't usually last long enough for us to stop anywhere then keep going the next day.  We really don't want to spend a week in Atlantic City or Cape May waiting for weather up Delaware Bay.  But, this time we had 2-3 days of nice weather forecasts where the winds and seas were light.  Probably not much sailing (boo hoo...) but no bashing us around in a big ocean swell either.

It was about 80 nautical miles from our anchorage to Atlantic City.  At our normal 6 knots, this was 13 hours.  If we wanted to get to the Atlantic City anchorage before dark (6:30pm), we needed to leave by 5am.  This is why we set our alarm for 4:30am. 

Wednesday, October 11th (Day 4) - Atlantic Highlands to Atlantic City

Temp 51.  Water temp 63.  Light west winds

80 nautical miles today (197 total trip miles)

Laura and I woke up quickly to the 4:30am alarm.  I did my normal 10 minutes of stretching and exercise in bed while she got the coffee going.  After engine checks (oil, water, belts, etc.) I turned on our instruments and started the engine.  It took me a little longer then usual because I had to set our instruments for night mode (red) so they wouldn't blind me.  There was some light from the nearby city so it wasn't totally dark - dark when I went out on the bow with a headlight and flashlight to pull the anchor.  Oh... I should mention that in my very tired state, I did everything but turn on the RADAR that I would need to see the boats around us and navigate out of the anchorage.  Oops!

The anchor came up quickly and mostly clean which meant I didn't have to stop and wash it off every 10 seconds.  I love it when that happens!  After getting the anchor to the surface, I left it in the water to wash off then called Laura up from below (where she had helped flake the anchor chain coming in).  She would finish putting the anchor away while I went quickly to the helm as we were drifting close to another powerboat I could see in front of us.  

As I backed away from the powerboat, I realized I couldn't see anything.  This wasn't good.  It only took me about 10 second to switch our chartplotter to RADAR and turn it on.  No warm-up necessary as the screen came on right away.  Yea!

I slowly motored out of the anchorage to the lower New York Bay while Laura finished pulling the anchor out of the water and getting it nicely sitting in its holder.  Note that we have an electric windlass so she's not doing this by hand - just stepping on a switch and watching closely for problems.

She came back into the cockpit as I throttled up to our normal cruising 2,100 RPM.  We motored north up the bay to get around Sandy Hook.  The lower bay was just about as calm as we've ever seen it.  Laura mentioned how unusual this is because we normally plan this trip for north or west winds (for sailing south) which make this 4 mile run north pretty bumpy.  Today the winds were light so we just motored on calm waters.

I took this picture of the NYC skyline just before we turned around Sandy Hook.  The iPhone automatically brightened up the picture.  It wasn't this light out.

 

 

45 minutes after leaving the anchorage, we turned east around Sandy Hook and passed a huge dredge that had several tugs working.  I was a little apprehensive as we slowly motored passed them all at 4 knots against the incoming tide.  But, a few minutes later we were on our own and slowly picked up speed as we motored south down the coast.

 

Before sunrise, Laura took this picture of Venus over the little sliver moon

It was a pleasant day on the ocean and we even had a little help from a west wind in the morning when we had both the jib and mainsail working.  Unfortunately, that only lasted a couple hours then the wind died and we pulled in the jib.  Keeping the mainsail up and sheeted in tight help calm the roll down from the small SE swell.

I was hopeful that because of the light winds, we would get some sea-breezes later in the day.  This happens when the Sun heats up the land and the air rises.  Cooler ocean air comes in to replace the warmed air and creates a breeze off the ocean toward the land.  We did see a little of this in the afternoon but it wasn't strong enough to energize our sails.

Just after 1pm, we passed Barnegat Bay and Laura took this nice picture of the lighthouse.

There were lots of pleasure boats heading south with us because of the nice seas and weather.  I was a little worried about the anchorage being full in Atlantic City so I researched staying at the Farley State Marina (and Golden Nugget casino).  

Our ETA to Atlantic City was about 6pm so I knew we would be there before dark.  Around 4pm, I fired up my DockWa app and saw that they had the marina listed.  After filling out a quick reservation request in the app, I saw the fee was only about $120. After a short discussion with Laura, I requested a slip in the marina for tonight.

