US/Canada East Coast 2008

Hurry up and wait...

Tregoning — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 23:17:00 +0100

The two problems that we wanted to get resolved on the boat while we were in Oriental were an inefficiency in the refrigerator that caused it to cycle on and off repeatedly when the battery voltage was low (but not as low as it should be able to tolerate) and a leak at the top of the rudder-post, which had been putting a steady trickle of water into the bilges whenever the boat was underway. The former problem was quickly resolved by Acer who replaced the power cable with a bigger wire. He pointed out various other things about the wiring that could be improved but we hope to address these more completely during our December sojourn in Fernandina Beach.

The rudder leak had been a problem since we had owned the boat and although Randall knew what needed to be done, he was reluctant to attempt to fix it himself because of the potentially severe consequences of making an error and having the rudder drop out, leaving a significant hole below the water level. Instead, he watched Jorge, the mechanic from Deaton Yacht Services, expertly make the appropriate replacements and adjustments. Jorge turned out to be an interesting person who is a fifth-generation resident of Oriental and whose great-, great-, great-grandparents had arrived in the area in the 1870s. They had been involved in the naming of the town as a result of his great-, great-, great-grandmother finding the name-plate of a sunken Union troop-transport ship (from the Civil War) on the beach in the nearby outer banks. The ship had been "The Oriental". Jorge could remember that in the late 1960s his father owned the only boat kept in Whittaker Creek (where Deaton’s was located). Now the town of Oriental with a permanent population of fewer than 1,000 is supposedly home to more than 2,700 sailboats, many of them in marinas and boatyards along Whittaker Creek.

Thus, Acer and Jorge were finished with our repairs by the end of Tuesday (Nov 11^th), the day before we had expected them to even start the work! Having arrived in Oriental on the Veterans’ Day Holiday, we could not get our mail from the Post Office or our order from West Marine until the next day so we stayed for the night anyway. An evening stroll proved to us that it is a small town that, as reputed, is indeed very oriented (!) towards boating needs, which, of course, suited us just fine. On Wednesday morning, we decided to remove the broken shroud so that we could ship it back to the manufacturer to be replaced. This sounded easy but after I had been hoisted up the mast and then hoisted Randall up, it became obvious that we did not know exactly how to remove the end of the shroud that was attached half-way up the mast without risk of dropping parts down inside the mast (which would require the expensive lifting of the mast off its base on the keel for recovery). Luckily, Wag, the rigging expert from Deaton’s was able to describe to us how the attachments were made and on my second trip up the mast I was able to remove the shroud. Needless to say, by the end of this exercise our arms were tired from winching each other up the mast. Everyone was shocked to see how badly the shroud had failed (only 2 of the 19 twisted strands of wire were unbroken)and it was like nothing Wag had seen before. We were all curious to hear from the manufacturer how this could have occurred…and for us, most importantly, how we could be reassured that all the other shrouds and stays that were replaced at the same time were safe.

Having shipped the shroud off, and collected our mail and equipment order, we motored out of Oriental and across the Neuse River to a protected anchorage on the South River. Having picked a suitable bay surrounded by pine forests, we anchored just at the sun was setting and settled down to ride out the passage of a couple of rainy fronts (a warm one followed by a cold one). As predicted, Thursday was wet and windy for most of the day so we kept ourselves occupied indoors. Friday was more of the same. So was Saturday… Although we could have moved on down the ICW, we decided to wait-out the stormy weather at our South River anchorage. At least with only distant neighbors in the River, we did not have to worry about the proximity of other anchored boats swinging around in the strong winds as we would have had to at the next intended anchorages in Swansboro or Wrightsville Beach. Also, we had two tornado watches on Saturday (in fact, as I write the second one does not end for another 3 hours) indicating the potential severity of the weather, so staying in at anchor rather than having to move around with other ICW traffic seemed less stressful.

I must confess that, unlike Randall, I still get rather tense when I hear the anchor line creaking at the bow and gusts of 25 knots or more whistling in the rigging but I suppose that I am getting used to it…or at least the wind-speeds that make me nervous are gradually increasing. And looking on the bright side, the wind generator had been very effective so we have been able to use the laptop all day and even watch some college football on TV (but sadly did not get the channel with the Gator game). (The internet access is too slow to post photos on the blog but I will catch up with those soon…) The forecast is for the rest of the week to be sunny, breezy, and very cold with NW winds so we hope to head further south tomorrow…but we will likely stay in the ICW until the seas calm down later in the week.

The Intra-Coastal Waterway parade

Tregoning — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:04:00 +0100

One of the welcome sights in Hampton, VA, was the first brown pelicans that we had seen for months. This is about the northern limit of their non-summer range so we finally started to feel as though we were reaching "The South". So far it seemed that our autumnal southward journey had not been as rich in wildlife as our summer route northbound so it was a particular pleasure to have something other than seagulls to observe. Marine mammals had been absent for weeks or, at least we had not seen them, so we were all the more glad that we had been so lucky in our observations earlier in the year.

Although the morning of Friday (Nov 7^th) started off cloudy and cool, by the afternoon the sun was shining and finally things were calmer, warmer, and we and the boat were beginning to dry out. We had a good cruise through the busy city of Norfolk, weaving between many Navy, commercial, and cruising vessels, and the VHF radio was abuzz with the routine warnings, requests, and other ship-to-ship communications of the Navy and commercial traffic. Once we had entered the ICW and were waiting for the various bridge openings and passage through the one lock at Great Bridge, it soon became apparent that we were not the only cruisers heading south.

In fact, the ICW was such a parade of boats going in the same direction that it was hard not to feel that one was part of a cult being drawn by some force towards a common place…but then I suppose that actually sums up the fall migration of snow-birds and full-time cruisers pretty well. Everyone was trying to get south to warmer climes without getting caught in the tail-end of hurricane season. If you had deviated from the ICW channel, you had to wait your turn to merge back into the stream of boats going south. Soon they will need to issue tickets to reserve a place in line… The radio was also alive with captains of large powerboats warning slower boats that they were about to pass on the port or starboard side, or someone warning of a dead-head (submerged log) in the channel. Generally, everyone seemed to be very civil and few were rushing along causing problems with their wakes. The desire to get to a suitable marina or anchorage before they filled up, resulted in most boats (especially the slower sailboats) setting off around dawn (6 am) and pulling into the night’s stop-over site between about 3 and 4 pm (sunset being at 5 pm). Most people appeared to have made the trip before or were following the same cruising guide, so some of the anchorages were very popular.

We had been along this route twice before but both times in June, which is late in the boating migration season, and the first time (when we were delivering this boat to Florida) we were going against the normal direction of travel. So we did have a good idea of where to stop and how long each passage should take but we were not at all used to the shorter days and the density of traffic. Suddenly, our cruising life which had seemed rather bold and unusual when we were further north looked a bit more common and mundane! And the prospect became more apparent of the Bahamas seeming very crowded in January. However, if you explore away from the main ports, the Bahamas are large and spread-out with plenty of room for anchoring, and we had to remember that the ICW was concentrating nearly all the southbound boats into a narrow channel during a few weeks in November. If the weather was cooperative, sailing out at sea south of Beaufort, NC, was starting to look even more appealing!

We made our first stop on the ICW early on Friday afternoon at the marina at Great Bridge just 12 miles south of Norfolk. It was our first marina stop in three weeks and a good opportunity to do laundry, refuel, get a pump-out, top-up with water, and have an excellent sushi dinner as Randall’s delayed birthday meal. It was lucky that we arrived early as the marina was soon full. Saturday night was spent at anchor on the north side of Buck Island (Mile Marker 59) and Sunday at Tuckahoe Point (MM 104) both sites we knew from our June passage. The skies were clear and the early sunsets were beautiful.

With the fall colors in full display the scenery along the northern part of the ICW was gorgeous. This was fortunate because the paucity of wildlife compared to our summer passages continued. It was now obvious that outside nesting season, the ospreys and bald eagles that we had seen so frequently in June were much less active or were busy elsewhere.

On Monday afternoon we anchored in the bay at Belhaven and rowed ashore to revisit the location of our enforced sojourn on the way north (when we had problems with the starter motor). When we walked into the grocery store, we saw that there was a nurse providing ‘flu and pneumonia vaccinations. Although we have been remarkably healthy throughout our shake-down cruise, it occurred to us that it would be a good idea to be protected for when we visited Gainesville and the university campus in December (a notorious time for virus exchanges after students return from traveling over Thanksgiving). The convenience was an added incentive so there we were at the end of the cookie aisle in the Belhaven Food Lion getting shots! A dawn start and a following wind on Tuesday allowed us to get to Deaton Yacht Service in Oriental by lunch time and even though the work order was set for Wednesday, Jorge and Acer were working on the boat by 2 pm. That was efficiency!

Experiencing election fever in Virginia

Tregoning — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 03:07:00 +0100

As if the NYC Police did not have enough to deal with between the Halloween Parade and election day the following Tuesday, we had learned during our walk around Central Park that the NY Marathon was being held on Sunday (Nov 2^nd). A record number of participants was expected (over 38,000) so there was no question of being able to jog along the same route as I had accidentally done at the Newport Marathon. Thus, we decided that leaving on Saturday before the city was taken over by this event was a good idea. The forecast also encouraged us to leave early so we motored out of the harbor under sunny skies and on calm seas. In fact it was calm enough for us to be able to watch the Gator football game (thrashing arch-rival Georgia) on TV as we cruised down the New Jersey coast.

