Long Time No Post

Sorry. It's been more than a week before we found an Internet connection. Lots of interesting blog articles since then. See below, in chronological order.



Up the Creek
Smith Creek, N38 07 W76 25

(7/2/05) Anger! Rage! My new GPS toy came without the power cord. I can't connect it to the 12 volt supply. I called the store in Paramus NJ where we bought it on the way down here. Sure enough, the cord is in the store.

I booked a place at Greenwich Marina, NJ for next Wednesday. The boat store promised to FEDEX the cord to me care of the marina.

We returned the car and left the marina around noon. We didn't go very far away. We're at anchor in Smith Creek, not to far from the marina. We're hoping that our friends Bill and Martha will come back to their boat so we can all go out to diner.

We spent the afternoon swimming in the creek. Dick got tangled with a jellyfish and got a slight sting in the leg.

Tonight, we'll have a near grandstand seat for fireworks.

The weather forecast for the next 5 days is winds less than 10 knots. It will be very slow going.

Annapolis
In the Bay, N38 46 W76 47
(7/3/05) As forecast, the winds were very light. By 5PM, we only made 22 miles. Just around then the wind died entirely and we were invaded by biting flies. Those flies drive Libby wild. She feels itchy all over.

I decided to throw in the towel and anchor in the Pawtuxet River. I soon changed my mind though and decided to motor for a few hours till dark. I'm glad I did because 30 minutes later a fresh new breeze came. This breeze wasn't forecast. It was 15 knots from the starboard beam. We're going to sail all night and if this breeze holds for 12 hours we'll be 75 nm farther than if we had anchored. Given the light winds, that's a gain of 3 days. Sounds like a definite case of make hay while the sun shines. Besides its fun. Tarwathie flew at up to 7 knots on this wind. Great fun.

We were also treated to fine fireworks shows just after dark. I could see them on both sides of the bay. One might think that they would interfere with night navigation given all those red and green lights. In this case, there were so many fireworks shows that I could just point the boat to where there were no fireworks. That had to be the bay.

Now it's 23:30 and we're sailing past Annapolis and expect to pass the Bay Bridge at 01:45. I must keep a sharp eye for traffic. There are ships and cruise ships every 30 minutes or so.

Long Hot Day
Bohemia River, N39 29 W75 56

(6/4/05) Well, last night turned out to be quite a ride. Before the wind died around 03:30 we sailed another 60 nautical miles. Today was another hot, humid, still day. We had to motor the entire day. Boring.

We're just 2 miles from the entrance to the C&D canal. By tomorrow, we should be in Delaware Bay.

According to the chart, the Bohemia River is 7 feet deep, but according to my depth sounder it's only 5.6 feet; too shallow for us. Paradoxically, there's a big marina in there with about 100 sailboats. Must be that those people only come and go at high tide? I can't imagine renting a slip with that restriction, but I never lived on the seashore.

According to the radio both sides have millions of dollars to spend on TV ads for and against the supreme court nominee. I guess there's no chance of it ever being non-political ever again. How stupid of us Americans. We claim to believe in democracy, yet we promote antidemocratic courts.



Buttoned Up
Delaware Bay, N39 20 W75 28

(6/5/05) This morning we zipped right through the C&D canal with a 2.5 knot current with us instead of against us. I was afraid that the current would turn against us before we reached the end but such was not the case.

I'd like to take credit for my brilliant seamanship planning that traverse vis a vis the tidal current, but alas I can not blog a lie. It was mostly good luck. I looked at Reeds Tidal Tables last night but I couldn't get anything useful out of it.

When we got to the Delaware side about 11:15, there was no wind. Sigh, we started motoring south. Soon we were alongside the Salem/Hope Creek Nuclear Plant and a big squall came along. In a flash I fiddled with sails and radar and we spun around. When I looked up nothing but rain could be seen in any direction. I couldn't even tell which way were pointing. Also, within a 10-minute span at least a half dozen things broke or went awry and Libby got seasick. The waves in the bay are shorter and steeper than those in the ocean. Our best speed with both sail and motor was 0.0 knots. That's right, zero. Who was it that coined the phrase, "Hours of boredom followed by moments of terror?"

On the third try, I found the right combination of sails to stabilize the boat and let us make progress once again. But after only a couple of hours of that, we heard the Coast Guard on channel 16. They said, "Securite securite securite. All vessels are advised to find safe harbor immediately and go below because of severe lighting storms approaching. Heavy rain and 45 knot winds are expected." All vessels! Wow! We complied immediately.