Only a few minutes later, I received a DockWa message from the marina.  They said the marina office closed at 5pm and asked our estimated arrival time.  I replied with the 6 - 6:15 timeline and they said we could have a "T" head dock (very easy in and out) but there would be no dockhands to assist.  I agreed and they confirmed the reservation.  They also gave us the gate codes to get back into the marina if went to the casino or into town.  Nice!

This was only our 4th day away from the dock in Catskill but both Laura and I felt like we needed a quiet night in the marina (and no other boats anchoring 20 feet away from us).  We were both looking forward to an evening ashore.

Right at 6pm we motored into the marina basin and quickly tied up to our assigned dock.  Wow!  We had a 90 foot "T" dock all to ourselves.

After cleaning ourselves up a bit, we decided to check out dinner in the casino (and maybe some craps?).  We decided to treat ourselves to a belated anniversary dinner and walked down the long dock then across the street to the casino entrance.

The place wasn't too busy and, after looking around a bit, we decided on the Chart House Restaurant.  The matradee told us it was about a 1/2 hour wait.  Oh well.  We had about 6 other on-site restaurants to choose from.

We walked past a nice looking steakhouse and decided to check them out.  They gave us a table so dark we had to use our phones to read the menus.  That was probably what they wanted so we couldn't see the prices - $110 for a strip-steak and all the fixin's were extra.  When the waitress came for our drink order we declined and left to find a "better for us" dinner.

We settled on a more open air restaurant.  Laura still had the steak - filet mignon - and I ordered chicken parm.  They were both excellent and our total bill was just over what one steak would have cost in the last place.

After walking around the casino a bit we stopped by the only open crap table to watch the action.  I was an avid casino crap player many years ago but now didn't even remember all the point odds and associated bets I use to make.  After watching for only a few minutes, I decided to save my money and we continued our walk around the casino a little while before heading back to the boat and not placing even one bet.  Hey.  I was a winner because I still had the $500 in my pocket I would have used to play craps.

We were both pretty beat after our long day and early start so only watched a little TV before hitting the sack around 9pm.  I didn't even fill up our water tank which I always do when we stay in marinas.  But, we still had 3/4 water tank after being out 4 days.  No worries.

Thursday, October 12th (Day 5) - Atlantic City to Upper Delaware Bay

Temp 50, Water temp 62 (it's not getting warmer..).  Winds light and variable

82 nautical miles today (279 total trip miles)

One of the challenges with this section of our trip is timing the tides up Delaware Bay.  There can be 3-4 knots of tidal current so, if it's against us, we won't go very far.  From experience, I know that if we round Cape May around low tide, we will only be against the current for an hour or so then we will have helping current up the 40 mile Delaware Bay, through the C&D Canal and down the upper Chesapeake Bay (if we went that far).

Today the low tide at Cape May was around 1pm.  Cape May is about 35 miles from Atlantic City so would take us about 6 hours.  We should leave around 7am.

We had the alarm set for 6:30am and were off the dock at 7:10am.  I love it when there is a light wind blowing the boat off the dock.  This happened when we fueled up in Atlantic Highlands and again this morning.  After pulling in our power cord and step ladder, I only had to release all the docklines, jump on the boat and wait a couple minutes.  The boat just drifted sideways away from the dock toward the basin.  Easy-piesey...

Yesterday wasn't bad but today was even calmer.  Yesterday's 1-2 foot swell had gone down even more and the water was glassy.

Around 10am a little bird startled us by flying right into the cockpit then quickly back out to eventually settle on our dinghy.  We had a hitchhiker!

We enjoyed our quiet ride down the coast toward Cape May.  Otto (otto-pilot) ran the boat nicely and I settled into my 2nd book of the trip - "The Door to December" by Dean Koontz.  A good scary book to prepare for Halloween.

Around noon we motored past Wildwood, NJ.  It looks pretty cool from the water.

An hour or so later we rounded Cape May through the Prissywick Channel and I got this picture of the Cape May lighthouse.  I can't blame the rough water for getting my finger in the way this time.  Sorry...