That night we were enchanted by the bioluminescence which lit the leading edge of the bow wave a bright, neon, turquoise and made the wake glow green. But by 4 am, when I was due to take over a three-hour watch from Randall, the wind had increased from 5 knots to 25 knots with 30 knot gusts and the glassy seas now had 6 ft waves with occasional 8 – 10 ft waves and a short interval of only 4 – 5 seconds. The wind and waves were racing past us from behind and it took me a while to get used to seeing wave crests behind us that were several feet higher than the deck…but which passed under the rising stern of the boat without a drop getting on deck. We dropped the mainsail, which we had raised in the evening, and flew along on just the jib. These conditions continued through Sunday and most of that night and by the time we arrived at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay early on Monday morning, anything that could move had either been placed or shaken onto the floor, and we were pretty exhausted.

After motoring alongside the shipping channels heading toward Norfolk, and being passed by a submarine with a Coast Guard escort, we anchored in the harbor at Hampton, VA, and slept for much of Monday (especially Randall who managed longer watches during the rough conditions than I did). We stayed in the boat on Tuesday and Wednesday which were very wet and windy. On Tuesday night we anxiously watched the election results on TV and when Obama’s victory was announced we were happy to hear the cheers, and see a few fireworks, from the neighboring Hampton University (no prizes for guessing how we voted). Since we were in Virginia, we were rather pleased that this swing state ended up supporting Obama, although it was a close call. On Thursday we took our bikes ashore and cycled around in misty drizzle to get groceries and run a few other errands before our departure for the Intra-coastal Waterway (ICW).

We had talked about making the outside run around Cape Hatteras but our rough passage to Hampton encouraged me to argue that this part of the ICW would be less stressful than the ocean route. We also wanted to have a couple of things on the boat looked at in a boatyard and the one in Oriental, NC, was well recommended. We had not stopped before at the "Sailing Capital of North Carolina" so we were looking forward to visiting Oriental for a few days which would also give us a chance to catch up with our mail. We might go back out to sea from Beaufort, NC, to avoid the more boring "ditch" part of the ICW but that would be determined by the weather.

The marinas and the anchorage in Hampton were busier than we had expected. We had become rather used to being on our own heading south from Nova Scotia as marinas, yacht clubs, etc, closed for the season behind us. One reason for the crowd was that a yacht race to the Caribbean that had been due to leave Hampton before we got there had been held up by the stormy weather in which we had arrived. They were then being further delayed by the threat that the strong Hurricane Paloma, which had just developed in the western Caribbean and was aiming to pass over the center of Cuba and the southern Bahamas, might cross the racers’ route somewhere in the North Atlantic. Little did we know that our experience of the crush of boats in Hampton was just the beginning of a southward parade of boats and crowded anchorages/marinas on the ICW, the like of which we had not experienced before.

Spooky times in NYC

Tregoning — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 13:12:00 +0100

Having recovered from our pounding on the mooring ball in the Hudson River on Tuesday (Oct 28), we decided to stay in NYC a bit longer than originally planned, delaying our departure for Norfolk, VA, until Saturday. The weather after the storm was clear and sunny but still pretty cold in the mornings with the cabin being only 44F when we got up and our main source of heat (without shore power) being cooking on the gas stove.

On Wednesday afternoon, after assuring ourselves that the boat would be all right despite the continued breezes, we visited Macy’s Department store which was celebrating its 150^th Anniversary. We also wandered around the surrounding areas including Herald Square, Bryant Park, and, as darkness fell elsewhere, Times Square. We went downtown on Thursday to see how things were going on Wall Street (the Dow Jones Index actually went up that day) and visited the Federal Hall (across Wall Street from the New York Stock Exchange). Federal Hall was where George Washington was inaugurated on April 30^th, 1789 (New York was the US Capital from 1785 – 1790). It was also where Congress first met and adopted the Bill of Rights and created the Departments of State, War and Treasury, and the US Supreme Court. Given our tour of the sites in Boston that were significant in the creation of the nation, it seemed appropriate to see where the first President of the United States of America was inaugurated. Inside, there was an exhibition of interesting and candid newspaper pictures of various US Presidents from the 20^th Century which fit well with the buzz of the approaching election. Interestingly we had not noticed many election posters or signs in New York City, whereas in places like New Hampshire there had been signs for competing candidates all over the place. To add to the sense that we were at the font of American democracy, there was a small demonstration in progress outside Federal Hall, protesting the vote to remove term limits for the NYC Mayor, which would allow Michael Bloomberg to stand for a third term.

We also walked around the huge Ground Zero site. This was a bit disappointing as there is not much to see other than massive construction and even that cannot be viewed from anywhere very well. There is a Visitors Center / Gallery to try to cater to the many sightseers but the lines were long and we decided to leave that for another time. Having visited in December 2001 when everything was still so raw and disorganized, we were a bit surprised that the huge construction site makes the place seem a bit mundane at the moment. I am sure that the area will be more suitably reflective once the new buildings are finished and the memorials are complete and open.

We then walked up West Broadway to met our niece Olympia at her cool job in the Anthropology store in Soho and have a lovely dinner with her. She is in charge of the design of the displays and this store is all about interesting displays of the clothing, small home-items, etc., not only in the beautiful windows but throughout the store. She clearly enjoys her job and living in NYC and it was wonderful to see where she worked. As we dined in a bar/restaurant where we were surrounded by intriguingly carved pumpkins, she encouraged us to try to attend the Halloween Parade the following evening although she warned us that the crowds were large and formed early.

Having cruised past the United Nations Buildings when we came down the East River, it seemed like a good idea to take a tour of the place, which we did on Friday morning. As might be expected, there were visitors from all over the world and it really was inspiring to see the flags representing the 192 member countries fluttering outside. The wait for the hour-long tour was not too bad and there were many interesting sculptures and displays to peruse outside and while waiting in the lobby. That day the General Assembly Hall was open (but not the Security Council Room) and the guide did and excellent job of emphasizing the purpose, jurisdiction, and operations of the UN. There were various interesting exhibits in the corridors outside the Hall, including exotic gifts to the UN from various nations (such as the incredible carving made from eight elephant tusks given by China in 1974 – prior to the ivory trade ban), items recovered from Hiroshima that were burned in the atomic explosions, and "Plumpy Nut" a 5,000 calorie food ration based on peanuts that does not need to be refrigerated and can be fed to starving children. It was amazing to sit at the back of the General Assembly Hall which can seat more than 1,800 people and see where so many global issues are discussed and decisions made. The pairs of representatives from each country are seated alphabetically in the hall but the starting point (at the front of the hall) is randomly changed every so often. While we were there the first country was a country beginning with B (maybe Brazil…I forget) so the A’s were all at the back (Argentina’s desk is visible in the photo).

Although I’m not one to usually comment upon, or particularly enjoy gift shops, there were some very good ones in the basement at the UN. Some sold items from the UN agencies’ catalogs (e.g., UNICEF cards and gifts), while the main one had not just generic UN items but also specialty products from a huge variety of different countries, all neatly displayed and labeled by country of origin. It was a global exhibit in itself. The gardens outside were closed for renovations and there were signs to explain how the whole UN complex was undergoing an overhaul to make it more sustainable.

While in an international mood, we took the subway to Chinatown and walked along some of the busy streets. It was remarkable how much it looked, sounded, and felt like being in China, a privilege that I enjoyed in 2006 when I went with my friend and colleague, Kaoru, to Hong Kong, Hainan Island, Kunming, and surrounding area. After much debate we finally selected a restaurant for lunch where we were seated in the far back (only Chinese patrons in the window seats) and enjoyed an excellent meal. It was lucky that we had a large, late lunch because we ended up staying in town for the Halloween Parades and having got a front-row place to stand, dared not leave to get any dinner!

From Chinatown we went to Greenwich Village and wandered around looking for the streets and bars, such as The Bitter End Bar, that Randall had knew about from the Beatnik days. When we found ourselves surrounded by small children in costumes we realized that there was a children’s parade before the main event. The stores that sell costumes must do very well in that area! We also noticed that children (with their parents) go "Trick or Treating" in the small, local stores, restaurants, and even into places like The Bitter End Bar… We also saw masses of NY Police Officers being assembled in preparation for the parade. Presumably parades are regular enough events in NYC that their organization is routine but we were impressed to see so many cops gathered together.

We found a place on a barrier near the beginning of the main parade route on 6^th Avenue about two hours before it started and waited for the sun to set, the crowds to amass, and the parade to begin at 8:30 pm. The crowd was good natured and the route was well patrolled by police officers who generally seemed to be in relaxed moods. This parade is a bit unusual (in our experience) in that anyone in costume can participate. It starts with some organized teams walking on stilts in ghostly costumes or working puppets and banners that sweep out over the crowd. There are bands or music at various intervals along with coordinated dance groups or floats, and between them are random collections of folk in costume just walking along and having a good time. Yes, we saw some Sarah Palin’s (one was amazingly similar to her) but mostly it was the usual Halloween themes (photos with next journal entry).

