Annapolis to.....

There was no wind in the forecast for the foreseeable future and it was way past time to leave Maryland. This meant that our hard earned carbon credits would take a hit as we made our way to New York.

We headed up the Chesapeake with a pit stop on the Sassafras River, then continued on through the C and D Canal with another stop behind Reedy Island. Crossing the cut from Delaware Bay to the back side of Reedy Island is always a bit unnerving. It is very narrow with a wicked current smack dab on the beam. There is supposed to be plenty of depth, but we are always relieved to make it across without touching bottom.

The weather started to deteriorate just before arriving at the cut. It was another one of those afternoon thunderstorms that can be quite violent. A half an hour after we were anchored, 2 French boats (from France, not Canada) anchored fairly close to us. This was not a problem until the storm hit us with it's full force. Very strong winds against a five knot current meant all 3 of us were sailing around on our anchors. We all had our engines on as a precaution. The winds eventually died without incident. Then we got mucho inches of rain over the next couple of hours. The nice kind of rain with no wind and no lightening.


Taking advantage of "free" water to soap and scrub our Sporta Seats.

It would take a full day to make the Harbor of Refuge at Cape Henlopen at the south end of the Delaware Bay. We left about an hour before the current would turn in our favor. Going south, you can't ride a fair tide the whole way, so you try to at least get the full 3 1/2 hours that it gives you with the emphasis on the northern section where the currents are strongest. Going north we have been able to ride it longer. It's all about the tide actually being a wave blah blah blah.

As usual, once we neared Cape Henlopen, we decided to just keep going. By that time the tide had turned on us, so strategically it was not a great move, but we wanted to get the overnighter over with. It turned out to be a beautiful night, although it seemed we fought a foul current all the way to NY Harbor. We had not experienced a foul current on the New Jersey coast before, so I'm not sure what's up with that.

The other negative was we got bombarded with killer flies from Reedy Island all the way to Atlantic Highlands. We swatted and tossed full time. At one point I had a stare down with one and I watched him spit on his "hands" and then rub his eyes. We need to understand this behavior. I need stimulus money to study why flies wash their eyes with spit.

For any newbies out there, here's a couple of pointers. When you swat a fly and it appears to be dead, if there are no spilled guts, it is not dead. It is only stunned. Give it a few seconds or minutes and it will fly off. So you have to dispose of it immediately or he'll come back for seconds. On another subject...when you are at a Laundromat and you see all the out of order signs on the machines, it is really how the attendants save the machines for their side business. No more free advice.

As we approached Atlantic Highlands/NYC on a beautiful weekend day, New York Harbor was a buzz. One might get the impression that a lot of people live in the New York City area. I want some stimulus money to do a study--I can do several studies at once. Oh, I guess I need to belong to a union. In addition to the commercial shipping, everyone who lives in NYC owns a boat and anchors in the middle of channels. It really is quite an experience. Many high speed ferries, ships, tugs, sport fishers, commercial fishers, pleasure boats of all sizes vying for flounder--even with calm weather the harbor is rockin and rollin. It's like the first shot in pool, except the balls keep scattering.

They added new channel markers in the middle of the anchorage at Atlantic Highlands, so there is a bit less room to anchor, but at least they didn't add mooring balls. As I've said before, we love this stop. There are beautiful places to take long walks, pretty trees, and nice hills. They also have a laundry, propane, grocery store, and a very good farmers market on Fridays. Like many of the towns we pass through, businesses here are finding it hard to survive.

We basically motored the whole way from Annapolis to Atlantic Highlands, so I'm looking for a group that I can give a Green seminar to. I hear this will build our carbon credits back up at light speed. I can tell them we only use recycled paper towels, don't drive an SUV, don't use soap that works, don't use bottom paint that works, use gas that clogs up our dinghy engine, use environmentally friendly jerry jugs that only spill liquid when the cap is on tight causing the liquid (gas) to make it's way down our deck then topsides and then safely into the water. Not only will I accrue carbon credits, but people will bow down to me and know that I am good.


Walking trail. The first time I've ever owned black tennis shoes. Lisa tells me they look fine, then she laughs at me.


Lisa walks too.


View from the bridge overlooking the Shrewsbury River and the town of Highlands.

Late one afternoon, we had some unexpected strong winds blow through. We didn't have our instruments on, but the gusts were really high. Lisa turned the engine on as we realized we were dragging. We came within a boat length or so of dragging into another boat, but were able to motor out of trouble, weigh anchor, and then re-anchor in another spot. This alarmed us because we had set our anchor well, and it was our third day in the same spot. We take our anchoring process seriously and are not used to dragging, so it was quite humiliating. When I pulled the anchor up the area between the shank and the plow was full of big green leaves (that grow under water) which prevented it from resetting.

After observing the dynamics of the anchor and chain in the clear waters of the Bahamas (in my fish killing uniform), I'm convinced that the anchor resets every time the wind or current changes unless both are benign. The beauty of the plow type anchors (as opposed to say a Danforth or Fortress) is that they reset easily and well. The only thing I can figure is that when our anchor turned around it caught a mouthful of leafy growth which stopped it from resetting. I'm glad we were on the boat.

Friday we took advantage of the excellent Farmers Market, returned to the boat, then decided to go ahead and make our run through NYC, the East River and on to Manhasset Bay on Long Island Sound. The tide called for a late start--we needed to arrive at the Battery (Manhattan) somewhere between 4:15 and 5:15. This entails a foul current through NY Harbor then a fair current through Hell Gate and the East River.