We put in, set anchor, and I secured everything above deck for a storm. However, around here there is no safe harbor. There are only two safe anchorages in 55 miles on Delaware Bay. As I write, we are anchored near the bank of the river in 9 feet of water. We're secure, but we have no shelter from wind and waves. It will likely be an uncomfortable night.

UPDATE 4 HOURS LATER: The storm turned out to be a false alarm. The deadline passed and the sun was out. I decided to pull anchor and head for Cohancey Creek on the other (NJ) side of the bay and about 5 miles down. We're 1 mile inside the creek now, sheltered from wind and waves. The night should be more peaceful.

The Tiller Master Autopilot stopped working. It got rained on is the only reason I can think of. If it's that sensitive to water, it's kind of
useless to have onboard. I'll see if it functions again after drying for a day or two.


Solved!
Greenwich Boatworks, N39 23 W 75 21

(6/6/05) We motored up the creek this morning to the marina.

Bad News: This is not a fancy place, but they charge $2/foot per night. That's the highest price we paid so far. Even Charleston City Marina with all those servants only charged $1.75. The cruising guide book says that the price at this marina is $1.25.

Good news: The missing power cable for the new GPS was waiting for me when I arrived.

Bad news. The power cable worked, and the GPS powered up OK. I went to install the chip with charts for the whole USA, and alas, they sold me an empty package. No chip. The store promised to FEDEX it for me to get tomorrow.

More bad/good news: The GPS gave a screen message, "GPS MODULE NOT RESPONDING." :( I called the customer service 800 number, and even before I got to the menu the recording said, "If your GPS says "GPS MODULE NOT RESPONDING, do the following ? " It worked.

More good news: I asked for a diesel mechanic to work on the engine-cooling problem. They sent Harry. Harry first tried the simple thing, tighten the alternator belt. Then he tried cleaning the heat exchanger. That was my theory. It was already very clean. Then we decided to remove the thermostat. To do that we had to remove the coolant header tank, something I dreaded. Harry did it no problem. We removed the thermostat. In a test we could run 2,300 RPM without exceeding 200 degrees. Better than ever before. Harry accomplished more in 2-3 hours labor than the mechanic in Florida accomplished in 20 hours.

If the engine holds up, we should no problem with the tidal currents in NYC harbor. First chance I'll check the offshore weather. If it sounds decent we set sail for NYC.
Our decision point will be at Cape May NJ. We'll probably pass there late tomorrow night.

Harry is also a very interesting guy. He sailed around the world twice himself. He did it on his father's boat as a youth. What a great background. Too bad we can't get to know him better. I bet he has lots of swell stories.


Patience, Bah
Greenwich Boatworks, N39 23 W 75 21

(07/07/05) My plan for today was to depart after the FEDEX package was to arrive by 10AM. When it didn't come by 13:00, I called FEDEX. They said it would be there absolutely positively by 16:30. 16:30! FEDEX sure isn't what it used to be.

The package did come, but so late in the day that I was fit to be tied. I decided that it was too late in the day to leave, so I had to pay another $64 to stay at the marina another night. Actually the whole truth was that tropical storm Camille was passing in the night and that influenced my decision. The winds wouldn't be bad but the rain would be torrential. That doesn't sound like the fun part of sailing.

By the end of the day, I heard Libby also utter the phrase, "I hate being patient."

p.s. I plugged the missing chip into the Lowrance GPS and it worked. Now I have the coastal charts for the whole USA, including Alaska, the canals, the Great Lakes, major rivers, and even Champlain. It does not have Sacandaga Lake. It's remarkable. I see all buoys and markers, depths, channels, and the notations. It shows almost everything that's on the paper charts. I can also get it to plot the tidal currents for where I am for today or for any other date. Like paper charts, it colors deep-water white and shallow water blue. However, the paper charts define shallow as 20 feet, but the electronic one I configured to color only depths below 6 feet as shallow. That's more appropriate for my boat.

I can't yet attest to the accuracy of the electronic charts. In the past few months I've found nearly one error per day in the paper charts, mostly in buoy numbers. One can buy thick books called "Notices to Mariners" listing all the changes you should make to your charts, but I can't imagine anyone other than a mapmaker actually doing all that work. It makes clear the pressing need to convert all charts from all countries into a single database. That would permit all changes and corrections to be entered only once, and disseminated to all users. Copyrights, and the fees earned by the cartographers, are the biggest obstacles to creating such a database.

