Jeff's second post

Tuesday July 11

I never imagined it would take this long to write another installment.  What have I been doing for so much time?  I feel I have been very busy.  To recap briefly –

·      We left Cape May with Dave about 5 pm on July 2.  We had returned to the boat that afternoon to find a gremlin – the water pump would not shut off.  We stressed about that for 24 hours.  And then, off the coast of Cape May, the mainsail jammed in the track most of the way up.  That was far more stressful to me because we could not lower it, could not turn toward the wind, couldn’t do much anything except motor to England.  With my help, Dave struggled it down and we thought it was fixed.

·      We then spent the night motoring upthe NJ coast.  With all due respect to my NJ friends, there is not much to do on that leg, but get through it.  We did, just fine, arriving at Sandy Hook about 9 am the next morning, motorsailing into the outer NY harbor on a beautiful morning.  We got the anchor down and Dave made the second full English breakfast of the trip.  It was wonderful.  Later, we took him ashore and he took the ferry to NYC to spend the night there with Donna, who took the train up late in the day.  Jae and I went to bed very early, basically trying to stay awake until it was dark.  I don’t think we quite made it.

·      Next day, our friends Tina and Chris came aboard for lunch, Dave returned with Donna and we enjoyed a nice afternoon on the anchor.  Late afternoon, we dinghied ashore and had a terrific lobster feast at Tina’s house, overlooking Sandy Hook Bay and the NYC skyline in the distance.  No local fireworks alas, but in the distance, we saw plenty.

·      Next day, through the East River and up into Long Island Sound.  A tricky passage, but by timing it right, it seemed easy.  Oh, and the water pump started working right after Dave gave it a couple of gentle whacks.

·      Just past Throgs Neck Bridge, we tried to hoist the mainsail and again it jumped the track.  Now, we were under the bridge, drifting toward shallow water.  The Coast Guard came to check on us (the academy is right there and I think they have their eye on Jae and Dave anyway).  Jae and Dave diagnosed the real problem, we fixed it and had a great sail (no motor!) up to Cold Spring Harbor where we spent the night on anchor and fired up the grill to cook tuna steaks.

·      Next day, we toured Cold Spring Harbor, tried to identify Elton John’s former house, did find Billy Joel’s house, bought a bosun’s whistle so I can now pipe Admiral Jae aboard and finally motored over to Norwalk.  My sister Robin and niece Sonya came aboard for dinner and we also had a totally unexpected rendezvous with Annapolis friends Walter Laird and Raul Nelson busy on a delivery from Marblehead to Annapolis.  That was fun, until they came alongside at 6:30 am the next day to beg for engine oil.  Reminded me of the movie Captain Ron where they were always pouring oil into the engine.

·      Later, we went ashore and had a terrific lobster feast (yes again, and we have not yet gotten to Maine) at Robin and Andy’s club, Roton Point.  I think Walter et al got thoroughly soaked going down the East River in the rain.

·      On Saturday, Dave and Donna went home, which was sad, but not before a 3rd full English breakfast with beans and sausage.  I am sure they had fun and we were sorry to see them go.  We miss them.

·      Sunday we played tennis at Roton (what a civilized trip this appears to be so far!) and noshed in the grove overlooking the Sound.  After washing all of our dirty clothes at Robin’s house, we said goodbye and Monday morning, we left Norwalk for the Thimble Islands.

Now, the Thimble Islands are described as a slice of Maine off the coast of CT.  And that is a very fair description.  They are all privately owned so you cannot land on any of them.  We could not get the anchor to set so that we could admire them from afar, so we ended up motoring farther north to Sachem Head.  We got a free mooring there, but it just proved once again, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!  This mooring was exposed to the southwest, from whence the wind and the waves were coming and it got very rolly during the night.  We watched La La Land on the TV and I will always associate that movie with the tremendous up and down movement of the boat that night.

Needless to say we did not sleep that well and were eager to leave in the morning.  Another day of motoring has brought us to Stonington, CT, where we are now.  This is a delightful little seaside town, which we have visited before.  Tomorrow, we bike to Mystic.

So much for the travelogue.  Now, for a few other comments.  First, one night at Roton, one of Andy’s friends asked if I felt like the mayor of a small town – obligated to maintain electricity, water, sewer and all other services for the inhabitants of the boat while getting little or no compensation and not having the skill to do any of it.  It is quite apt and certainly applies to me.  Jae may be the Admiral, but I might be the Mayor.

