2010 Log
9/16 to 9/30/2010
This is the current period of our log for 2010. At the bottom of the page are links to this year's pass weeks; our earlier voyages are in Prior Voyages.
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Updated on 01/28/2011
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9/16/10 - Cool last night, the heater ran on low keeping the cabin warm. I went with Rich and Norm to finishing preparing and launching The Great Catsby. While I did that Ruth and Carol went shopping, Thank you Ruth! Ariel passed us twice today, once at Point Judith and again at Noank on her way to Mystic to ride out the weather. We delivered Catsby to Point Judith at sundown, tying her to her mooring. Ruth had the groceries stored and with the coming weather we decided to stay aboard for dinner and see what tomorrow brought. I did a little more research on moving our website. There are a lot of of exciting possibilities. The rain came with a lot of lightning and a little wind. 9/17/10 - Gray day but very little wind at dawn. Last night was pretty tame... Rich said the big storms were out at sea, south of us. The news says that New York had 100 mph winds and a lot of damage, as did Port Washington, home of our friends the Wollin's. Today was a down day until mid afternoon. The weather was considerably better than the forecast. Ruth did wash at the Wellman's while I went to Newport with Norm to pick up Rich. Really different seeing this area by car. After a great dinner with Rich, Carol, Norm and Priscilla we came home to AA to settle in for the night. I'm doing the log with Buddy sitting on my shoulder correcting my errors. Two events saddened the day; learning that Bob Bitchin's daughter had died and that Tony had torn his Achilles tendon and that he and Judy would not be joining us on the trip south this year. 9/18/10 - The day awoke with blue skies though the western horizon was dark. We hoisted anchor at 9am and headed west toward Ram Island just off the mouth of Mystic. The seas were flatter than forecast and the trip went smoothly. At 2pm we were off Ram Island trying to anchor. On our fourth try we snagged a rock and held. It leaves one feeling in a precarious position. We backed down hard to make sure our rock wouldn't move. Miles and Laureen are just up the river from us, near the Mystic Seaport. 9/19/10 - By 7:30 we were moving, easing our way around Ram Island to the mouth of the Mystic river where we waited for Ariel. In minutes Miles & Laureen appeared... we haven't seen them since Halifax. Light wind dictated that we motor the roughly 50 miles to Milford, CT, where we anchored for the night. A new destination, a pretty bay with good holding and good shelter for the forecasted 20 - 25 knot northerly winds. Laureen & Miles came over for a visit. We got to see Laureen's high tech cast (right wrist and forearm). We told tales of our travels during the summer. They had found several new ports in Maine that they totally enjoyed. 9/20/10 - Windy this morning. We sailed on a broad reach to Port Washington in winds varying from 6 to 25 knots - a wild ride. This is what we enjoy! By 3pm we were on one of the new free town moorings. They are right off the town dock. There is a second dinghy dock located across from the strip mall that includes a supermarket, liquor store and West Marine. Port Washington has just become super cruiser friendly. The Wollin's had invited Laureen, Miles, Ruth and I to dinner. It was superb as meals with them always are. 9/21/10 - Calm and sunny. Today was my cut-over day for the new web hosting service. I'll know within 24 hours if I screwed up. I spent most of the day reading tutorials, changing nameservers and setting up new mail servers... tense because I never done this before. Got my fingers crossed. While I was working Ruth dealt with the IRS. They applied our 2009 payment to their 2008 audit and want to send us a refund... great, except it was the 2009 payment so we'll likely have to send another check and pay penalties. Arrgghhh! 9/22/10 - Breezy today, but not so strong we couldn't go into Port Washington and run errands with David and Leslie all day. We really appreciate their hospitality. By way of thanking them I re-sewed the zippers on their bimini with Telera Gore-tex thread. They should never need to stitch them again. If the Coast Guard permits we will leave for Sandy Hook tomorrow. 9/23/10 - It's a beautiful day to be stuck in Port Washington. Due to the sessions at the UN the coast Guard has the East River totally shut down from 9am until 3pm today. Due to the currents thru Hell's Gate and the distance to Sandy Hook leaving before 7am isn't an option and leaving after 3pm brings us into Sandy Hook after dark. I did an oil change and checked to see if our new nameservers had propagated yet - they hadn't. 9/24/10 - Hazy morning. We waited until 9:30am before starting down the East River to ensure the current was with us. Seems like lots of folks had the same idea as 7 sailboats formed a convoy. At Roosevelt Island we had to take the East Channel because the West was closed due to the UN session. Really need to get the UN move to Ghana, somewhere safer. We finally got the new servers on line for e-mail and the web pages. Big hurrah and thanks to the tech staff at Bluehost! I'm writing as Ruth drives us through the traffic in New York Harbor. I'm watching the other boats on radar - lots of them. Talking of clutter, I got our website anti-span, anti-junk and anti-virus filters in place. Good thing, when we downloaded mail this morning there were 260 e-mails, 5 of which we wanted. We arrived at Atlantic Highlands at 2:30pm and got in line to take on fuel... it took an hour. Then we moved to the entrance and anchored. 