We decided to leave before the end, thinking that this would give us a better chance of being able to get on the subway sometime before mid-night. We did manage that but only after being squeezed along in the densest crowd I have ever experienced to get from our vantage point on 6^th Avenue out to a side road. We were not the only people wanting to take the subway but the police were allowing people to enter in groups so that the platforms and turnstiles did not get over-crowded. While it all looked chaotic and rather alarming to us, NYC parade neophytes, it was all remarkably well organized and well worth the effort to experience.

Rocking and rolling on the Hudson River, NYC

Tregoning — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:05:00 +0100

We had left Florida on June 1^st and had hastened up the East Coast to try to distance ourselves from the summer heat and the most frequent targets for hurricanes. Now the challenge is returning to Florida after hurricane season is over (end of November) but without getting too cold or caught up in too many frontal storms. We are learning that the latter may be inevitable. The winds had whistled over us in Oyster Bay on Saturday night (Oct 25^th) with 40 knot gusts that created a steady 1 – 2 ft roll of white-capped waves under us, even though the fetch (distance upwind of us to land) was not very far (less than half a mile). The anchor held us very well and after various adjustments to the securing lines, the dinghy bounced around behind us quite happily (happier than me at times…wishing, after our recent dinghy-flipping incident, that we had hauled it up on deck or at least removed the motor.) We didn’t try to venture to shore for the Oyster Bay parade so we do not know if it went ahead as scheduled despite the strong winds. But if it did, at least the rain held off until later in the afternoon.

Sunday, however, dawned sunny and relatively calm allowing us to hoist the dinghy on deck comfortably and easily get a pump-out (of the toilet holding tanks) at the free, do-it-yourself, hand-cranked, pump-out station on a dock floating in the bay’s mooring field (every harbor should have one). With empty tanks and happy hearts we motored out of the bay and west, into the wind, towards the familiar skyline of New York. We anchored in the early afternoon on the northeast side of City Island which is just three miles from the imagination-inspiring, Throg’s Neck Bridge that marks the west end of Long Island Sound and beginning of the East River. It was such a lovely afternoon that we considered relaunching the dinghy and going ashore to explore on our bikes…but instead opted to relax in the sun and enjoy watching the week-end sailors who had been denied their fun the day before.

Passing through New York City on the East River on a week-day is recommended because most of the traffic will be commercial boats who are experienced with the conditions there. For boats such as ours with a low maximum motoring speed (about 7 knots), there is some debate as to the best time to get to Hell Gate, an infamous section of the passage where 7 knot and shifting currents are not unusual. The most conservative approach is to aim to reach the Gate at the slack of high-tide just before the current starts to ebb out into New York Harbor. This requires motoring for an hour against the current to get to Hell Gate at slack water. We had studied the hallowed "Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book" and read numerous online sailing discussions and settled on a plan that should be a bit more exciting, getting us to Hell Gate an hour after stack water when about a 4 knot current would carry us through. Thus, our Monday morning objective was to get to Throg’s Neck two hours after high tide at The Battery (the southernmost tip of Manhattan Island) which that day was at 7:47 am.

A large barge and two local sailboats passed us on our way to the bridge but otherwise we saw remarkably little boat traffic which allowed us to thoroughly enjoy the ride through the city. It was another beautifully sunny day, although hazy at water level, and we swung through Hell Gate at an impressive 10.6 knots (speed over ground) although we were probably only motoring through the water at 6 knots. As we zoomed past we studied: LaGuardia Airport, the partly dismantled Shea Stadium, (but we couldn’t identify the World’s Fair site beyond), Rikers Island (a huge prison complex), Hell Gate (where the Harlem River joins the East River), Roosevelt Island (a narrow island that divides the East River into an east and west channels for about a mile), the high-rises of the Upper East Side, the United Nations Building, the gleaming pinnacle of the Chrysler Building, the familiar Empire State Building, the lower buildings of mid-town and the East Village, the high-rises of the Financial District (including the hyperactive Wall Street – the NY Stock Exchange gained 900 points that day), The Battery, the Statue of Liberty, and around into the Hudson River on the west side of Manhattan Island. We passed under about 10 bridges including the Queensboro (59^th St) Bridge over Roosevelt Island, and the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges. By taking the western channel around Roosevelt Island we avoided the only bridge that we would have needed to have opened for us (at 110-130 ft the rest are easily high enough) which is just as well because it would have been interesting trying to hold against the current to wait for a bridge to open. With the buildings gleaming in the sunshine it was an excellent ride and we were very glad to have been encouraged back in Newport to make this passage. In addition to the constant buzz of small commercial and sight-seeing helicopters around the harbor, as we started up the Hudson River a formation of six miliary helicopters flew low past us.

The trip up the Hudson River was more familiar to us as we had come this way with my brother Mike in May 2007 at the beginning of our trip south to deliver the boat to Florida. This time we passed the grand Surfside 3 Marina where we had spent the night on that trip (listening to golf balls being pinged out towards to the river from the adjacent sports complex and multi-story golf-driving range) and kept going north to the publically managed, West 79^th Street Boat Basin where we picked up a mooring for a reasonable $30 per night. Although the marina is packed in the summer, there were several mooring available at this time of year and we recognized at least one of the other half-dozen or so cruisers that appeared to be stopping for just a few nights like us. The moorings are fairly close to each other in three rows running parallel to the Riverside Park on shore on the east side of the river and typically the boats swing around to face up- or down-river depending on whether the tide is flooding or ebbing. There are some waves as ferries or barges pass by but normally boats are held relatively steady by the current.

We launched the dinghy and went ashore for the afternoon to stretch our legs and enjoy the beautiful day and autumn colors as we wandered around the Upper West Side and through Central Park. Later in the evening we returned to shore to have dinner with friends, Curtis and Alastair, who have a wonderful residence in a classic, turn-of-the-century New York building just three blocks away from our mooring. We shared an excellent meal and swapped New York, Florida, and sailing stories well into the evening. It gave us a chance to ask lots of useful questions about things to do during our stay and made us feel much more involved with life in the city. Pleasantly wined, fed, and cheered, we returned to the boat and had finished securing the dinghy just as the forecast rain started to fall.

During Saturday’s storm in Oyster Bay there had been some discussion that the weather would again deteriorate on Tuesday but as the day had approached the forecasts kept increasing the severity and duration of the storm as a pair of low pressure systems converged over us and winds were sucked in from a high pressure system to the northwest. We were prepared for Tuesday to be wet and windy and had planned indoor activities (such as a tour of the UN) accordingly. Instead, we did not leave the boat before Wednesday afternoon, having been rudely tossed out of bed by a violent sideways rolling of the boat early on Tuesday morning. The winds had picked up a bit earlier than predicted and a 30 knot north wind with 40 knot gusts was howling straight down the Hudson River at us. The problem was that the tide was flooding upstream at the same time and the conflict of the opposing wind and current was making 4 to 6 foot waves that were rolling by us in very quick succession. The scene on the mooring field was chaos. Boats were being blown and pushed by the water in all directions so that much of the time the waves were broadside (hence the violent rolling which dumped many cabin items on the floor). Like us, other cruisers were scurrying out on deck, some to find their dinghy cast adrift (luckily it floated on its own into the marina), others to fear that their mooring was not holding them in place and they were dragging towards the marina or out into the channel. Other than being tossed by the waves, our biggest problem was being blown ahead of our mooring and alarmingly close to the wildly swinging, unmanned, boat ahead of us. While three other cruisers decided to abandon their moorings and either tie up at the marina (there were only a couple of deep-enough slips left) or try to pick up a mooring in a less crowded area, we started the engine and put our boat slowly in reverse, gently pulling against the mooring and away from our wild neighbor. This position put our stern pointing into waves which is not streamlined like the bow, but our boat actually handles stern waves quite well. Slightly more alarmingly it meant that the dinghy was regularly surfing towards us, threatening to be launched onto the stern deck but never quite getting there. To make sure that the dinghy lines did not drift down into the propellor when slack, I sat on the stern deck and held them for a while until it started to rain at which time we devised a better system using bungee cords to hold the lines out of the water.

Eventually the wind dropped a bit and the tide turned so that the waves calmed down and we could turn the motor off. Instead of taking watches sitting in the cockpit as we had done for a few hours, we both stayed in the cabin and set the kitchen timer to remind one of us to look outside and check that all was well every 15 minutes. As it turned out, the dawn madness was the worst it got because of the particular wind and current conditions but the forecast was for the strongest winds to occur mid-evening. Thus, although we were less anxious than we had been when things had felt rather out-of-control during the morning, the day was not exactly relaxing as the second blast was anticipated. The news was full of stories of flooding from the more-than 2-inch downpours and the exceptionally high tides, power outages from wind damage, and snow blanketing the inland areas of New York and New Jersey. The NOAA weather reports described the "unseasonably cool air temperatures" and movement of an "anomalously cold airmass" creating these unusually early snow falls and strong winds…just our luck!