The ride was so calm today, Laura decided to break out the plastic polish and clean up our clear (Issinglass) canvas.  We have used Novus plastic polish for many years and it works great.  It comes in 3 flavors.  The #1 is for daily cleaning.  #2 is for removal of light scratches and stains while #3 is the heavy scratch remover.  She used the #2 today and it was amazing how quickly it removed all the black streaks from the summer rains.  I used the #1 on all the inside faces.  I took this picture of our 3 year-old windows a short while later.  Are there windows there?

As we motored up Delaware Bay, our speed picked up with the rising tide.  Laura took this pretty picture of the Sun on the calm waters.

Later in the afternoon I tried playing flute in the cockpit but the biting flies were bad enough that I gave it up after a couple songs.  How do you play an instrument when a fly is biting your leg?

By mid afternoon we knew we would not be able to make the Reedy Island anchorage before dark.  The entrance to this anchorage is through a tiny channel in the breakwater.  The channel is marked by red and green channel markers but only one of them is lit.  Plus, the tidal current is pushing the boat sideways as you try to motor through the cut.  It's not a fun thing at night.

Another option was to keep going all the way to our Sassafras anchorage.  Even though we would have helping tides, it would be about 2am when we anchored.  Neither of us voted for that.

After checking the weather forecasts, I saw the winds were light this evening then gradually going from the north in the early morning.  By something like 8am, the prediction was 10-15 knots from the north.  That might be a little rough going by the power plant where the river runs north / south.  I decided to anchor in a spot we had been to before just below the power plant along the northern shore.  It was partially protected by a breakwater and about 1 1/2 miles from the ship channel to give their wakes a chance to dissipate.  

At 8pm, in the dark, we slowly motored toward shore below the Hope Creek Jetty.  Laura went up on the bow to run the anchor and, when she shined the spotlight around the boat, found we were in the middle of crab trap city.  I slowly motored back toward the ship channel and after only a few 100 feet we were clear of the crab markers.  We anchored at 8:10pm after another long 13 hour day.  

We watched a little TV then hit the sack early.

Friday, October 13th (Day 6) - Upper Delaware Bay to Sassafras River.

Temp 48, Water temp 61.  Winds from the north at 10-15 decreasing during the day

42 nautical miles today (321 total trip miles)

It was a quiet night at this anchorage until around 6am when a whole bunch of freighters must have gone by and sent us their wakes.  The boat bounced around for about 10 minutes then again calmed.

Once again our schedule was set by the tides.  The currents at this end of the C&D Canal will start helping at 9:30am.  We anchored only about 7 miles from there so decided to leave around 8am.  After sleeping in a little, we pulled up the anchor at 8:15 and motored north around the Hope Creek Nuclear Power Plant.  This was our view from the anchorage on a pretty morning.

I was a little worried about the winds and currents causing big waves after we turned north and it was a little bumpy but not bad.  It was southbound wind against northbound current which caused 2-3 foot steep waves.  This wasn't a big problem for us because they were right on the bow and we had the current pushing us north to keep our speed up.

After entering the C&D Canal, everything calmed down.  The currents switched in our favor and it took us less than 2 hours to cover the 14 miles to Chesapeake Bay.

Our nice day continued as we motored south down the northern Chesapeake.  Now another choice....  We could be at our Sassafras anchorage by 3pm or keep going to make miles in the remaining daylight.  Also, tomorrow (Saturday) and tomorrow night were forecast rain and storms.  Sunday was 15-20 knot north winds so we'd probably want to stay put for that too.

I didn't see another anchorage south of the Sassafras that would be good for the weekend winds so we decided to make it an early day.  We turned up the Sassafras River and motored around the first "S" turn to anchor SW of Knight Island.  We've anchored here many times before.  The holding and protection is excellent from everything but SW winds which are not in the forecast.  Anchor down at 2:45pm.

We love this anchorage and the only problem has been the limited cell phone coverage - usually 1 bar or less.  In the past, I've had to stand up on the aft boxes to get enough signal for an updated weather forecast.  Now that we have Starlink, that wasn't a problem.  We could easily stream TV and had full internet access on the boat.  