Paper charts will be printed on-demand covering your needs for the next few days. Perhaps soon, a necessary accessory for a blue water boat will be one of those large format HP plotters. More likely, the advent of digital re-writeable paper using magnetized balls will come along just in time. Because of lightning, paper charts will always be necessary. A single electromagnetic pulse can fry all the electronics onboard. Hmm, come to think of it, the pulse would also flip the magnetized balls in the digital paper; so much for that idea.


It's Been a Great Day Until Now
Cape May, NJ, N38 57 W74 53

(6/8/05) This morning we had to exercise still more patience. Tropical Storm Camille was still hanging around. Nearby places were getting hit with as much as 10 inches of rain in a couple of hours. I sat around the marina for a while talking with Harry about Joshua Slocumb. We have that in common, that Captain Slocumb is our hero. We also agreed that the Captain must have stretched his stories in a few places. Tsk tsk.

Finally, about 13:30 we left Greenwich bound for Cape May. The plan was to decide when passing Cape May whether to put in for the night or to sail on for New York. The winds were brisk, 26 knots, and the temperature was in the 50s. We put up only the jib. No mainsail was needed in those conditions.

Libby got all excited as helmsman because we were sailing so fast. The new fancy GPS system said that our peak speed for the day was 9.74 knots. That's pretty good for a boat with a theoretical maximum of 6.5 knots.

Whoops, when I went to set the Monitor self-steering, I found that it was broken. The rack jumped out of the pinion. This is not the first time. The same thing happened in Mosquito Bay in Florida. I didn't want to try to repair it as sea in those conditions, so we decided to put into Cape May harbor for a 5 minute repair.

We got here by going through the Cape May canal. The canal is NJ style. Both banks are lined with wire mesh. Every quarter mile there is a stairway that leads down from the road into the water. No place for boats to stop or to swim at the bottom of the stairs. We figure that the locals send people to sleep with the fishes down those stairs.

There are two bridges over the canal with only 55-foot clearance. The lowest bridge we went under until now was 65 feet. Tarwathie's mast is 50 feet above the water and there are antennas and other stuff that stick up higher than that. 55 should be plenty of room in theory. The thing that makes this theory hard is the perspective angle. Looking up at the top of the mast from the deck of the boat, there is no angle for depth perception. Therefore it appears certain that the mast will crash into the bridge. Even the 156-foot Chesapeake Bay Bridge looked to me like a collision. Going under the 55 footers was tough emotionally. Libby went below so she wouldn't have to watch.

The engine is running much better, or at least cooler, with the thermostat removed. We still can't get 100% of the power specified by the factory, but close. We're very pleased with the work Harry did on our engine.

Our new GPS said that if we continued for New York tonight that we'd arrive tomorrow, perhaps after dark. We don't want to do that in the dark, so we'll overnight here in Cape May.

Cape May Harbor is pretty. We decided to anchor where we saw lots of other sailboats anchored. Just as we reached the point to drop the anchor I put the engine in reverse, and bang! One of the jib sheets had dangled in the water, and it fouled the propeller. Darn. Another mishap. (Should I make a special blog page with links to all the mishap articles?) I've made that same error before on other boats, and it was only a matter of time before doing it on Tarwathie. I dove on the propeller and tugged at the rope, but it didn't help. I'm afraid that tomorrow I'll have to dive again with a knife in my teeth and saw off the fouled line. Sure it sounds glamorous like an Errol Flynn movie. My thoughts however aren't on glamour. I hate the idea of cutting one of our valuable sheets.




Cape May
Cape May, NJ, N38 57 W74 53

(7/09/05) I started right at 7:30 diving on the line fouled around the propeller shaft. In a few minutes a man appeared in a rubber dingy. His name is Ed. Ed and his wife have been sailing the world for 5 years. (Wish I could get his whole story.) Ed brought his snorkel and mask and helped me. We cut it loose in 10 minutes. A thousand thanks Ed. What great people we meet out here.

Another 10 minutes and the Monitor self-steering was fixed too. Now we're ready to leave except that we don't have an appropriate starboard jib sheet. Sigh. We launched the dingy and I paddled away in search of one. Neither West Marine nor another store had what I need (5/8 inch double braid.) Therefore, I bought a 64-foot length of ½ inch nylon 3-strand instead. It's the wrong kind of line, but it only costs 38 cents per foot instead of $2.00 per foot. We'll use it for something else later. When back in Albany I'll order the exact type and length of line we need from the catalog.

I'm ashamed to say that we went all the way through the Chesapeake and Delaware without once sampling the seafood or the crabs at a restaurant. We made up for that tonight at a nice restaurant overlooking the harbor.

