East Coast Travels

6/12 to 6/29 2007

We are back after a month in WI, heading North for Maine and Ariel.

We plan to post and update at least weekly. We move the older portions of the log to secondary pages accessible at the bottom of the page. Join our voyage!

Updated on 07/02/2007

6/12/07 - We're back!!! It's good to be home again! The drive was 20 hours due to an accident blocking Hwy 43 for an hour and hitting traffic at 8am in Washington, DC. Ruth, Buddy and I hit the hay at 2:30 yesterday, woke up to eat and went back to bed until 10am this morning. Buddy was soooo glad not to be bouncing around in the car day and night... ditto Barry & Ruth. The boat was amazingly clean when we got to her. We spent the balance of the day provisioning and returning the rental car. I changed the engine oil and filter - one of those jobs best done naked, and filled the water tanks - best done dressed. Tomorrow we'll head for a Solomon's Landing, re-starting our trip north. Somewhere along the way we intend to join Laureen and Miles on their new Ariel - that should be a lot of fun. While in Appleton I did some business consulting and worked at Ames Point finishing up the Bremer 25 project I worked on before we left last fall - it should launch in a couple of weeks (I'd love to see that!). The weather here is hot and humid with occasional showers - we need to get north. Should send some of this heat to our friends at Quarterdeck in Sturgeon Bay. Hey guys, you could be swimming. We enjoyed revisiting the old gangs at Menasha Marina and at Quarterdeck - wish you all were here! 6/13/07 - Time to get out of Dodge. By 8:30 we were clearing the Deltaville channel. We dodged thunderstorms all day as we motored the 45 miles to Solomon's Landing. Luck was with us and we only saw a few sprinkles. Enroute we passed the Pride of Baltimore and were later passed by a schooner under power... a time warp created by beautiful boats! By 4:30pm we were snuggly anchored in a sheltered end of the Solomon inlets. We had guests for supper, a pair of swans and their offspring. Ruth was thrilled - it reminded her of an evening when a pair of swans visited Flutterby at Sutton's (Traverse Bay). 6/14/07 - We took a down day while I worked on boat cards and the website. It was nice to relax a little after working at home and the long drive back. Mother Nature wasn't in a good mood, winds and showers, so it was a good time to hunker down and wait her out. Ruth started a new book, her first reading since we headed to WI. 6/15/07 - At 9 am we left Solomon's. We motored into light headwinds for 7 hours arriving in Annapolis around 4 pm, pulling into the Yacht basin marina for fuel before anchoring off the Naval Academy near where we'd dragged into the rocks 2 years ago. The weather for the next few days features light winds from the south so we felt comfortable in our spot. It was a quiet evening so we bedded down early. 6/16/07 - I was up by 6 and Ruth by 6:30, wow! We breakfasted and read for a few hours before heading into town in our dinghy. We wanted to meet Chuck Newman, the ass't harbormaster, a friend of Bradd and Maeve's but he wasn't on duty... so we did the tourist bit picking up a couple of items at Fawcett's Marine Supply and dining on great burgers in a corner pub. Annapolis is a cute town, definitely tourist and boating driven. It's a little like Door County but with a Colonial history. Mid-afternoon we returned to the boat so I could replace a deck plate for the aft tank pump-out. Ohhh goodie! Actually it went pretty smooth - the job was over in an hour. All day we had literally hundreds of sailboats around us. Most headed out to the bay where they looked like white moths milling about, many anchored near us and took a water taxi into town. It was fun being in the center of so much activity. Buddy thought they were all there to see him... surprise. Ruth caught shots of me harassing a pirate ship that kept coming by with groups of young kids aboard - I was having too good a time with my cutlass, parrot and pirate's cap. 6/17/07 - We departed Annapolis around 9:30 am enroute for the Delaware canal, the C&D. We were in the company of 100's of sail and powerboats -though sail out-numbered power 5:1. We anchored in the Bohemia River about 5:30 for the night. An 8 knot breeze made the mid-90's temperature pleasant. buddy had a shower along the way and was one happy camper. It was a quiet day, nothing that stood out. We passed a couple of tows, but at great distance. Our anchorage is pretty cool... it's at the base of a farm that looks up the C&D canal. 6/18/07 - An 8am departure put the tide on our side as we entered the C&D Canal... we were quickly doing 9.6 knots over the ground with the aid of a 2.5 knot current. It was a beautiful day to transit the canal - our only commercial traffic was 3 tows pushing fuel barges. We ran down the Delaware just outside the shipping lane arriving at Cape May, NJ about 7:30pm. Enroute we passed a half dozen up-bound freighters carrying containers and liquid cargo. Busy place! At Cape May we anchored off the Coast Guard station and fired up the grille for the chicken we'd marinated since the day before. Delicious! 