I should also mention that we had full Starlink Internet all the way down the NJ coast and up Delaware Bay.  Pretty nice!

After anchoring, I played flute for quite a while and we had our first cocktail hour in many days.  We grilled burgers for dinner and relaxed on a quiet boat.  We're probably not moving for a couple days so we have some extra sleep and downtime coming our way.

This was the subdued sunset from our quiet anchorage.

Saturday, October 14th (Day 7) - Sassafras River

Temp 50.  Water temp 65.  Light north winds

When I checked the weather forecast for today, it showed light rain (correct) and winds out of the south.  It's now after noon while I writing the blog and the winds are still light out of the north.  Hmmm...  I just checked the forecast again and it changed to light east winds.  If it had said that this morning, we might have moved south to maybe the Annapolis Area.  Oh well.  Not a problem to take the day off.

I slept 10 hours last night and woke up very refreshed.  It always seem like to need "make up" sleep if I get short nights or early mornings.  I needed that 10 hours of calm boat.

The boat was only 63 degrees this morning so I got up, turned on our heat to run off the inverter and batteries then went back to a warm bed.  This takes a lot out of our batteries but we usually put it back in quickly running the engine.  Crap.  I just remembered we weren't going anywhere today and might be here 3 days.  Plus, no Sun for our solar panels and no wind until tomorrow for our wind generator.  We'll need those batteries.

I got up, threw on some sweats and went out to start the Honda generator.  5 minutes later it was running the heat plus charging the batteries when the heater thermostat turned off.  Yea.  Back to bed....

The boat warmed up nicely and I can't help but think how comfortable we've made our life over the past few years.  After installing the "Easy Start", the generator can now run our heat just like a house furnace.  All I need to do is add a couple quarts of gasoline every few hours and we have about 18 gallons on-board.

I decided to work on the blog (as you can see).  Hope I was not too long-winded.

Laura read an article on-line this morning about "Procrast-a-baking" This is defined as "having a million things to do but deciding to bake something instead".  She immediately started to bake and this was the result a few hours later.  Maple Cinnamon rolls (no icing yet).  Yikes!  We don't have anyone around to share them with.  We'll have to eat them all...  (only kidding.  We have freezer room after 5 days cruising).

 

Our plans are to head south down the bay on Monday, Tuesday and maybe Wednesday.  We need to be in Reedville at our friends Walter and Mary's for personal business on Thursday and Friday.  Then......

 

Heading south 2023 - Catskill to Atlantic Highlands

Our Catskill Summer ....

It was a very nice summer in Catskill where we have spent the past 17 summers on the boat.  Weather was hot in June and very wet in July but that's "weather".

Laura took some time to visit her children and their families in Tennessee and Houston.  Yes.  I did survive without her for a couple weeks.

We had both of our families down to the boat for fun days and a sail out on the river.  Never seem to get enough time for friends and families but we'll keep trying.  My great-niece Devynn graduated from High School and Laura made one of her most-fun desserts for her party.  Devynn's favorite animals are sloths and Laura saw sloth-cupcakes somewhere on-line.  She decided to make them for the party and they came out awesome.  What an artist!  Everybody loved them....

Of course, we had several jobs on our "boat list" which we worked on and off during the summer.  To be honest, we didn't tackle the bigger jobs until September when the push of heading south took over.

I order a lot of boat stuff from Defender Marine on-line.  I had been trying to get a new teak cockpit table for almost 2 years that is made by Edson - the same brand as our steering system so I know it would mount well - but they had been back-ordered for hardware that was not available after all the COVID shipping problems .  I received an email from them in mid-August that the tables were back in stock.  

Laura and I had a trip planned to Maine in late August to meet several other boating friends at an Ocean Cruising Club rally.  This would be a perfect way to save shipping and a little on sales tax because we could stop by the Defender store in Connecticut to pick up the table.

Speaking of COVID....  The day we left on our trip we received a call from a friend that they were not feeling well and had tested positive for COVID.  Oh boy.  We had dinner with them the night before under the marina tent.  Even though we were feeling fine, we decided to cancel our trip to Maine so we would not potentially expose many elderly folks to COVID.  Laura spent several hours on the phone cancelling our reservations and was able to get a refund for all of them - many of which said, "Not refundable".  Ya never know until you try!