However, for us plenty of wind means lots of power generation so we watched a DVD and some TV as the winds whistled around us, and Randall learned about the joys of the hot-water-bottle (never needed during his central California childhood) as temperatures dropped close to freezing with the north winds. Luckily, the winds backed to the west during the day so that even with the stronger gusts on Tuesday night there was no repeat of the alarming waves because the fetch was short across the river and it did not oppose the currents. Randall slept in the salon for most of the night fully dressed so that he could check outside whenever anything sounded or felt unusual. With a lot of debris, including some large logs, floating by in the river it was not unusual to hear things bumping along the hull. By Wednesday morning, although cold and still gusting to 20 knots, we felt much more confident about the boat and dinghy’s safety and were willing to plan a short venture to shore between tide changes in the afternoon. We enjoy visiting New York City and we like reasonably priced places to stay…but we will happily skip the news-worthy storm conditions next time.

Dinghy flipping in Long Island Sound

Tregoning — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 13:47:00 +0200

We had thoroughly enjoyed the visit from Martha, visiting Cape Cod, the islands, and Newport but now it was time to head further south (well, technically, it would be west at first). Before departing Newport on Saturday (Oct 18^th) we wandered through the Seafood Festival being held at the wharf adjacent to ours. Despite the bitter north wind whistling between the buildings, the event was well attended with a good variety of fare available but overall it was small affair compared to the Shrimp Festival we had attended in Fernandina Beach in the spring. Still, it made a nice send-off from Newport.

We motored further north into Narragansett Bay, under the suspension bridge that had been visible from our marina slip and was so attractively lit at night, and eventually around the north end of Conanicut Island which separates the East and West Passages into the Bay. We could then sail downwind on just the jib to our anchorage on the west side of Conanicut Island, in the north end of the cove of Dutch Island Harbor. During our passage south from Boston, we had noticed that one of the shrouds (guy wires that support the mast) had begun to unravel from its top. This is not a good thing… especially when all the shrouds were new in March. At least this was one of three shrouds on the starboard side and only went half-way up the mast, and we had put our spare halyard (rope that runs over a pulley at the top of the mast and is used to hoist sails, etc.) in a supporting position. We had decided not to worry about it during Martha’s visit but were being careful not to put too much pressure on the sails. We initiated calls to find out what could be done about replacing the shroud, which we hoped would be covered by a warranty, and getting a gratis check of how all the others looked. In the meantime, we decided to try to limit ourselves to one sail at a time unless the wind was on the port side (in which case that shroud would have been relatively slack anyway.) As it turned out, over the next few days the winds were strong enough and in suitable directions that we were able to get good speeds sailing on just the jib most of the time.

We stayed in our anchorage for a couple of nights to get things on the boat back into two person mode (i.e., loading stuff back into the fore-cabin) and to wait out some particularly gusty north winds. On Monday, with a good north breeze we sailed south out of the Bay, around Point Judith, and about 30 miles west to Watch Hill, the westernmost town on the Rhode Island coast. After cautiously motoring along a narrow channel in the shallow bay between Stonington, CT and Watch Hill we had a lovely anchorage just on the north side of a sandy bar that separated us from the eastern end of Long Island Sound. The evening was actually very calm and we enjoyed listening to the waves rolling ashore on the other side of the sand bar.

We had discussed visiting Mystic, CT, specifically Mystic Seaport Museum, a simulated 19^th century working port and sea-faring village with a variety of interesting boats including a tall ship and others being restored and preserved. However, our cruising guide was not encouraging about places to anchor that would be close enough to dinghy into town and the prices for marina slips were surprisingly high. We were also in the mood to keep going west and south so we decided to save Mystic for another trip. In the glassy conditions of Tuesday we motored 55 miles westwards, close to the north shore of Long Island Sound and anchored in "The Gulf" north of Charles Island and near Milford Harbor. As forecast, the north winds picked up again resulting in a rather noisy and bouncy night.

On our way north in July, we had sailed straight from Lewes, Delaware to Block Island, RI, on the ocean (south) side of Long Island. This time we were going to take the "inside passage" and stay in Long Island Sound until we passed through New York City on the East River. Having not been in Long Island Sound before, we were interested in the new potential ports of call and were slightly lulled into thinking that sea conditions would not get too bad. Thus, it was rather foolishly that we headed out on Wednesday morning with the dinghy still in tow, as it had been since Martha’s Vineyard. With north and NW winds of 20 – 25 knots and gusts up to 30 knots forecast, we set our sights on crossing the sound and getting to a sheltered anchorage in Oyster Bay on Long Island by early afternoon. We did reach our target but several hours later than expected…via a detour to Bridgeport, CT.

We were rather pleased with ourselves when we left our anchorage at Charles Island without having to start the engine. After hauling up the anchor, we were steadily blown out of "The Gulf" under "bare poles" (no sails) and then pulled out the jib for a swift ride down the Sound. The choppy waves were at least the forecast 2 – 4 ft height and there were frequent 30 knot gusts but we were making good progress and all seemed well until there was an odd noise from the stern and we looked back to see the dinghy still attached but upside-down. The good news was that the outboard motor was on its mount on Tregoning and not on the dinghy (of course, it might have weighed it down enough not to flip over but a submerged outboard is not a happy engine). Also the oars were well enough secured to the top of the dinghy tubes to survive being towed under the water. Remarkably, the only loss/damage was the wooden seat (needed for rowing) was gone by the time we turned the dinghy over. We apologize for leaving it in the Sound.

It was too rough and windy to deal with the dinghy in open water so we started the engine and prepared to head for the closest shelter. This was Bridgeport about 10 miles due north of us. It took a huge effort to furl up the jib and in doing so the jib sheets (lines) became tangled into a massive knot that took about 10 minutes to untie once we were sheltered. But we did get the jib in and slowly motored against the wind and waves into the shelter of Bridgeport harbor. In the lee of a large power plant we dropped an anchor and flipped the dinghy over, hoisted it up on deck, untangled the jib sheets, and secured the mainsail with extra sail-ties. We were thankful that loss of the seat was the worst damage from the event and that we had coped with everything all right but we could not quite believe that we had been stupid enough to try towing the dinghy under those conditions. Another lesson learned on the shake-down cruise!

From Bridgeport the crossing to Oyster Bay was fairly straightforward. We used just a partial jib and flew across the Sound. As we headed southwest, it was exciting to realize that one of the towers starting to appear on the western horizon was the unmistakable shape of the Empire State Building, a good 30 – 35 miles away.

We anchored in Oyster Bay Harbor and after studying the weather forecast and tidal currents in the East River decided that we would be staying there for several nights. This was our first visit to Long Island and the following day we relaunched the dinghy and motored it to the town dock from where we explored the small town. We took our bikes into town on Friday and rode out to the grocery store as well as mailing our absentee ballots. This was my first Presidential election and we wanted to be sure that our ballots arrived in plenty of time for election day.

Many of the large houses that we passed on our way into Oyster Bay were probably summer or weekend homes for New York City dwellers and the stores in town reflected this along with the change in appearance of pedestrians between Thursday and Friday. For example, we were told that Billy Joel has a house across the bay from where we were anchored. The citizens of Oyster Bay are particularly proud of their link to Theodore Roosevelt who had a house on the adjacent Sagamore Hill (now open to the public). There is the attractive waterside Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park with a "stone chronology" of his life (an annotated collection of stones and bricks from places in his life), a large statue of him on one of the main streets, and on Saturday was to be a parade to celebrate the 150 anniversary of his birth. We had hoped to go the to parade but, as forecast, strong winds and a threat of rain encouraged us to stay on the boat at the anchorage. Saturday night was predicted to be particularly wet and windy although with the wind from the south, it was at least warmer than it had been with the north winds. We planned to leave on Sunday, spend the night at the west end of the Sound and then go through the East River to stay on the Hudson River on Monday.

Off-season in the yachting capital of the Northeast

Tregoning — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:37:00 +0200

We spent Tuesday (Oct 14^th) night back at Vineyard Haven but just anchored outside the breakwater and did not go ashore. Instead we set off early on Wednesday and with a good breeze assisting us, crossed Vineyard Sound, wove through the Elizabeth Islands at Quicks Hole, crossed Buzzards Bay, and then swung around Gooseberry Neck and Sakonnet Point to enter Narragansett Bay. The skies had started clouding over on Monday and by Wednesday the wind had come around from the north so that temperatures had dropped to more autumnal conditions. We didn’t have to deal with any of the rain showers that had been forecast but the weather was definitely less settled than our mini-summer on Martha’s Vineyard.

Calling ahead to book a marina slip in Newport, RI, considered by many to be the yachting capital of the Northeast, we discovered that several marinas were already closed for the season or had reduced staffing levels. On the other hand, there was plenty of room, off-season rates, and no waiting for the laundry at the very nice Newport Yachting Center where we ended up. With just a few more weeks before the floating docks were to be pulled out for the winter, a few tourist spots around town were closed but mostly we discovered the advantages of being the late-comers to the popular yachting town.

