Homestretch

Nice passage down to Cape May and we dropped the hook for a few hours to wait for a favorable tide in Delaware Bay.  Delaware Bay continues to solidify its reputation in our minds as a  . . . difficult . . . body of water.  Very shallow with lots of spots to navigate around, long and narrow so the tides are funneled through a narrow channel making them stronger and,  lots of big ship traffic.  The tide cycle is not long enough to carry us all the way so we either start out with the tide against us or end with it against us.  

Did I mention the big ship traffic?  Shore lights silhouetted the darkened, towering hulks as they churned past at 20+ knots.  Their bulbous bows pushed water aside like a bulldozer at a landfill.  The quarterwave seemed to suck it all back in , leaving vivid images of what would happen to a little 34 footer caught in this self-made wave pool.  When the Bay really narrowed down, we hugged just to the outside of the channel markers to stay in the clear.

Russ let me sleep 5 hours straight.  A little guilt but I slept like a baby.

Homestretch now.  I figure we've sailed 1050 miles since leaving Annapolis on June 30.  We've spent 15 1/2 days on the boat for a daily average of 70 miles.  Our dinghy has not touched water since Portland.  

Next time it'll be nice to slow down a bit.  'Til then ~ Fair winds & following seas.  Russ + Alison

Hell Gate

The constant roar of cars scurrying to and fro is drowned out only by the thundering din of planes taking off overhead.  And then there was the all night disco party boat that came in around 3am.  Our quiet, peaceful anchorage is at the end of LaGuardia's main runway!  We tucked in here last night to wait for a more favorable tide through Hell Gate.

Hell Gate, at certain times of the tidal cycle, richly deserves its name.  The waters of Long Island sound become the East River which narrows significantly here. Water funnels through the narrowing channel as the tide turns.  The tide can crank along at 4+ knots.  We like to motor around 5 knots so if that 4 knots is against you it's going to take a while.  The original dutch explorers named it.    Early log books from the 1600 and 1700's talk about giant whirlpools, reefs, islands and rocks.  One out of every 50 ships that ran Hell Gate were either damaged or sunk.  In an average year, 1000 ships ran aground in Hell Gate.

In 1850, a public spirited citizen of New York paid an engineer $15000 to blast the reefs in Hell Gate. Over a several months numerous blasts reduced the reef to between 9 to 24 feet below the surface with the side benefit of the whirlpool disappearing.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers picked up the project and at 11:13:50 on October 10, 1885, 12 year old Mary Newton turned the key that set off the largest man-made explosion until the atomic bomb. 

Rain drizzled and skyscrapers rose into the clouds as we motored along.  This city just teems with life and seeing it from the water offers an interesting perspective.  

Huntington Homecoming

I was Captain for the day yesterday.  We've been taking turns and it's really helping my sailing skills and probably more importantly my confidence.  Russ was sound asleep as we neared his hometown of Huntington.  A quick chat and we decided to duck in.  

We motored in past the restored lighthouse, the float that he swam out to as a kid, the beach he played on, "Sand City" the teenagers hangout beach, and the gorgeous tudor style house he grew up in.  He pointed out where his sister, Debbie, wrecked his 1963 La Mans convertible - white with red interior.  I stood up for her since I knew the wreck wasn't her fault.

Andante was snugged up to the town pier and we strolled the streets.  Past the gas station where sister, Patty, ran out into traffic and hit a car.  (She was very little and wasn't hurt, thank goodness.)  Past the road to Russ' first girlfriend's house (Pam Ely's house - double date in 6th grade with Doug Rink to a movie.)  Past the boat yard where his Dad worked on their wooden boat and got some sort of lead or toxic poisoning that landed him in the hospital for a week.  And voila, there was the same grocery store, King Cullen.  

Memories are such strange things - no kid who was being dragged through the grocery store would ever think they'd look back on that place and time with nostalgia.  But what a great place to have a memory of - hopefully you're utterly taken care of by someone that loves you and surrounded by more plenty than a lot of people will see in their lifetime.  Do you remember the grocery store you frequented as a child? The one I have the earliest memories of was the A&P. 