But, we did stop at Defender and pick up the new table along with a few other items on my list.

Here is the old table.  It was getting pretty thin from 40(?) years of sanding / varnishing and was looking pretty ratty.

Bottom of old cockpit table

Top of old cockpit table

 The new teak table came unfinished so we could make it "our own".  This was the bottom after I put it together.  Pretty but not shiny.

We spent the next 10 days or so refinishing the table with AwlWood from AwlGrip.  This is the same finish we used on our bow pulpit 5 years ago and it still looked pretty good except for a few edges where mosture had seeped under the finish.

After hanging the pieces in the marina garage, we put on the sealer / primer then 7 coats of the clear gloss finish.  It was quite a job.

After all these coats, we put the pieces flat and sanded to 600 grit.  Here's Laura ready to put on the finishing coats.

When it was done, we were very happy with the results.  Yea!  Our new cockpit table!

One item on our list for the summer was to replace the tell-tales (small cloth wind indicators) on our jib sail.  These has become worn and broken over the last couple years and made it harder to properly adjust the sail correctly when sailing.  In late September, on a calm day, we decided to unroll the sail and pull it down to stick on new tell-tales.  No problems and we hauled the sail back up about an hour later.

I mentioned to Laura that we never had these on the mainsail and, now that we had spares, let's do the mainsail too.  She agreed and we unrolled the sail to drop it on the deck.  As we were unrolling, we could see parts of the burgundy sunbrella (used to protect the sail from the Sun while it's rolled up) were loose because the thread had rotted.  Oh boy....  We couldn't let this go and continued to pull the sail down until it was on the deck.

I pulled Laura's Sailrite sewing machine up on the cabin top and we man-handled the sail to sew 3 or 4 parts that needed help.  It was a tough job and both of our hands were sore from pulling the heavy / stiff sail around.  Here she is sewing up the sail on the deck.

 

Those who have been following my blog know I am a big fan of the Siren Marine security system I installed 2 years ago.  This summer, I noticed the batteries in several of the remote sensors were getting low so I decided to put new batteries in all 6 of them.  They are small "coin" type batteries.  This work is a small price to pay for not having to run cables all over the boat from the main computer to the sensors.  I completed the job in just a couple hours.  Here I am replacing the battery in the High Bilge sensor.  I'm sitting in the bilge.  That is our refrigerator over my head.

We have had a few leaks down our bedroom wall that got worse over the last few months.  I troubleshot it down to a lifeline stanchion that was screwed into the toe-rail.  I think the water was running down the screw holes that were not properly sealed.  The leak had also infiltrated the wooden toe-rail.

Laura and I spent a couple days removing all the rot from the toe-rail.  I hated that job.  Every time I took the grinder out I found more soft wood to remove.

We eventually got all (most?) of the rotten rail removed including a large portion of the aft starboard corner that had gotten crunched from a bad docking somewhere.  I replaced most of the removed wood with epoxy and a small strip of mahogany.  After we finished it looked pretty good and no leaks during the next couple storms.  Success!

Sorry I didn't get pictures of this work.  Not sure why but we were pretty busy trying to get it done before the next rain.

Around this time I decided to replace some of our forward lifeline stanchions because they were becoming corroded between periodic cleaning and polishing.  After our dock neighbors left in early October, we moved Second Wind to the other side of the dock so we could work on the port bow.  The work was fairly uneventful.  We removed 2 of the stanchions and epoxied the screw holes because the new bases were different screw patterns.  Then we sanded and painted the entire toe-rail from the bow to the step before mounting and bedding the new stanchions.  Here I am helping with the paint job.

By October 5th we had the boat ready to go.  The past several weeks I completed a long list of engine maintenance items - changing (3) fuel filters, pump impeller, oil and oil filter, transmission oil, all v-belts, and anything else I could think of.  I also ordered spare oil, filters and tools for the trip.  Laura did her excellent job of stocking our freezers and cupboards during 4 trips to various grocery stores.  The boat was looking and running good so we were ready.