Newport has a very interesting mixture of historical features. Rounding into Narragansett Bay, one immediately notices the many, huge mansions that line the coast. Some of these "summer cottages" are open to the public and many can be viewed from the elegant Bellevue Avenue that runs southward along the ridge passing through town. Randall and I biked/jogged along there one morning, stopping to read many of the informative interpretive signs but failed to carry a camera to capture the opulence of these late 19^th – early 20^th century "cottages". The richest families in the US (e.g., Astors and Vanderbilts) competed to have the most impressive summer homes including the Vanderbilts’ Marble House which cost $11 million to build around 1890 (they divorced a few years later). Although the costs of these mansions became untenable for most owners in the 1930s-40s, some were maintained as schools and the Preservation Society of Newport saved and restored others. Although such flagrant extravagance of conspicuous consumption seems a bit shocking in today’s economic turmoil but there still appears to be much affluence in this region.

Martha is a keen tennis fan, so on Thursday afternoon we visited the International Tennis Hall of Fame which is located in an elegant facility that was built as an elite club for the fashionable summer residents of Newport’s Golden Age. With fastidiously maintained and used grass tennis courts, the center was the 1881 site of the tournament that evolved into the US Open Tennis Championship. I learned a lot about the history of tennis and was reminded of many of the tennis icons of my youth.

Our walks about town not only featured the many reminders of Newport’s glory days but also showed that many older buildings from the late 1700s had been maintained throughout the narrow streets. There are so many interesting historical markers that one could wander for days reading them all and studying the many architectural styles that they describe. And all of this, of course, provides a fascinating backdrop to the current popularity of the town for visitors by land and sea. There was not a continuous waterfront walk as we had enjoyed in Halifax and Boston but there is public access to many of the wharves and the choices for shopping and restaurants are almost overwhelming. We had anticipated being a bit intimidated by the boating congestion and, quite-frankly, snobbishness of the more affluent yachtspeople that we had assumed were associated with this town. But we were very pleasantly surprised and although not anxious to return during the height of the summer season crowds, we felt that this much-heralded yachting Mecca was well worth a visit. Yes, there were many huge power- and sail-boats in the harbor but our marina companions were friendly and modest just like the other yachting folk we have seen everywhere else on our trip.

After waiting for an hour for a car to be returned, we picked up Martha’s rental car late on Friday morning. The staff were in for an uncomfortable afternoon with 15 reservations but no cars as none had been delivered as expected from the airport, so we were lucky to get one. After a quick grocery shopping trip, we waved Martha goodbye as she set off for Boston to catch a flight back to San Jose, CA, early the next day. We stayed another night in the marina to do laundry, get sorted out, and plan our next course as we aimed for New York City. Before our departure, I participated briefly in the Newport marathon on Saturday morning. I was going in the wrong direction and met the race by coincidence just after its start but it was the closest I have been to running in a marathon!

Taming Woods Hole and a whaling near-miss

Tregoning — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 03:00:00 +0200

Having been made so welcome on Martha’s Vineyard it was hard to leave but we wanted to see Woods Hole and Nantucket before heading west to Newport, RI. On Sunday morning (Oct 12^th), the whole of Annie’s clan came to see our boat in Vineyard Haven and waved goodbye as we set off for Woods Hole with Doria and Dwight. The wind was light so our sailing was on a rather haphazard route but we arrived in time for the 1 pm opening of the telescopic pedestrian bridge that separated the main harbor from the tiny but well protected, Eel Pond. The road bridge was being replaced but it is still a very narrow channel into the Pond which is well-filled with moored boats. The lack of wind was a positive advantage here as Randall carefully maneuvered us into our marina slip. Eel Pond is surrounded by buildings of three marine research institutions, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Marine Biological Laboratory, and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Even outside the busy summer season, the small town has the feel of a university campus as it is so dominated by the research laboratories. Doria had worked in some of these labs and so could give us a very interesting tour of the town. We also looked around her parents’ lovely summer house which had belonged to her grand-parents and where she had spent many of her childhood summers. Like Annie, she positively glowed with fondness for the area.

The following day, we left Doria and Dwight to return to Boston and Florida while we cruised out to learn about the whaling history of Nantucket Island…or so we thought. Nantucket Island is east of Martha’s Vineyard and south of the eastern edge of Cape Cod, with the main town of Nantucket on its northern shore. By 1700, European and native islanders had already begin pursuing whales in long boats from the shore and this industry expanded in the 19^th Century to create vast wealth that is reflected in many of the large and elegant houses. But the whaling industry collapsed at the end of the 19^th century as the recovery of petroleum products became more efficient. This decline was not a moment too soon for some species of whale. And although Nantucket may have lost its major industry, the wealth of the island has been maintained by the inflow of money from the mainland via affluent summer residents, yachtsmen, and tourists.

This much we had learned from our cruising guide but our mission to add more details to this history was thwarted. We arrived at the Nantucket Whaling Museum at 4 pm allowing us an hour before their usual closing time, only to find that they had closed an hour early for a special event. Even more irritating was that this Monday (Columbus Day a federal holiday) was the last day of summer hours and the museum would not be open again until Thursday…too late to be any use to us.

Instead we found a pub for a pre-dinner drink and the following morning walked around the town admiring the buildings. A few of the streets have their original cobblestones and brick sidewalks. With the autumnal street trees and handsome houses the overall effect was very picturesque, especially as the place wass not packed with tourists. In fact, the whole area, especially in many of the affluent residential areas, has been so well maintained in the New England, whaling-era style of wood-shingle-sided houses with white and grey trim, that there is a slightly theme-park-like perfection about it. If we had stayed longer, it would have been worth riding our bicycles around more of the island to see if this atmosphere is island-wide or just around the main town. It had some similarity to Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard but otherwise our experiences of the two islands were quite different. We looked forward to going ashore at Martha’s Vineyard again…

A wonderful welcome to Martha's Vineyard and a great surprise

Tregoning — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 02:50:00 +0200

After a peaceful night in Quissett, we awoke on Thursday morning to the sound of wind in the shrouds and, as forecast, we nosed out of the secluded harbor into windy and rainy weather with a nasty chop in Buzzards Bay. But we wanted to get to Martha’s Vineyard so we motored and bounced into the wind to get to Woods Hole, carefully navigated through the swirling currents of the inlet, and then popped out into Vineyard Sound. Woods Hole is named for the narrow passage between Cape Cod and the Elizabeth Islands (which separate Buzzards Bay from Vineyard Sound) and currents roar and whirl in and out with the flooding and ebbing tides. Underpowered boats can get caught in the narrowest part and be driven towards the shallows or rocks that are scattered throughout the inlet. We motored against a couple of knots of current which slowed us down a bit but in some respects this can be safer than hurtling through with a strong following current that quickly can sweep you off course since the currents do not necessarily follow the deep channels. Added to the general excitement, there are ferries ploughing in and out of Woods Hole so they must be watched carefully as well. However, given the unpleasant weather, we didn’t have to worry about any other recreational boats which simplified matters considerably.

We were too busy watching for ferries and channel markers to pay too much attention to the famous buildings of the marine research institutes in Woods Hole but we expected to return under better conditions. Once in Vineyard Sound it looked too rough to go to the moorings that the parents of our friends had near Menemsha (up-wind on the west side of the island) so we headed across the Sound to Vineyard Haven. After calling around to find a dock or mooring that was not closed for the season, we left the boat on a town mooring. During the couple of hours that we looked around town and got the boat prepared, the clouds started to dissipate. Chuck picked us up and took us to his wonderful house where he and Martha made to feel most welcome. Their daughter Annie and her husband Jack, our friends from Florida, arrived later that day along with their friend from New York, Valerie, while Martha was entertaining us to a beautiful walk to the beach in glorious sunshine with their two black labs, Lily and Chadwick.

On Friday, after another beach walk under wonderful clear skies, we went to meet some other friends of Annie and Jack’s who were arriving in Oaks Bluff on the ferry from Woods Hole. On the way, we drove through the majestic Edgartown with its many grand, whaling-era houses. With some time to kill in Oaks Bluff we hoped to have a chance to ride on the oldest operating platform carousel in America (from 1876) the Flying Horses, but disappointingly it was closed. We had more luck, however, with one of the other interesting features of Oaks Bluff, the "gingerbread cottage" surrounding the wood-and-wrought-iron Methodist Tabernacle that seats 3,000. In the 19^th century, Methodists from all over the country assembled for camp meetings that were initially held in tents. Gradually, tiny wooden houses replaced the tents, each with intricately decorated front porches. In 1879, the main meeting tent at the center of the village was replaced by the open-sided Tabernacle and now the cottages have been restored and provide a unique village of small summer cottages.

Annie was anxious to meet the ferry on time but Randall and I assumed that we did not know the new arrivals since their names had not been mentioned. It was only as we watched the stream of disembarking passengers to see if Annie had spotted her guests that I suddenly recognized our very good friends from Gainesville, Doria and Dwight! It was a complete, brilliantly planned, and wonderful surprise. It was so clever of Annie and Jack to keep us innocently in the dark and so amazing that Doria and Dwight had only decided that week to make the trip to Massachusetts to join us. With such perfect weather and fabulous hosts, it was the most splendid weekend we could ever have imagined on Martha’s Vineyard.