Jae does not quite know how to live on a boat, nor do I.  But, between navigating, fixing things, worrying things that have not yet broken, I have not had much time to think about what I should be doing.  There is also more planning than I would have expected.  You can’t just anchor anywhere up here, so nights have to be planned out.  For the next week or so, we are planned, but looking later into the trip, our daughter Lindsay is joining us and we had to figure what airport she should fly into and out of.  That took a few hours to figure out a cruising plan that was not ambitious and would allow her to leave when she wants to go.  In short, we will pick her up in Narragansett Bay, where we will already be and we probably won’t leave the Bay.  We have never sailed there before, but when we get home, I think we will know it.  I hope Dave and Donna approve of our lack of ambition re Lindsay’s schedule!

I actually think we have adjusted to living on this boat more easily than I would have expected.  We did visit the West Marine store in every port until the Sachem Head rollfest, so that was not a good omen, but once we get West Marine out of our system, we should be better adjusted.  Our friends Raul and Valerie, joining us on Friday, kept asking what they should bring.  Our answer was – alternator belts that we could not find in West Marine.

One last final comment.  While we were in Norwalk, we went to Stew Leonards liquor store and stocked up.  Dave kept talking about how much storage space we have, so I guess we will be finding wine and beer in places we had forgotten to look.  A bit of a treasure hunt.

Coast Guard Adventure

So, as many of you know, I've written a new Leona book.  Basically it's about water and boating safety.  I'm still looking for an endorsement for this installment.  Then we go away on Sirius up the coast.  In looking at the sailing guides and online, everyone says that the best place to anchor in Cape May is by the coast guard station.  So we decided that's where we'll drop our hook.

We got there late morning and quickly discovered that it's not only a Coast Guard Station, but a training facility.  As the days went by, we woke to Reveille and the national anthem (do you need to get out of bed when you hear it?) and when the sun goes down we listened to Taps.  Not quite what I was expecting, but quite alright.  

Then I had this idea to go ashore and give them a copy of my book.  I would give it as a gift, and if they liked it, perhaps they would offer their endorsement...  Dave Glessing was happy to accompany me while Jeff worked on the boat.  It was a very short dinghy ride.  There was no one on the dock, so we tied up the dinghy and went ashore.

Dave said we shouldn't be there, but I retorted that we'll just give them my book and be on our way.  The place was empty, so I looked for an office building to drop off my book.  Ahead of us looked like some sort of administrative office, so we went in.  Again Dave said we shouldn't be there.  I was so full of my good intentions, I didn't listen.  We traversed the first floor hollering hello.  No answer.  Finally we exited at the far end of the building.  I was beginning to think I wouldn't find anyone, when a security car was driving toward us.  Both Dave and I waved him over.  At last I would give him my book.

The security guard was not happy.  He asked what we were doing here.  I started to tell him about my book, but he cut me off.  He stated that this was a military institution and we could both be arrested.  I said I didn't know that.  He said they have guns here.  Wouldn't that tell you something?  Police have guns, but you can walk into any police station.  Sometimes I can be very naive.  Then he asked for our IDs.  We didn't have any.  All we had was my book.  We told him as much and he became even more unpleasant.  We gladly gave our names and addresses and told him our sailboat name.  He asked again why we were here.  I started to tell him again and again he cut me off.  I was trying to be cooperative and answer his question and I was getting angry that my reason for being there wasn't enough for him.  

Finally he said he would escort us back to our dinghy.  I asked if I could give him my book and he could give it to the person in charge.  He said he didn't want it.  So, we walked behind his car as he drove to the dock.  When we got there he got out.  A few coast guard personnel were getting ready to get in their boat and do something.  The security guard said our dinghy was clearly blocking the way out.  It wasn't.  He said had this been an emergency, we would have been responsible for any delay.  They had a clear path out to open water.  

As we were led by the coast guard boat, I asked if I could give my book to them?  The security guard snapped no, so we hurried to undo our lines and be off.

                                                           ***

Days later, just past Hell Gate on the entrance to Long Island Sound, we attempted to put our main sail up by the Throgs Neck Bridge.  We were having some difficulty and had to take it down and start over.  A passing sailboat radioed us on Channel 16 if we needed help.  We told them no but thanks for asking.  Then the Coast Guard appeared ready and eager to be of assistance.  We told them we had things well in hand and then I asked them to come closer to our boat.  I said I had something for them.  I ran below and got a signed book, the one I tried to leave at the Coast Guard facility in Cape May.  I handed it over to them and they were very appreciative.  I said I tried to give the Coast Guard the book in Cape May, but that that didn't go over so well.  They looked puzzled.  

So all in all, I got my book into Coast Guard hands and didn't get arrested! 

Night Sails

Sailing at night is both scary and wondrous.  We've had two night sails now.  One from Annapolis to Cape May, NJ.  The other from Cape May to Sandy Hook, NJ.  Both times there were only three of us on the boat: me, Jeff and Dave.  We tried to overlap watches, but that didn't work out too well.  Even off watch, the engine was so noisy and the seas in the Delaware Bay and out in the ocean were very rolly, that sleeping was not possible.  Dave and Jeff took the first watch.  When I came up later, on my first watch, I overlapped with Jeff.  Jeff was so tired by the time I came on that I encouraged him to sleep in the salon on the couch.  I promised that if I needed him, I could simply call him and he could be in the cockpit in a few seconds.  He agreed and I was alone.