On Saturday, October 7th a huge storm came through and dumped several inches of rain in the Catskill Mountains.  We had seen a possible travel window for sailing down the coast of NJ starting maybe Tuesday so we were anxious to go.  Saturday afternoon we dropped our car at my sister and brother-in-law's house then they drove us back to the boat.  We were ready!

But wait....  The creek was really flowing from all the rain.  Our boat is docked in a corner away from the creek currents but we could hear the water gurgling by all night.

Sunday, October 8th (Day 1) - Catskill to Halfmoon Bay

Our 18th wedding anniversary!

51 degrees.  Water temp 64.  Winds out of the south at 10-15 increasing to 15-20 later in the day.

67nm miles

Plans were to leave at 7am on Sunday morning.  When I looked at the creek, I could see a pretty fast current line right behind our boat.  I was worried that as soon as I backed out of our slip, the current would push us into the boat next to us.  Not a good thing.

Instead we had a quiet breakfast and waited for the tide to come up a little which should slow the current.  By 8am it didn't look as bad so we untied the lines and backed out into the creek.  We were underway!

Predicted winds were out of the SW to W but the Hudson Valley doesn't usually allow east or west winds.  Instead, they are funneled between the hills to south or north.  Today, they were funneled out of the south - right in our face.

It was chilly and cloudy.  We were not able to take advantage of an ebb tide going out because tides were wrong for us traveling south this morning.  Fortunately, all the rain in Upstate NY over the past couple days had a lot of water draining into the river so the flood current against us never got as bad as usual.  We would typically slow to maybe 4.5 knots against the river tidal currents but today, we never went below about 5.5.  Nice!

A short while after leaving I took this picture of the Catskills. I thought the shadows looked cool.

Around 9:30am the Sun came out and our cockpit quickly warmed up.  It was a pretty day on the river.

Our warm Sun only stayed out for a couple hours then the clouds came back in and cooled us off.  Laura took this picture of me "driving" the boat.  The way we've setup the boat, we only have to watch where we are headed and periodically adjust the autopilot.  Otherwise, sit back and enjoy the trip.

A couple hours later we passed my friend Sam's boat near Poughkeepsie.  Here is a picture of Apollonia tacking against the south winds in front of the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park, NY.  The schooner Apollonia is a merchant vessel delivering cargo up and down the Hudson River.  HERE is a link to their interesting website.

Schooner Appolonia Sailing The Hudson

After passing Poughkeepsie, the winds picked up to almost 20 knots on the nose and stayed there.  By this time we had the ebb current pushing us south and should have been making 7-8 knots.  Because of the winds holding us back, we were only making about 6.  Oh boy.  Now we probably won't make our intended anchorage before dark.

Here we are motoring against the big winds approaching the Newburgh Bridge.

Once we entered the narrower river by Storm King Mountain (you can see the mountain in the distance under the bridge above), the winds finally died and we made good time to Haverstraw Bay.  The Sun set as we entered the bay and we continue south to Halfmoon Bay anchorage.  It would be nicely protected there from the predicted SW winds tonight.

We dropped anchor in the pitch black dark near Halfmoon Bay at 7:30pm.  I had used our excellent RayMarine Doppler RADAR to get across the bay and anchor next to 3 other boats safely.  It was a long day but we tried to make good distance so we would be ready for the Tuesday weather window down the NJ coast.

The wind was not our friend today.

Laura made a quick dinner of left over enchiladas and we hit the sack around 9:30am.  We always try to time the currents so they are helping us through New York City and all the busy ship traffic / big wakes.  Plan was to leave tomorrow morning around 7am to catch the ebb tidal current through the city.

Monday, October 9th (Day 2) - Halfmoon Bay to Atlantic Highlands

44 degrees.  Water temp 63.  Winds calm in the morning then 10-20 out of the SW later in the afternoon

50 nautical miles today (117 total trip miles)

We woke up to the phone alarm at 6:20am.  I was very happy that my morning engine checks found everything well with Gertrude - our 1981 Perkins Diesel - after all the maintenance I had done the past several weeks and running for almost 12 hours straight yesterday.