Cruising is Fixing your boat in exotic places

Russ and his family spent a lot of time sailing on Long Island Sound and he has fond memories of "Port Jeff."  The family all asleep in their bunks one night and suddenly the boat titled over.  They were high and dry and ended up trying to sleep on the beach.  When the sun came up they were there at an angle for all to see.

We located an alternator repair shop and loaded it into a backpack for the trek.  The alternator man was great.  Diagnosis we'd fried our alternator trying to charge very flat batteries.  "I can fix it in a couple of (my heart sank) days.  That'll be $85."  No problem.  

Next task was to haul our 60 pound battery to get it charged.  With the battery loaded into a canvas bag we set off up the hill stopping every 50 feet or so to pry fingers off the handles and switch sides.  The tire and battery store put it on the trickle charger at no charge.

Stroll around town, some great pizza,k write some postcards and battery and newly painted alternator were ready.  My determined, ingenious, intelligent, ideal husband comes through again!

Off-Season Delight

Let's call him Dennis the Menace, aka Hurricane Dennis.  He's out here sharing the Atlantic with us, a situation we're not too happy about.  Decision time - head off shore to Cape May and maybe encounter the menace with no where to run or head down Long Island Sound where we can take shelter if Dennis turns this way.  No contest - We made the decision to stop in at Block Island and poke our way down Long Island sound.

Block Island has a special place in my heart. It was my first landfall after an ocean passage, first time on a bicycle built for two, first time hearing rocks tumble in the ocean surf.  I'm from near Mrytle Beach's Grand Strand where there are no rocks just miles of wide sandy beaches so I was fascinated by that sound.  

Just after Labor Day weekend and everything's buttoned up tight here including the bakery!  We'd started experiencing some electrical problems.  Russ got out Nigel Calder's electrical book and started working through the diagnostics.  It seemed our alternator wasn't doing its job so batteries weren't charging.  Port Jefferson down Long Island Sound would offer an opportunity to have it fixed we hoped.

We were sling shotted through Plum Gut, the channel between Plum Island and Orient Point.  We hit 8 knots over the bottom!  

Another night underway sailing along under a blanket of stars. . . 

Delightful Scale Up!

Rumor has it that Andante enjoyed some wonderful evening sails without us!  Good to know she was enjoying herself.  We came back to find  Chris had taken excellent care of our good ship.  Thanks Bro!

Saturday was a beautiful day for a wedding.  Chris' daughter, Julie married Mike Kimber in a lovely outdoor ceremony on Yarmouth Island.  I gotta say, this family knows how to do weddings.  Their black lab was part of the ceremony as he walked down the aisle alone with the rings tied around his neck.  We never would've tried something like that with Chessie.  One whiff of something, especially the numerous deer that roam the island, and he would've taken off like a shot.  No wild eyed dog marred this ceremony.  It was very special and so good to catch up with extended family. 

We dropped the mooring line at 7am Sunday morning in some of the thickest fog I've ever encountered.  Pea soup?  I'd call it clam chowder.  Fog is so disorienting.  It's impossible to tell where the horizon is.  That may sound silly.  Just keep your chin level and look out and you're at horizon height right?  Wrong. It's hard to tell what's up.  Fog often hovers around land.  It'll be clear at sea and you'll sail into a thick fog bank or conversely you'll sail away from fog enshrouded land into beautiful sunlight.  

Maine has a phenomenon called a "scale up".  We started calling it a "delightful scale-up" and delightful it is.  Basically it's when the fog lifts.  We've had those heart stopping  moments of seeing a dark smudge in the fog reveal itself to be trees on land surrounded by rocks!  Turned the tiller over as hard and fast as possible because we thought what we were seeing through the fog was waves breaking on rocks only to find out it was a flock of birds.  Hey, better to be safe than sorry.  In our seasons of sailing in Maine we're usually the only boat we see the whole time without radar.  It'd be nice to add it someday . . . 

The fog stayed with us as we negotiated the shipping lanes into Boston.  We went through our new can of compressed air that made up our fog horn and reached for another can only to discover that it took a different nozzle, one we didn't have.  We still had the outbound traffic lanes to get through.  Necessity is the mother of invention and Russ came to the rescue.  Drilling, tapping, and copious amounts of duct tape secured a new nozzle to the new can and we were back in business.  