We spent the rest of Friday and Saturday touring around the island, picking up all sorts of goodies to eat, walking all over the beautiful beaches and wooded land around Chuck and Martha’s amazing property, and listening to music from Dwight, a marvelous musician who came prepared to entertain with his guitar. We were thoroughly spoiled and amazed by the wonderful company and sun-drenched scenery. It was so fun to see Annie’s complete love of the area and her enthusiasm to share it with us, which was particularly manifest in her almost non-stop ability to provide narration for our five hour hike on Saturday. The only mutiny against further exploration came in the evening when returning in the van from a sunset visit to the multi-colored clay cliffs of Aquinnah (a.k.a. Gay Head on the southwest corner of the island), her suggestion for trekking down to a south-shore beach was met with a weary silence. The alternative suggestion to return to the house for lobster and fish dinner easily won the majority vote.

Walking the Freedom Trail and sailing to Cape Cod

Tregoning — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 02:29:00 +0200

Randall’s sister, Martha, had flown into Boston from California on Saturday (Oct 4^th) and wisely chose to spend the night in a hotel. On Sunday morning, in the 10 minutes between the time she called us to say that she was coming to the boat marina and arriving, in a flurry of last-minute tidying I managed to trigger a spasm in one of my back muscles. Thus, when she stepped on board with Randall, I was lying on my back with my legs elevated in a rather alarming fashion. Luckily, with an hour’s rest and some aspirin I was walking again, albeit rather slower than usual and we set off to follow the Freedom Trail. This 2.5 mile trail is marked by a red brick (or painted) line leading through the Boston streets from the Boston Common to Bunker Hill. With a National Park Service brochure in hand, it is a self-guided tour of 16 colonial, Revolutionary, and federal sites in downtown Boston and Charleston related to the events at the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. It is an excellent way to see some significant places and get some exercise. The traffic was relatively calm on a Sunday morning but we found ourselves in a constant stream of other tourists quietly imagining the drama of the late 1700s. It appeared to be about an equal mix of Americans marveling at the landmarks of the history lessons of their youth and foreigners to whom some stories were familiar (such as Paul Revere’s ride after seeing the lanterns at Old North Church warning of the approach of the British Troops) but who could also learn much from the trail about the progress of the Revolution. Starting part of the way into the trail, the sites we visited that afternoon included the 1713 Old State House and site of the 1770 Boston Massacre, Paul Revere’s House, Old North Church, Bunker Hill Monument (site of the Revolution’s first major battle and actually on Breed’s Hill), and the USS Constitution (the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world).

Thoroughly exercised (especially after climbing and descending the 294 steps in the Bunker Hill obelisk) we saved the first part of the trail for the next day. Unfortunately, only Randall and I were able to complete the trail because on Sunday evening, as Martha was stepping off the boat in the marina, the stool slipped and she took a nasty fall onto the dock. Thankful that she didn’t fall in the water between the boat and dock, we helped her back onboard and iced down a nasty bruise. Luckily nothing was permanently damaged but she sensibly took it easy on Monday while Randall and I finished the Trail (including the burial site of patriots such as John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere) and had a very successful grocery shopping expedition including finding a better step-stool. The Iranian taxi driver who delivered us and our bags of groceries back to the boat, was very excited by our adventures and not only enjoyed a look around the boat but was ready to park his taxi and come to Florida with us!

We really enjoyed Boston and would rank it as one of our favorite cities in the US and well worth another visit. We spent Monday night on a mooring just outside the Boston Waterboat Marina to enjoy the view of the city and to simplify an early departure on Tuesday. In beautiful weather we sailed to Plymouth where we stayed on a mooring at the Plymouth Yacht Club again. We were a bit disappointed not to see any sign of marine mammals on this, or the next, day but we were closer to shore than we had been on our previous passage and that might not have been such a good habitat for whales.

We were lucky to get a mooring at the Plymouth Yacht Club because they were closing for the season 10 days later, a theme that was likely to follow us down the east coast. Martha had also visited Plymouth before, so we went ashore briefly just to wander along the waterfront and enjoy a good seafood dinner. Wednesday was another glorious day with glassy seas so we motored to, and through, the Cape Cod Canal. Having consulted our cruising guide to determine the best currents to assist us through the canal, we arrived a bit early but started on through anyway. As the current grew stronger against us, rather than with us, we scoured the whole text of the guide more thoroughly to find that there was an error in their instructions (evident from contradictions in their full comments) and we had unfortunately followed the erroneous information. Luckily, our early arrival meant that we completed the transit before the current became a problem but it was a good reminder to double check our sources of tide and current information.

Once out of the channel in the shallow Buzzards Bay we had a lovely sail down the southwestern shore of Cape Cod to Quissett Harbor, just short of the entrance to the Woods Hole cut between Cape Cod and the Elizabeth Islands. In the small but deep and charming harbor, we were directed to a very protected mooring surrounded by steep, wooded shores and attractive houses. It was so calm that Randall donned his apron and baked a joint birthday cake for Martha and me (both September birthdays). I went for a run and then met Martha and Randall at a lovely nature preserve on the north side of the harbor entrance called The Knob. It was a very peaceful evening.

Getting ship-shape in Boston

Tregoning — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 02:19:00 +0200

Despite a strong downstream current, we left our Portsmouth Yacht Club mooring early on Tuesday morning (Sept 30^th) without incident. It did not appear that climbing the fence to get around the locked gate between us an our boat had aroused any particular suspicions from the locals…for which we were thankful. As the river spat us out to sea, we soon had the sails up and aimed southeast to round Cape Ann, a well marked island/headland on the northern side of bay in which Boston is located. Our route took us within good views of the Isles of Shoals, a series of islands about 15 miles off-shore on the New Hampshire/Maine border. Mostly privately owned but with limited public access, these islands are popular weekend destinations from Portsmouth. One of them has a large religious compound in a conspicuous, former hotel while others are no longer permanently inhabited. On our way north, we had passed a good distance to seaward of the Isles at night and been impressed by the multitude of navigation lights warning of the numerous reefs and shallows around them.

Rounding Cape Ann, we could look back at Gloucester an important harbor for fishing and whaling for three centuries. The town became more widely known after publication of the book and blockbuster film "The Perfect Storm" about the loss of the local fishing boat, the Andrea Gail, during a massive noreaster storm. Like the Isles of Shoals, we decided to leave a visit there for another time, opting to get to Boston in anticipation of the passing of a cold front that promised to bring cold, clear weather after a day or so of strong winds.

Although Randall and I have each visited Boston before and flown in and out of the waterside Logan Airport, the complicated mosaic of islands in the outer harbor had not really registered with either of us. Many of the islands are managed as State Parks or part of the Harbor Islands National Park and are popular destinations for hiking and water-related recreational activities during the summer. However, we didn’t have much competition for space mid-week at the beginning of October and we spent three nights either on a mooring or anchored on the west side of Peddocks Island (about 7 miles from downtown Boston) with only one neighbor for the first night. Of course, this may have been related to the fact that the winds (and choppy waves) changed from being southeasterly, and from which were initially protected, to westerly. We were fully exposed to the latter but we decided to stay there because the wind generator was humming nicely and the bouncing didn’t really affect our chores. Wednesday was cloudy and had steady 20 knot winds, with 30 knot gusts, and although the winds did not yield much on Thursday, at least the skies cleared and made for good drying conditions which were much needed in the boat as we started cleaning-up in anticipation of Martha’s visit.

It is not that we live like total slobs when we do not have visitors but their arrival is a good incentive for the kind of extensive scrub-down that involves the temporary relocation of seemingly every item on the boat. This was especially important after such an extended period of internal dampness that had permeated all areas of the boat without much opportunity for fresh air and drying. The V-berth in the bow is used for storage when we do not have guests. Thus, it does not get much attention until it is time to redistribute the stuff and freshen-up the walls, shelves, and bed.

Friday morning was gloriously sunny and although still windy, we had decided to go to a marina downtown for a few nights to complete our cleaning with the benefit of unlimited freshwater and external power that would allow us to run a small heater. With the passing of the cold front, the heater became doubly beneficial, not only for drying things out but also taking the bite out of the morning chill. When we pulled up the anchor we discovered an unexpected memento of our visit to Peddocks Island and an explanation of why we had dragged a few feet. There was a good-sized rock jammed between the prongs of the anchor and it refused to be tipped out. So we motored into Boston Harbor with our anchor and its companion rock hanging off the bow and it was the topic of one of the first comments as we were welcomed into the Boston Waterboat Marina. This beautifully kept marina is on Long Wharf, one wharf north of the well known New England Aquarium and in the heart of the downtown waterfront. The helpful marina crew were very resourceful and quickly produced a long crow-bar with which Randall was able to pry the rock free of the anchor. Luckily, the water was deep enough to allow the rock to be dropped in with a resounding splash without having to worry about it creating a hazard. It would have been really awkward to have had to land the rock onshore.

That evening we wandered randomly around enjoying the sights of Boston, fascinated by all the historical markers but trying not to spoil the walking tour that we planned to do with Martha. Neither of us had actually walked around downtown Boston before and it was busy with tourists despite the cold winds funneling between the high-rise buildings. By chance we ended up in the Italian district and had a delicious meal there in celebration of our fifth wedding anniversary.