6/19/07 - Another sunny day with 6-7 knot NE winds. We fueled a South Jersey Marina, our regular place on this piece of the coast. 35 gallons of diesel and 60 gallons of fresh water later we pushed off and re-anchored at Coast Guard Station. We'd picked up a tank of questionable water in Deltaville and had drained and disinfected it enroute to Cape May. 6/20/07 - What a funky day. We left Cape May in light fog, sailed through a cold front - yes, sailed, at 7-8 knots, motor sailed through heavy rain as the wind pooped out, then sailed in 15 knot winds and clear skies to Barnegat Inlet - about 62 nautical miles. Barnegat is a cool area. The channel has more twists than a pretzel and depths range from 2' to 35'. The town is cute, very little condo impact, a Coast Guard unit, and a working fishing fleet. Tomorrow we'll explore. 6/21/07 - We spent the day at anchor at Barnegat. Ruth had a lot of business correspondence to take care of and I had a couple of clients to talk to. The weather was fantastic. The town looks intriguing. Tomorrow we're going exploring. (Said that before) This time we mean it. Ruth has extended and offer for the Philly office staff to come and sail with us... we'll wait to see what they say - they are an hour away by car. We are anchored behind an underwater sand spit... it has been interesting watching boats run aground all day because a sailboat indicates deep water to them. On the home front we've changed realtors. After 8 months we had to change something. We've dropped the price $30,000 from the appraisals with no interest. Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. Hmmmm? 6/22/07 - Beautiful morning after an interesting night. T-storms and a squall passed through about 7pm... winds to 25, a little rain and lots of lightning. We went to bed at dusk - Ruth had a busy phone and internet day. About 11:30 I felt/heard a thump and the howling wind - the small harbor had white caps. A quick check topsides revealed we had dragged across the channel and onto the edge of a marshy area - about 300 yards. Ruth was up and started the engine, we donned our headsets as I went forward to retrieve the anchor. After a half hour in pitch black we were re-anchored and the wind died. All the rest of the night we had periods of high wind followed by lulls. AA stayed put. Guess we will be backing down to test the anchor's hold each evening when we stay somewhere a while. We suspect we circled and fouled the anchor due to tides and winds during the day. We explored the town of Barnegat Light during the afternoon. A cute place, a working port for a large fishing fleet with about 1,600 residents, a lot of summer homes. We were buying some supplies and Ruth was talking to a lady in line with us. As we were walking to the next place (about a dozen blocks away) she stopped and insisted we let her drive us there and back to the dinghy. She had cruising friends and knew how far distances can be on foot with supplies. Very nice! 6/23/07 - Back to the ocean today after a night of 20-25 knot winds. Beautiful morning, high 60's, not a cloud in the sky. Great sail in funky winds (4 -25 knots, gusty, veering 90 degrees). We sailed at 5 - 8 knots for about 53 nm to Sandy Hook, NJ anchoring in a cove. Not great protection from a N wind, but adequate. Had to try this one once. We can see the V-Narrows bridge and the Manhattan skyline north of us. Beautiful beaches! Lots of high speed ferries. 4 of us anchored here for the night. They do it a little differently in NJ, we watched a sport fisherman anchor over the anchor of a sailboat, drifting back to about 20' in front of him. Guess they are use to living close together (share bathrooms?). The sailboat moved after 30 minutes. 6/24/07 - We were up by 8 but spent until 11 on boat chores, breakfast, etc. I'd run a tide simulation using our Nobeltech E-Chart Mariner software that indicated we didn't want to enter the East River until noon to have the tidal flow with us. We motor sailed across the flats leading to the Verrazano-Narrows bridge. This is an area about twice the size of Lake Winnebago but with the same depths (other than in the ship channels). Entering the East River our water speed was 6.5 knots while our speed over ground was running 9-11.5 knots - we nailed the tides! We found the East River to be cleaner and more interesting than we had expected. Factories were relatively few. Riker's Island was along the route and Ruth scoped out prospects (if still in business). Enroute we passed M/V On The Mark, same name as the boat owned by a former biz contact of Ruth's, Mark Golen. We were unable to make radio contact. 