The sky is amazing at night.  When you get away from the cities and towns, it suddenly comes to life.  There are thousands of stars and planets that now shine down from the blackness.  The sea is black itself, but in their light and a partial moon, you can sea foam that our wake creates.  Everything is so massive at night, it's a bit daunting.  The sky is so full of specks of light from so far away and the water beneath the boat is so deep, I feel caught between to limitless spaces.  Perhaps that's where my uneasiness comes from.  

I was looking for Venus in the sky.  I was in the Delaware Bay and the waves were about 3-6 feet.  Our boat was like a toy being played with, as we rocked back and forth and fought the current.  The wind was also at odds but Sirius did well carving a path through the water.  Suddenly, up ahead and up high, I noticed what looked like two headlights shining right at me.  My first instinct was that this was a plane, but the lights were quite bright and coming closer.  It screwed with my night vision and I blinked several times.  I was just about to wake Jeff, when it turned away from me and toward the distant shore.  I saw no red or green lights, but when it turned I saw four white lights in formation, like points of a diamond, receding.  Earlier that afternoon, when we had passed under the Bay Bridge, we saw some Blue Angel jets pass overhead.  I thought maybe they were still doing drills and it might account for the four lights.  Afterburners?  Other than the engine noise and the wind and waves, I heard no sound.  I couldn't understand what I was seeing.  I called Jeff then and he scampered topside.  However, being awakened and trying to focus on the receding lights, now quite faint, he wasn't able to see anything too well.

Later Dave came up to start his shift.  I told him what I had seen.  UFO, he stated.  We laughed, but it left me uneasy...

While cleaning Sirius...

Jeff got it into his head to clean the two cockpit lockers on Sirius.  He hauled everything out of them and discovered that they were quite deep.  Needless to say, we ended up with lots of stuff in the cockpit.  He sorted through it all and returned those things his wished to keep.  Among the keepers was a dual horn he found.  Of all the years we've had the boat, we had never seen it before.  The picture above shows that at one point, wasps had made their home there.  Amazing.  We cleaned it out and have put it on the companionway shelf.

Jeff's first blog

Saturday evening – July 1, Cape May, NJ

Well, it is Saturday night and we are done for the night fairly early.  It has been a very eventful few days and I having been meaning to write about it but have not had the time.  As I write now, we are at anchor in Cape May, NJ.  We have been here for about 36 hours, arriving yesterday late morning.  Yesterday was something of a sleep deprived haze, but today after a lovely night’s sleep, we awoke strong and positive.  I am hoping for another strong start tomorrow as we do a second overnight passage, this time to Sandy Hook, NJ, going from the very bottom of the state to the very top of it.  A sailboat cannot really do it just in daylight hours, so we will leave shortly before night so that we arrive during the daylight hours the next day.  I swore off doing red eye flights for the office years ago and here I am doing it again for fun.  But, I guess this is my choice, not something forced upon me.

So, having rambled on about this precise moment in time, let me back up and comment on what has come before.  As those reading this know, Jae and I have owned this oversized boat for years now, always planning to travel on it.  Earlier this year, it became apparent that the time had arrived to do so.  I am not sure either of us are over the shock of actually doing it, but here we are two days into our 2 month boat trip and nothing disastrous has yet happened.  Over the past two months, we have both made lists of what we need and how to plan for this.  I teased Jae about her lists, but they were invaluable and I made them as well (but did not share always).  They verged on 100 items and sometimes it seemed that as we subtracted, we seemed to always find things to add.  Today, there was trip to West Marine to buy about four things and I am sure that won’t be the last one on this trip.

Before we left, we took on a daunting list of improvements to the boat.  First, we had ignored the watermaker that came with it.  There it sat for 8 years, utterly ignored.  We knew it was toast but on the Bay, we did not need it, so we ignored it.  We thought technology would improve and we should wait until we did need it and the cost would come down.  Someone encouraged that thinking, I don’t remember whom, and it turned out to be largely wrong, but thank goodness we have not had to maintain one all these years.

And then on departure day, Jae noticed our (new) batteries were not as fully charged as they should have been.  We called the marine electrician (Patrick Tewes in Annapolis) and he brought his team, diagnosing a bad alternator, which he worked hard to replace before we left.  More money . . . .  Whose idea was this, anyway?