During our wanderings we learned that the weekend was going to include a celebration of the official opening of the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a series of parks and green-spaces parallel to the waterfront, so there were booths and event-stages being set-up. The Greenway was built on the land made available by Boston’s famous "Big-Dig", the huge project that put an elevated and congested interstate highway underground. Running vastly over original time and budget estimates, it supposedly ended up costing in the order of $22 billion. Litigation is in progress regarding some sub-standard construction which resulted numerous leaks and the death of a passenger when a piece of the tunnel ceiling fell on her car. The tunnels may have had problems but the parts of the Greenway that we saw looked excellent.

Saturday was again cold and sunny but we spent most of it cleaning the boat. In the late afternoon we visited the outside market which we had noticed the previous evening. Held on Friday and Saturdays, the prices were remarkably good for all fruit and vegetables and were dropping as we shopped. Nobody wanted to be left with tons of produce, especially as some of it appeared to be past its best. This was no farmer’s market, the produce came from all over the world and was clearly not organic! The place was packed with people representing numerous ethnic backgrounds and it was a very memorable and fun experience. There was no doubt that you could stock up with a week’s worth of produce for very little money. We had to take care not to buy more than our limited storage capacity could handle but we returned to the marina excited at our good fortune in getting so much food at such bargain prices.

Another hurricane passes by

Tregoning — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:41:00 +0200

We left Portland early on Thursday (Sept 25th) and motored through glassy seas to Portsmouth, NH. New Hampshire only has 17 miles of coastline so it is easy to miss by boat but this also means that its largest port there is very important to the state, sitting as it does on the once-vital inland transportation route of the Piscataqua River. After cruising towards downtown to look at the harbor layout, we returned to the Portsmouth Yacht Club and took one of their huge moorings on the south side of the river. That night, we learned why the mooring floats were so large. When the outgoing tide and river rush past at about 7 knots it is the only way that the floats do not get dragged underwater. With the addition of 15 knot winds from almost the opposite direction, there were standing waves with white caps all around our stationary boat which is a rather odd sensation. If one looked only at the surrounding moored boats and not the shore, it looked as though we part of a close-knit flotilla cruising along at a fair speed.

As forecast, Friday was wet all day with continued northeasterly winds so we stayed on board and battled with the heads. I will spare you the details and the colorful language that punctuated the varying levels of success of the operations but suffice to say the work is still ongoing. For those not experienced with working in boats, the main problem is that the clever way that so much of the plumbing, electrics, etc, are packed away out-of-sight means that messing with it usually involves small and difficult-to-reach spaces that often have to be approached from awkward positions (see photo of Randall lying on his back working over his head in a locker with a small opening).

Saturday was still grey and drizzle resumed later in the afternoon but we did manage to escape from the boat for a few hours in the middle of the day. We used the Yacht Club’s launch to take us to shore and then rode our bikes to a marine store to get a needed part for the plumbing operation. By this time is was clear that the unsettled weather was likely to get worse as the now -hurricane Kyle was predicted to cause some 30 – 40 knots gusts along the coast on Sunday afternoon before making landfall along the Bay of Fundy or Nova Scotia. So we decided to stay on the mooring and wait it out, anticipating that at least the wind would allow us to generate power enough to watch some TV/DVDs.

Never let us be accused of complaining that it was not stormy enough for us, indeed we are grateful that the small-diameter storm went east of us and left most of the coastline in relative peace. But Sunday was windless with drizzle and intermittent fog and in the evening we broke down and ran the engine for a couple of hours to generate power since the solar and wind generators were not producing much and we used a fair bit to light-up our plumbing operations. Obviously, this river mooring was the place where we could have put a generator based on tidal/current to good use.

On Monday morning, there was a rush of lobster and fishing boats heading out to sea after the wet weekend but we decided to wait another day to let the seas calm down a bit. In fact, the skies brightened up considerably and by late morning we hoisted the bikes into our dinghy and rowed the short distance to shore. As we explained to the dock staff, we did this in case we returned from town after they stopped their launch service and left at 4 pm. Between us, we failed to consider a couple of implications of this situation that appeared somewhat significant later on…

We rode into the center of Portsmouth and admired the many buildings and streets that illustrate the history of the town. Founded in 1623 as the town of Strawberry Banke, the name of Portsmouth was later adopted when the international importance of the port became apparent. A naval shipyard was established in 1800, creating further similarities to its namesake in Britain. Near the waterfront, the Strawberry Banke Museum has 30 buildings from the last four centuries, some in their original positions, others moved there from elsewhere in the town. We viewed this museum from the outside but although it is highly recommended, we decided to save this for another trip. Instead, we signed-up for a twilight walking tour of the town and while we waited for that, headed to a micro-brewery. On the TV behind the bar we watched the news that the first version of the US government’s bailout plan for the financial markets had failed to pass the House of Representatives and in response the Stock Market had seen its largest drop in value ever recorded in a single day. As we contemplated the unfortunate coincidence of our retirement with all this financial instability (our income and pensions being dependent on investments) we noted that if this was the beginning of a Stock Market crash, we would be able to remember exactly where we were (The Portsmouth Brewery) when first heard the news.

Our twilight tour was the perfect antidote to any anxiety about our financial security, as we were the only participants getting a personal tour with our guide, Jean-Paul. A Belgian who had been in the US for five years, Jean-Paul’s story was almost as interesting as the tales that he skillfully wove about the city. A widower for several years, he had spent the required three years training to be tour guide in Belgium after he retired from being a military officer. An avid online player of back-gammon, he eventually started corresponding with fellow player he knew only as a "woman in America" who turned out to be a recent widow. Now he is married to her, living in Portsmouth, and keeping busy as a tour guide.

We learned much about Portsmouth’s evolution as an early center for fishing (cod on the Grand Banks), forest harvesting (deforesting the whole colony/state remarkably quickly) for ship-building, beer brewing until the Prohibition, a brief period of notoriety as "Sin City" related to the Naval shipyards, and finally a dependence on tourism. There were three city fires in quick succession in the early 1800s that caused the replacement of many of the wooden buildings with brick ones (benefitting from the good, local clay soils) and Jean-Paul had stories to tell about many of them. One of our favorites was about two girls who, during the "Sin City" period, had suffered repeated embarrassment as they walked along one of the most notorious streets on their way to and from school. Many years later, after they inherited a fortune from their brother, they purchased one-at-at-time, all but one house on the dreaded street and had them all torn down. They replaced them with a park that was donated to the city on condition that alcohol was never permitted there and that free cultural events were provided in evenings during the summer. And so, named in recognition of the sisters, Prescott Park is an attractive green-space and formal gardens on the waterfront in Portsmouth with a stage and associated facilities for summer evening shows.

Our ride of a couple of miles back to the Portsmouth Yacht Club in the dark went well but we returned to find all access to the dock where our dinghy was tied-up was gated and locked, a state of affairs that the dock crew had failed to mention when we had discussed returning after-hours. This time there was no one handy to unlock it for us or to provide a code, so I had to scramble over some rocks and up over a railing to get inside the gate. Fortunately, the gate was not padlocked but could be opened from the inside allowing us and our bikes to get on the dock. Once in the dinghy we then realized that we had paddled ashore at a relatively slack time of the tide and that there might be an intimidating 7 knot current sweeping past Tregoning that would be difficult to negotiate rowing an inflatable dinghy. That evening, Fortune may have been in short supply on our financial side of things but apparently we were considered worthy of a good night’s sleep and it smiled on us with regard to the river flow. It was close to low tide and the current was evident but manageable. Randall valiantly rowed as I aimed us well upstream of Tregoning and we were able to catch hold of the stern ladder and tie-up before being swept away in the dark.

Locked out in Portland

Tregoning — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 02:06:00 +0200

As we discovered early in our shake-down cruise, one of the side-effects of not going to shore for several days is that garbage starts to accumulate. In Gainesville, we rarely had a lot in our garbage can because so much of what we used was collected for recycling. Nova Scotia had excellent recycling programs with almost all public bins having three sections for trash, paper, and plastics/glass. At houses in Halifax cans and items for composting were also separated out. Our recycling experiences along the rest of the east coast have been less consistent but it has been worth bagging recyclables separately in case the opportunity arises and to reduce the rate at which the garbage can fills. Luckily, as in most of Maine, recycling was encouraged in our next port of call, Portland, ME.

We arrived in Portland, in the early afternoon of Tuesday (Sept 23^rd) after an uneventful passage from Boothbay Harbor and treated ourselves to a marina for a couple of nights as we caught up with supplies and some chores (laundry and more work on the dreaded heads – marine toilets). We walked around downtown in the afternoon trying to recognize any of it from our visit there for a professional meeting in 2003. We must have been very busy and attentive at the conference because not much seemed very familiar. Just occasionally one of us would have a vague recollection that a particular street or building seemed familiar. On our return to the marina around 6:30 pm we discovered that the dock-staff had forgotten one tiny detail when they took our $25 deposit for a key to allow us to use the bathroom facilities after their office closed at 6 pm. That was to tell us that there was a locked gate between us and our boat for which we needed a numeric code. This was a bit disconcerting. I was prepared to scale the fence if needed even knowing that there were video cameras all over the place which might have invited a visit from the police but luckily Randall found one person left at the adjacent sailing club who could give us the code.