We pulled anchor at 7:10am.  Once again I was happy that we had no major problems our first 24 hours away from the dock since Spring.  We had checked out just about everything but the sails.

Winds were almost calm as we motored back onto Haverstraw Bay then turned south toward New York City.  Pretty sunrise a short while later.

Once again we had mostly cloudy skies with intermittent Sun.  I put up the canvas behind me in the cockpit to try and stay warm.

We passed under the Tappan Zee bridge and a few hours later approached the George Washington Bridge.  I love this view of the NYC skyline under the bridge.

Approaching the bridge, Laura spotted this huge American flag hanging from it.  Very nice!

We picked up speed with the ebb current and ran 7-8 knots all the way through the city.  We did pull over and get our Lady Liberty selfie.  You can tell from my hair that the wind was honkin' again.

We dodged all the traffic and crossed under the Varazanno Narrows bridge into the lower bay.  As we turned a little more south, we were able to put out our first sail of the trip - about 1/2 jib.  Winds were 40-60 degrees off the starboard bow and running 12-22 knots.  Not a very good wind for sailing but we made the best of it.  Sorry about the finger in the corner.  I was trying to hold on while taking this picture in the crankin' winds.

Again the wind was not our friend today.

A few hours later we were motoring behind the breakwater at Atlantic Highlands and headed for the fuel dock.  This was our first fuel since filling here in May.  We only took 53 gallons but were shocked a little by the price - $4.88 / gallon.  That's $1.30 more than we paid here in May.  Yikes!

The anchorage was very full with 14 other boats.  We had to anchor way outside the breakwater with no protection from the ferry and other powerboat wakes.  It was a little bit of a roller-coaster ride until things calmed down after about 9pm.

We hit the sack early and set the phone alarm for 4:30am.  We need to leave by 5am to make Atlantic City anchorage before dark.

Tuesday, October 10th (Day 3) - Not moving today

51 degrees.  Water temp 62.  Winds 10 out of the SW

We both woke up before the alarm just after 4am.  I immediately checked my phone for the Windfinder.com forecast off the coast today.  It had changed for the worse.  Yesterday's forecast of light SW winds in the afternoon were now 4-5 hours of 10-15 knots from the SW.  That would make for a 20 knot headwind if we were motoring into them at 5 knots.  From experience, we know our little 58 horsepower engine (when it was new 43 years ago) cannot push the 21 ton boat into winds and waves.  We would slow to 2-3 knots and take forever to get anywhere with a crappy ride.  

I want to mention here that I "usually" take my own advice.  Many folks I've known who were planning a passage sometimes let the momentum of leaving make the decisions for them.  You plan and work to get everything ready then something happens like the forecast changes. Think about it...  This works for many other decisions we all make every day.  If people ask my opinion or I see that they might be headed for trouble, I tell them to evaluate all the options as they are now.  "Don't let momentum make the decision for you."  In this case, we probably could have left this morning and slugged through it.  But, it should be much better tomorrow so we'll wait.

After verifying the forecast with PredictWind.com and Windy.com, I quickly pulled another blanked onto the bed and said to Laura we could go back to sleep.  Tomorrow had a much better forecast with winds more west and calmer.

We were up before 9am on a pretty day at anchor.  Since we were anchored north of the Highlands, the SW winds were very light and the Sun was out all morning to warm us up.  

I could see that several boats had left in front of us and maybe we could move behind the breakwater for a calmer anchorage.  After breakfast, we pulled anchor and started slowly motoring forward.  Just as we got to a good place, one of the anchored boats pulled his anchor and motored toward the fuel dock.  Now we had a great spot and quickly dropped the anchor with a couple hundred feet of breakwater to protect us from most wakes.  

We ran the Honda generator for several hours to charge up batteries and give us hot water for showers.  Don't think I even worked 1 boat project today.  What's up with that?

Current plan is to get up early and head down the coast to Atlantic City tomorrow and anchor before the bridge.  We'll leave there early on Thursday for a run to Cape May then up the bay with the flood current just after noon.  Should be in the Chesapeake on Thursday night or Friday.

Wish us luck with tomorrow's forecast!