5:30pm found us at Oyster Bay on Long Island. Definitely not NY as we think of it - more like Sister Creek in Door County. While a pork tenderloin cooked on the grille we watched a dozen Trump wannabe's riding their helicopters back to Manhattan after their week-end out-island. We are about 112 nm from Newport and Ariel. 6/25/07 - After checking the tide flows we headed east along the Long Island north shore. It's nothing like I imagined. Part of the shoreline look like the dunes area of the western shoreline of Michigan... high sand banks. Parts were populated with mansions on the hills overlooking the sound. All of it was pretty. Boat traffic was light today (we probably saw more helicopters)... a couple of sailboats, 3 tanker barges, some ferries and fishermen. We motored a couple of hours then the wind came up so we motor-sailed to the NE tip of Long Island where we anchored behind Ram Island. Our idea of an adequate anchorage has sure changed the last couple of years. We're snuggled up to a bluff populated with mansions in a bay about the size of the northern half of Lake Winnebago - at least we can see shore on the horizon around us. While enroute I moved the two solar panels inboard to better protect them from lock walls and pilings. That took the better part of 3 hours. Ruth had good wireless and spent most of the day communicating with customers. We're about 55 miles from Ariel. 6/26/07 - We motor sailed to Newport, RI, today under hazy skies. Enroute I sanded the teak on the cockpit seats in preparation for refinishing. Lots of dust! We arrived in Newport and got a mooring. It's a unique mooring - a floating dock anchored in the harbor with a boat tied to each side. We hailed the water taxi and went into town for a few supplies. We learned that our timing was impeccable... the tall ships are arriving today and tomorrow. About 20 of them gather here every 7 years and we stumbled in just in time to see them. A ship from Indonesia is moored 50 yards from us. Neat! Tomorrow we'll revisit Newport - we were last here for a Leukemia Cup fantasy sail. When we took the water taxi into Newport it stopped to pick up the crew from a historic 12 Meter (the old America's Cup boats). We were pleased to see that the boat was Gleam, the vessel we'd sailed during the fantasy sail. The crew was surprised we knew the boat. We're 12 miles from Miles & Laureen. 6/27/07 - A high and low day for Ruth. She had 5 containers of material sold only to learn that Core never bought it. Major bummer! My day went better - I got a coat of finish on the cockpit seats and washed the sides of the hull... all while watching tall ships being escorted into the harbor by tugboats and the Coast Guard. The dignitaries are starting to show up to greet the international guests. President Bush is supposed to show up in the next day or two - guess that's why the weather is turning. Higher winds, fog and t-storms in the forecast. 6/28/07 - The presence of USCG choppers sweeping the area made me suspect this was the day for Bush's visit. About 11am the two presidential choppers and the two escort ships circled the harbor twice before landing at the Naval War College (yes, they send navels to college). He doesn't have the weather they forecast - its blowing 10-15 with light overcast and stretches of sun. Cool day though - 60's. It's only fair - it's his first visit to RI (cold shoulders get a cool responses). We are being treated to daily all day music. The Indonesian ship's crew have to play an instrument as a condition of crewing. They are big on drums! Everyday, almost all day, they practice on the wharf near us - actually they are very good! The day cleared so I got a second coat on the teak seats and a first coat on the swim platform.  AA is definitely looking better. Tomorrow we'll visit Ariel the mega-yacht. Had to clean AA up a little so they'd let us in the same marina. 6/29/07 - The wind shifted to the north last night bringing in cooler air - the high today is forecast at 70. At 1pm we headed for Barrington and Cove Haven marina. It was great hearing Ariel respond to our hail on the VHF. In 20 minutes we were in a slip next to her - wow, nice boat! First order of business was a new boat tour. Laureen and Miles did an excellent job of specification and interior design. Ariel may have been a hassle getting, but they'll be enjoying her long after the birthing process has been forgotten.

Canadian schooner motors by against dark sky Guests come for dinner Classic working Chesapeake lighthouse off Annapolis Pirates attacking Buddy and Barry prepare to repel pirate ship Fog settled into the Cap May anchorage Ruth enters Barnegat with a fishing boat on her stern Barnegat light from anchorage - white spots are gulls on a sand spit next to us Sunset reflects in Barnegat windows Pier 17, one of Ruth's old haunts (photo Ruth) The sweet side of the city (photo Ruth) Opportunity? (photo Ruth) Tall ship Dewaruci of Indonesia Tall ship enters with crew on the yardarms

Visit earlier portions of our east coast travels...