Early the next morning on returning from a run/bike ride on the waterfront "rails to trails" we spotted a groundhog (a.k.a. woodchuck) by the ramp down to our boat. About the size of a large crouching cat, it was just like the cute, furry creature from the film "Groundhog Day" (one of Randall’s favorite movies ever and our only previous experience with these rodents).

That evening we enjoyed another stroll through downtown Portland and ate at an excellent Thai restaurant for my delayed birthday dinner. Even though we had not finished the work on the heads (of course, it may never be finished), the forecast for the next few days was for rain and some stronger winds so rather than move to a mooring and bob around in the busy harbor of Portland for a few days, we decided to press on south to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Lost-and-found and smooth sailing south

Tregoning — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:00:00 +0200

It was such a pleasure to see sunny cloudless skies that we decided to delay our departure south for a day and to get a bit of exercise. So Friday morning (Sept 19^th) saw us catching one of the excellent, free buses that made a loop around the east side of Mount Desert Island. We stayed onboard for the whole loop to enjoy the tour down to Otter Cove and around Champlain Mountain and then got off at the last stop before returning to Bar Harbor. The bus started out fairly empty but soon filled up, mostly with passengers from the QE2 cruise ship which had joined us in the harbor early that morning. Apparently it was one of the last cruises for this well-known ship that entered service in 1969, as it is due to be decommissioned and turned into a floating hotel in Dubai in November. She doesn’t look particularly big now compared to the modern behemoths but she is still an elegant vessel and the passengers sounded happy with their cruise. We also overheard a conversation with a couple who had been on the smaller cruise ship the "Explorer" which sank last year in the Antarctic. There was much interest from the QE2 passengers in how they were evacuated and stayed warm…history did not relate how these folk had traveled to Mount Desert Island and whether they would ever go on a cruise again.

We had a fabulous, almost deserted walk from the National Park Service Nature Center at Sieur de Monts to the top of Dorr Mountain and then down and up again to the top of Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the islands at 1530 ft. The narrow valley between the two peaks is steep with stair-like climbs down and up the granite rocks. It was not an insignificant amount of exercise and we planned to return via another route to catch a bus on the west side of the peaks. The views were fantastic of Tregoning and the QE2 in the harbor and of the numerous islands all around. We had been up Cadillac twice before, by foot in July 2003 and by car with Shev and Martha on the morning of our wedding in October 2003 but Dorr Mountain was a new summit for us.

The top of Cadillac Mountain was teeming with people, most of whom had driven up and, like most of them, we could not resist stopping at the gift shop. It was as we left there that Randall made the gut-wrenching discovery that his wallet was missing. I still had mine so we were not stranded but the thought of having to replace all those ID and credit cards so far away from Florida was sickening. He remembered last using it when we paid for our Park Pass just before getting on the bus and had uncharacteristically put it in his unzipped pants pocket rather than his back-pack. We returned to the gift shop and filed a National Park Service "lost property" report. We also called the bus company, hoping that it had fallen out on the bus but with no joy. So with a wary eye on the times of the last buses (this being a part of the season with a reduced schedule) and Randall’s potentially tender knees, he set off towards the bus route and Bar Harbor via the Cadillac Ridge path (buses do not drive to the top) and I retraced our steps.

I scampered back along the well marked trails with my eyes glued to the ground and optimistic that the wallet would be at our lunch spot, on a large granite slab overlooking Bar Harbor, slightly off the trail. I reasoned that it might be easier to not notice something missing from one’s pocket after getting up, although we usually inspect our stopping places before leaving. Although I found the place and searched it thoroughly, I was not successful and I started to resign myself to the idea that it had either fallen out of sight between two rocks on some steep ascent or descent or had been found by some other hiker and may, or may not, be handed in somewhere. Having called him with the bad news and found he was still on his walk down, I also discovered that my phone battery was low so had to turn it off. Thus, it was not until 30 minutes or so later, when I turned it on again that I found he had left a message saying that the bus company had called and the driver, cleaning his bus, had found the missing wallet.

What a massive relief! It was with a much happier frame of mind that I got back to the bus stop just before the last bus of the day made its first pass at 5:15 pm. It seemed warmer to ride the bus on its loop than to wait in the cold for its return at 6:05 pm so I repeated the morning’s tour, arriving back in Bar Harbor at 6:15 pm, just 10 minutes after Randall. He had retrieved the wallet (with all its contents) from the Police Station and we celebrated our good fortune, and warmed up, with a meal out. Thank goodness for honest people! We are now more enamored with Mount Desert Island than ever…

Saturday arrived with a bit of a conflict of emotions as we wanted to progress south but the first really significant Gator football game of the season (versus Tennessee) was on TV that afternoon and we did not have TV coverage or fast enough internet access to watch it on the boat in Bar Harbor. So by way of a compromise we sailed around to Northeast Harbor (on the south side of the island and near our previous stop-over of Southwest Harbor) knowing that there was a sports bar there. The sailing was good, we got a mooring there easily, and having missed only the first quarter, we watched the Gators win 30-6. It was the last day of the season in the Tan Turtle where we snacked our way through the game and it was a little odd hearing everyone there talk about their winter plans…most of which included going to work in Florida.

Sunday dawned with little wind and a bit of cloud but we headed southwest between the islands. At one point we heard a Coast Guard request on the VHF for mariners to look out for and, if needed, assist a catamaran that was taking on water and we realized that it was just a couple of miles from us. We told the Coast Guard of our position and they said that someone else was on their way to assist but we could also go if we were willing. Knowing that you always hope that someone will help you in a similar circumstance, we diverted to where the boat had last been reported…noting that there were a fair number of lobster and sailing boats in the general area. Just as we got to the island where the boat had been last reported the Coast Guard broadcast a cancellation for the request (suggesting that the boat had recovered, received aid, or got to a port). Having motored into the light wind to get to the location described we then sailed downwind to our original point and, with an increased breeze, Randall then skillfully sailed us through Fox Thoroghfare, a 7-mile, narrow but beautiful channel between the islands of North Haven and (to our ears slightly oddly named) Vinalhaven. We spent the night on a mooring in Rockland, a harbor that features a lighthouse and large building at the end of a long breakwater. Since the breakwater is almost submerged the buildings appear from a distance to be isolated in the middle of the bay.

From Rockland we sailed to Boothbay Harbor, on another beautiful day along the spectacular, island-studded Maine coastline. For anyone who likes lighthouses, and many people do, a cruise along Maine’s coast is a must. There are interesting and spectacular structures on almost every headland and island and we were particularly impressed with the ones that had narrow walk-ways between the lighthouse and shore. Having not seen much sign of fall colors from our grand vistas on Mount Desert Island, we now started to see some color changes where there were deciduous trees dotted among the conifers that tower over the pink and white granite shoreline. Night temperatures had been in the 40-50F range and frosts were being reported inland. Water temperatures hovered around 56F, a significant factor in subsequent events.

As noted before, the floats from lobster pots are everywhere along this coastline and even straight runs across a bay become a slalom-track as one weaves to avoid them. Everyone (including lobster-fishers that we talked to) has stories of snagging floats and line on their propellers and we had so far avoided such a fate. But sailing across one bay we heard the ominous sound of an unseen float scraping along the side of the hull and then did not see it pop out from behind. Sure enough, and slightly unexpectedly given the protected position of our propeller and shape of our rudder, a float was caught and the line down to an unseen pot was being towed behind the boat. At least we were sailing not motoring, so I tried to dislodge the float or line with the (new) boat-hook while hanging on to the swim ladder off the stern. But it was hard to push the buoyant pole straight down and I was not successful. However, luckily for us as we tried to stop the boat by turning it into the wind, the float eventually broke off and the pot line disappeared. It was not so lucky for the pot owner or any doomed lobsters in the now unmarked pot. We briefly tested the motor to see if the propeller was all right and then sailed on. However, when we motored into Boothbay Harbor, Randall wondered if there was a new shudder at the wheel, raising concerns that some rope was wound around the propeller shaft after all.

So as soon at is was light enough in the water on Tuesday morning, I donned wetskins (not as warn as a wetsuit but much better than nothing), snorkel and mask, and diving knife and took a bracing dip. After pausing long enough at the bottom of the swim ladder to regain my breath (cold water causes involuntary and hasty gasps), I dived the short distance down to inspect the propeller and rudder. The water was clear and I could quickly see that all was well. In truth, it wasn’t quite as unpleasant as I had anticipated but not something I would recommend without a very good reason. Unless forced to do otherwise, we will continue our hull inspections in the Bahamas!

Motoring in calm, sunny conditions out of Boothbay Harbor (which looked very attractive from the boat but we decided not to go ashore) we saw our first common eider ducks (of the eiderdown comforter fame). The females are a modest brown but the males are a showy black and white with unusual white, upturned tufts on their back. We find that bird identification can be a bit more challenging at this time of year as some species, such as the many black guillemots we saw in Bar Harbor, are changing to their winter plumage. The loons that we see periodically, however, are unmistakable in their shape, colors, and evocative call.