As we passed under the Verrazano Bridge, we looked up at the cars above and marvelled at the voters that let the politicians charge them $10 a pop to creep across that bridge. Then we refocused our attention on the container ship and the tanker behind us. As you pass under the bridge you enter the Narrows--yes it narrows. Lots of ships are anchored here in addition to coming and going. A lot of high speed ferries are darting all around and numerous helicopters are taking off and landing . It's usually a bit rough because of the "narrowing" effect in addition to all the traffic, wind against current etc.

Once you exit the Buttermilk Channel and hang a right onto the East River, the turbulence dissipates somewhat. While there are still many high speed ferries to deal with, they can't come at you from as many different angles as they can in the harbor.

When you pass under the Brooklyn Bridge, the sleigh ride begins. After bashing up the harbor, the East River is fun--assuming you paid due attention to the tides. If not, you will have a bad day.

We rode the current all the way to Manhasset Bay and had the anchor down at 8:15--in time to watch the sun set.

We plan on being in the Fish Tail near the end of the month so that Lisa can take her HAM Radio license test. Yep. She wants to be a HAMMY. This will allow us to have free text email through our SSB when not in the US. More importantly, Lisa tells me she will be able to talk to the Space Station. I'm thinking she better learn Russian, Chinese, or Arabic if she wants to do that. In the mean time we're in the market for a good pocket protector.

Annapolis

We spent a lot longer in Annapolis than intended. As a matter of fact, we are still here. A doctor's appointment, waiting on results, then a follow up appointment coupled with waiting the arrival of materials needed for boat maintenance, just kept adding to our time in the area.

June brought July/August temperatures to us, the only problem being, we don't like July/August temperatures in the Chesapeake. We had hoped to be north a lot sooner, but that was not to be.

The train ride home to the marina. These are very young kids in their Optimists, being towed back after their time on the water.

A big project we have planned for this summer is to haul the boat out and to compound and wax the topsides (the area between the deck and the water), and to paint the bottom (boaters call this a bottom job. Also, if we refer to a dirty bottom, we are talking about a section on our boat that has marine growth on it). Our current plan is to do this at Chesapeake Boat Works in Deltaville since they have reasonable rates and allow you to do your own work. I would really like to get that done now, but we will probably wait until late summer/early fall when the temps are more agreeable.

The pumpout boats here normally make you give them your boat's documentation number, port of call, size of holding tank, length of boat, cell phone number etc. During one of our pumpouts while anchored in Weems Creek, the harbormaster's assistant (who drives the pumpout boat) asked for all that info, then handed us a sheet of paper from the harbor master on which he had written down our latitude and longitude. We were to fill out the remainder of the sheet of paper and take it to the harbormasters office at the city marina. They want to know our address, phone number, length of boat, last port, how long we plan to stay in our present spot, our next port, our next of kin, if we have any physical ailments, boat registration/documentation number, dinghy registration number, a photo ID (passport or drivers license). All of the above is NONE of their business. Somebody has to stop these people. OK, so they are trying to encourage people to pump out?

Reminds me of gun laws--only made for the honest people. Criminals don't care about laws and disregard them. When they get caught, the same people who want more gun laws fight to set the criminal free--making the gun laws an obstacle only for the law abiders. 1 + 1 = 2. 2 + 2 = 4. It's not rocket science.

We threw the sheet of paper away.

We almost made it 3 years before having a "security" issue on the boat. On July 5th at 4:15 am, Lisa, who had been reading in bed, opened the companionway in a not so quiet manner. Then I hear her talking to someone. It took me a moment to realize she was using her "I'm in charge, don't mess with me, you're in BIG trouble" teacher voice. As I made my way onto the deck, Lisa is demanding answers from 2 teenage boys (16-19 year olds) who are in the water next to an overturned kayak. They had been trying to board our boat from the kayak which had flipped over in the process. They shattered one of our cockpit anchor lights which was mounted on the rail near the cockpit. They either broke it so it wouldn't shine on them, or they accidentally hit it with the paddle when the kayak flipped over. Either way, we are minus one light.

Here's an example of the conversation.

LISA What are you doing on my boat?!!!! (said with emphasis and deep feeling)

Boy # 1 "I need a cell phone to call my mom" (said with a smooth, slick, and innocent tone). Then after an extended pause "Where's the closest shore?"

They had no chance of emptying the kayak, righting it, and getting in so they used it as a life jacket (one boy said he couldn't swim) as they made their way to the north shore (not very far at all--we were in a creek not an ocean),

I kept our million candle power spot light trained on them and Lisa kept her glare trained on them until we were sure they made it safely onto a pier and scrambled up the hill. Is it wrong to wish that they ran through poison ivy on their way up the brush to the road? OK, we didn't wish that, we only thought it might happen.

We think they stole the kayak from one of the waterfront houses and planned to rob our boat. They left one of those flashlights with the big honkin rectangle batteries on our deck.

For their benefit, Lisa yelled for me to call the police. We knew not to do that (once again--we're the ones that would be put through the wringer not the kids--been there done that). We decided that next time, I will yell for Lisa to get my shotgun.

The Skin Nazi is done, we have one more package to pickup tomorrow, 2 faxes to send, then we hope to be outta here. The plan is the Sassafras River, then the C and D Canal, down the Delaware perhaps to Henlopen Harbor then on north.