85 degrees, very warm day! 9/25/10 - The wind whistled through the rigging last night, gusts in the twenties. Other than that it was a warm night and we sat in smooth water behind the protection of the cliffs of Atlantic Highlands. The winds and wave predictions were all over the map. We finally decided to leave right after lunch, figuring if we could average 6 knots we'd make the Delaware just in time to ride the current to the D&D Canal and through it. Interesting trip, leg the Highlands at 8 knot under sail in 20-25 knot winds, motored around the end of Sandy Hook, got blasted by the winds again for a screaming reach; then the wind started rising and falling. A beautiful moon rose illuminating the narrowest frontal cloud I've ever seen. The wind stopped, backed 90 degrees and blew 10 knots on the nose... nothing goes to weather like a Yanmar. All sails down and pedal to the metal. I went off watch with the engine running, in my half sleep I heard Ruth shut it down. I woke for my midnight watch to find us surfing in 30 knot winds with just the genoa up - wow! 9/26/10 - We carried that all the way to dawn and Cape May. Ariel was ahead and took the inside route tight to the Cape's beaches; we followed, crossing a fearsome standing wave as we exited the turn. The Delaware Bay was choppy, like Lake Winnebago in 45 knot winds. We pounded through that for 2 hours turning our boats into salt-cicles. As the bay narrowed into the river the water smoothed; it was fun! The relief was so great we could have run a couple more days and nights. We flushed through the canal at 8-9 knots over ground. S/V Trumpeter (one of the fleet we sailed all night with) overtook and led the way past a dredge and into the Sassafras River where we anchored next to Ariel for the night. Interestingly we were not as tired as the crossing of the Gulf of Maine with Sampatecho. 9/27/10 - It poured last night, great because it washed a lot of salt off. It is still sprinkling as I write. We moved to Havre de Grace as Ruth needs to go to Philly and wants to look for a couple of items here. We took a mooring at Tidewater Marina as the current and bottom don't favor anchoring. Almost hit a tug and barge in front of the marina. It passed under the bridge without an opening, blending into the dark bridge and island behind it. As it got within 50 yards it emerged from the background. We walked into town (3 blocks away) and had a late brunch at an Italian restaurant. Then I joined Ruth on a rainy tour of bookstores and antique stores until my head overloaded from looking at stuff I didn't know what I'd do with if it was given to us. A quick stop for a couple of grocery items and back to the boat. 9/28/10 - Woke to heavy rain, any salt on the boat is long gone. The weather lightened up around 10:30 and we went ashore. First we registered for another night one the mooring as the gale winds were forecast to blow up the bay all day. I got a haircut while Ruth searched for DVD's. Back at the boat we read and made a pizza. A down day without much going on. 9/29/10 - We heard trains and tugs moving around after 4am. Busier place than yesterday! A quick look at the weather and forecasts confirmed this was the day to head to Annapolis. The day started beautifully, blue sky and sun, as we motored south (no wind) the sky grayed and the drizzle started. Still no wind and glass smooth seas. We took advantage of the ride to clean the watermaker, freezer and refrigerator. By 2pm we were fueling and taking on water at the Annapolis City Marina. From there we moved up Spa Creek to anchor near Sampatecho's mooring. I haven't commented on our Raymarine autopilot for a while because it is what it is. We've learned how to force it to start working after being turned on; once on it usually works until we turn it off. Today I'm trying to arrange to send it in for repair. 9/30/10 - September is being flushed out - literally. It started raining in the middle of the night and it has poured steady since then. At times we can't see 50 yards. These tropical depressions cry a lot! It's almost 7pm. Most of the docks are under water and the tide will be rising another 2 feet. According to our weather contacts, we've received anywhere from 4-7 inches of rain. Many of the condos don't have a lawn gradient to cover the two feet so it'll be probably a preventive night for them as time rolls with the tides. I (Ruth) went downtown and the statues at head of ego alley in the harbor were almost drowning (up to their chests). Many of the businesses, including our favorite hamburger bar, already had sandbags that stood 6 or 7 feel tall with water at the 2 foot level. Annapolis has 7-8 rivers above it that flow into the Chesapeake sooooo, the tide will not only be high during the night but in the next 12-24 hours lots of runoff will be coming soon. It should be interesting. I'm sorry, but we're floating and the winds have abated for awhile so it's kind of like a gawker thing. Pictures will not work in the night but we'll get pictures early 2moro for your inside look. I just asked Barry to publish but he said let's wait until the morning when we have the "story". |
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Ruth shot this photo of the houses along the beach near where we anchored in Milford
The houses look like models If you see this page... it means that we've successfully changed hosts. If you don't, you're in the dark. We'll be adding some new features to the blog thanks to the expanded services of Bluehost.
Atlantic Highlands, in Sandy Hook, at sundown
As the sun sets on a hazy night we leave New York for New Jersey's coast
What does a cruising boat look like? How about this older catamaran?
Here's another cat, a little different design...
a cat of a different species, a power cat
speaking of power, the cabin cruiser was designed to be a cruising boat
a smaller mono-hull sailboat fits the ticket for some couples...
of course if you have a bigger crew... whoops, this is a chemical tanker on the Delaware
all of the above need adequate water depth - that's the job of these guys we encountered dredging the channel at the Chesapeake end of the D&D Canal
As the water rose this homeowner walked out on her dock to tie down the furniture
Normally this dock is two feet above high tide and this photo was taken at low tide; we didn't stay up for the midnight high tide |
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View our prior 2010 Logs