At last, we were off the dock with our friend Dave Glessing, great company, a very experienced sailor and an overall ace at judging and fixing things, as I will report shortly, in this post.  After a fueling stop, we were in the Bay, heading north to the Canal.  The wind was strong behind us and we motorsailed with the 145% genoa powering us up the Bay.  We ran about 8.5+ knots almost the entire distance, surfing 3-5 foot swells, which is somewhat unusual for the Bay in my experience.   It was an exhilarating start. 

We had to decide whether to lay over in the north end of the Bay or push on to Cape May.  Past the Sassafrass River, there is nowhere for us to stop before Cape May, which lies about 12 hours farther on.  Having been delayed several hours by the alternator repair, we had to decide which to do -- we chose to keep going.  A good choice!  We saw a beautiful sunset, had a nice meal in the cockpit and good conversation.  Jae retired first, while Dave and I stood watch and puzzled through all the nighttime lights entering the canal.  It is quite a confusing array and I was glad for my recent captain’s training.  We saw a pilot boat, a couple of dredges, at least two hip and push tows and more.  I texted my instructor to thank him for the course.  Dave loves to chat on the VHF so he was a hale fellow well met throughout the night, chatting it up with everyone who would talk to him.  I enjoyed listening.  In the canal, the current, which we did time well, pushed us to almost 10 knots in very peaceful water.  But, coming out, into the river, the water turned rougher because we were now against the tide and the wind.  And more lights to decipher.

The Delaware River and Bay are among the more ugly, unredeemed bodies of water that I know.  You just soldier through them.  We did not see too much traffic on the River, but the water bounced us around and it was hard to sleep.  None of us slept much.  Early morning, we reached the ocean and turned north to the Cape May inlet.  We arrived around 9:30 am or so and once on anchor, Dave cooked a great English breakfast with tomatoes, fried egg, rashers and bangers. 

During our trip down, he had an accident opening the refrigerator door (really?) and needed some medical attention, so he and Jae got in the dinghy and went in search of a Doc in the box.  I stayed behind and did just about nothing.  After they came back, we cleaned up and found a happy hour ashore to help us sleep well.

The next day, we had intended to spend some time ashore, exploring Cape May, but boat chores consumed us, plus we made a date to meet our neighbors Jane and Pat Bannon with their daughters for cocktail hour aboard Sirius.  While I ferried Jane and the girls to the boat, Dave jumped in the car with Pat for a quick trip to West Marine for some needed boat parts.  (It does not end!).  The three of us had a quick beer before joining the ladies aboard for a very merry cocktail hour with 2 dozen oysters that I shucked.  The next day, they drove us around Cape May, a town they have been visiting for holidays (summer and Christmas) for many years.  It was a lot of fun, even though we did ask to be taken to a hardware and to fill a propane tank.  After all, they had a car and we didn’t.

I will stop here.  We did depart Cape May that afternoon and confronted gremlins on the boat over the next 24 hours or so.  We have survived them, but not without Dave’s terrific help, good cheer, and overall English humor.  We look forward to having his wife Donna join us tomorrow.  More to follow.

We're off!

Well it's now Saturday, July 1st and I finally have time to start blogging.  So much has happened so far that it will probably take several blogs to tell it all.  Jeff said he will blog too.  Right now Dave Glessing and Jeff are working on assembling a fishing pole to try to catch some fish, so I have time on the computer.  All day,  all I've heard is "Jae where is ..." or "Jae, can you get me ...".  It's exhausting!  But now the two of them are occupied with something else, so I can write!

We wrote the harbormaster at Shearwater to tell him we were out of the slip and the dinghy was off the dinghy dock.  We were currently at Jabins having some last minute work done.  In my text to him, I signed off with bon voyage.  When he wrote back, he said "non voyage"?  I guess the type self-corrected.  But just when I got his text,  I had noticed that our battery was at only 93%.  It should have been 100%.  So I called our electrician and he said he'd check it out.  The result was that our alternator was shot!  He pulled off a miracle and got us a new one but we were several hours (maybe 5) delayed.  I guess the type self-correction was accurate after all.

Preparing Sirius

Wow, there is so much to do.  The compulsive and list-oriented person that I am, I have a spreadsheet to keep track of all of our tasks.  When I first drew it up, it had over 70 items to complete before we left in July.  We are now in the lower 50s with about 10 of the tasks being done by other people.  We've had to re-certify everything on the boat--the life raft, the epirb, the man overboard device.  We are having another sail made.  One company is trying to get our propane dinghy motor to function.  We've decided to install a water maker, too.  There are lots of little tasks like reconfiguring the bimini frame so the canvas fits properly and adjusting the knife holder so knives aren't falling all over the place in rough seas.  So far we've gone through all the tools (that took most of a day) and Jeff has been going to the boat often to work on fixing and organizing things.  I'm feeling good right now that with a month and a half to go, we will get through my list.  

This is my first blog, obviously, on our website.  I needed a blog to start things off.  Of course, website development is also on my list.  Well, I've got to get back to work.