Whew!  or should I say "BEEEEPPPPPP"  

Where traditions start . . .

I didn't know it at the time but Debbie and I started a sailing tradition this day.  She slaughtered me in 5 games of Russian Bank!  It's a fast card game with 2 decks.  Yes, there's luck involved but the ability to recognize quickly when the other player missed a move they had to make enabling you to yell, "STOP!" and take over their turn  . . . is invaluable.  Can't say I was a quitter.

Our course took us close to Boon Island.  A forlorn, windswept speck of land with a lighthouse it sits roughly 6 miles out to sea from the town of York, Maine.  On December 11, 1710, the British merchant ship Nottingham Galley wrecked on the rocks surrounding the island.  All 14 sailors survived the initial wrecking although 2 sucombed to their injuries.  Two more died while trying to make it to the mainland in a raft.  The rest managed to survive in winter conditions with no food or firewood for 24 days until they were rescued.  They resorted to cannibalizing their dead comrades before their rescue.  

After picking our way in in the dark, our anchor touched bottom at Cape Neddick.  I fixed dinner while Josh & Tyler went for a swim in the refreshing Maine water.  They tried to talk someone over the age of 16 into going in but no takers.

Fish Tales

Russ, Debbie and I slept on the boat and got her through the 0800 opening.  We anchored off the beach just outside the bridge and came back in to get charts (never thinking we were going to Maine, we hadn't bought our Maine charts), get kids, and the last bit of ice we were making in the freezer.

Finally loaded aboard with a Maine chartkit, new fishing lures which Tyler and Josh were eager to try, and my usual tons of food, we weighed anchor around 1100 and planned to buck the tide through Woods Hole.  Coast Guard helicopters and vessels reminded us of the desperate search underway for John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife, Carolyn Bessett Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessett.  It was a hot, hazy day and the night would be much like the night of the crash.  Hope for finding them alive was vanishing with each sweep of the second hand.  Now, hope was that they be found so their families could bury them.

Woods Hole is a hair raising, narrow channel with a whopping tide ripping through it.  We entered the bottleneck with the tide against us at 4 knots.  Motorsailing we make about 5 knots without pushing our 24 year old Westerbeke engine too hard.  We squeaked past the large buoy that was leaning towards us at a 45 degree angle, pushed over by the force of the current running against it, and made our way into the wider section where the current was not pitting its forces against us so directly and slogged our way to Buzzards Bay.

Buzzard's Bay is a good sized body of water with lots of boating traffic on a summer Sunday.  We sailed around hugh privately owned motor yachts with matching jet skis on deck, a side wheel boat called the Canal Queen that looked like she should've been plying the Mississippi's muddy waters and a parade of unusual and beautiful sailboats.

Our spanking speed of 7 1/2 knots seemed to Josh and Tyler perfect for inducing fish to try our new lure.  They put poles over the side and waited.  Josh abandoned the attempt and Tyler put his pole in the holder off the stern to troll for the critters.  ZIIINNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG . . . the line played out.  "It's probably more seaweed."  "I think you've got a fish this time Tyler"  A beautiful fish was scooped up with a bucket and dumped into the cockpit well.  The shining skin reflected the afternoon sun and neither of the boys was too happy with the idea of killing such a beautiful animal.  But, the hook was too deeply embedded and he seemed destined for our dinner table.  Russ demonstrated his skill at cleaning what we'd identified as a 17" striped bass and we looked forward to tasting him later.

The small village of Onset at the southern end of the canal would be our place of refuge from the turning tide.  We swam, played water tag around the boat, had striped bass on crackers for appetizers (YUM!) and tacos for dinner.  Josh & Tyler rowed the dinghy ashore for a last junk food run and returned with chicken nuggets, potato chips and peppermint patties!  Final stowing and we were underway at 10pm, just in time to be followed by a tug pulling a huge barge with about a hundred containers stacked on top.  It really made the width of that canal seem tiny as we squeezed over to the side.

Debbie was a little nervous about standing a solo watch but gamely took the midnight to 2am stint.  Russ stayed up with her for a while and we sailed along in waters protected by the long reach of Cape Cod.