At sunset, Libby and I sat on the forward deck enjoying the harbor scenery. It's sure different and more interesting than our front yard in West Charlton. A fishing boat had its outriggers stuck down. With those down it can't fit under the bridge. Two men were out on the end of the 40 foot outrigger working on the problem. We watched them with binoculars figuring that they might either dunk themselves or catapult themselves into low earth orbit. Then we hear odd chatter on the radio.

Channel 16 clammer: Two Mile Bridge, hold the bridge open fishing vessel coming out.
Channel 16 bridge operator: Two Mile Bridge on channel thirteen.
Channel 13: silent
Channel 16 clammer: Two Mile Bridge, fishing vessel. Hold the bridge open
Channel 16 bridge operator: Call on one three.
Channel 13: silent.
Channel 16 clammer: Fishing vessel. Hold the bridge. Here we come.
Channel 16 bridge operator: Change your channel to one three. [louder] Change [pause] to [pause] channel [pause] thirteen.
Channel 13: silent

We could see a 60-foot clammer (fishing vessel) pass under the open bridge.

Channel 16 new voice: Hey! That clammer just hit your bridge.
Channel 16 bridge operator: You were told to change to channel 13 ? fool.

[That exchange was confusing. I believe that a third party came on the radio, but the bridge operator thought he was replying to the clammer.]

5 minutes pass. The bridge is still open. The clammer is stopped dead in the water.

Channel 13 clammer: Heh heh, sorry for the miscommunications.

10 minutes pass. The bridge is still open. The clammer turned around and went back under the bridge.

Channel 13 police boat: This is the state police. What is the damage?
Channel 13 bridge operator: The bridge appears to be operational.
Channel 13 police boat: What is your action plan?
Channel 13 bridge operator: I'll put it down and notify the appropriate people.
Channel 13 police boat: OK, we're going to go have a talk with the captain.

Meanwhile, the first fishing boat gave up on the outriggers, turned around and headed back out to sea.

Like I said, more interesting than our front yard.


Toward NYC
Jersey Coast, N39 34 W74 07

(7/10/05) We've been having a very pleasant day sailing northward. We've been staying five to ten miles off the New Jersey coast. We had, gentle winds, one-foot seas, and not many other boats.

The GPS says that we should reach New York Harbor at 07:30 tomorrow morning. We'll see. The wind is likely to drop to zero in the night.

We saw dolphins this afternoon. I didn't expect them this far north.

The only excitement of the day came when I saw a whale watching boat abruptly stop near us. I thought we might see a whale. Alas, nothing.

I heard the quote of the day on NPR. They were interviewing a guy about Hurricane Dennis and how the winds dropped from 140 to 105 mph before hitting land. He said. "It's like the difference between getting hit by an 18 wheeler, or getting hit by a freight train." That man has a way with words.

I presumed that New York Harbor post 911 would be a hostile minefield of restrictions and "Don't go here," signs. Libby's eagle eye saw something I missed. There is a designated anchorage and dinghy landing right behind Liberty Island. If possible we'll try for that tomorrow. We can anchor in the shadow of the Statue Of Liberty. Classy address.

The biggest expense of the day was charts. Last month I called Bluewater Sailing, my chart provider and told them I have a gap in chart coverage from Cape May to NYC. They sent three 3x4 foot charts for $22 each. Each will be used for about 8 hours as we go past, then stowed away forever. The waste of money irritates me.


Greetings From The Center Of The Universe
Liberty Island, N40 42 W74 04

(7/11/05) We're anchored behind Liberty Island and looking at the Statue of Liberty. Wall Street is within spitting distance, so it's fair to claim that this place is the center of the (known) universe.

The sail up was nice. 27 hours anchor-to-anchor Cape May to New York.

This morning around 6AM I had free entertainment as we passed Sandy Hook NJ. It appeared to be a Greenpeace intervention. I saw two cabin cruisers, each with an inappropriate number of people (~30) standing on the aft deck. They appeared to be harassing a fishing boat. They would stop in front of the fisherman and block his way. The fisherman would turn and move several hundred yards away, and then the cruisers would move to block him again.

I wasn't close enough to look into the Greenpeacer's eyes to assess their souls. They sure are strange people though. There were no baby seals in sight so I have no idea what the protest was about.

That scene was something else I would never see in West Charlton.

I'm going to try to find a grocery store on shore, and maybe a place to post my blog backlog. If I find a high-speed connection I'll post some pictures too.


The Hudson is Beautiful
Pollepel Island, NY, N40 40 W74 03

(07/12/05) Too bad, there was no place to buy groceries or send email from Liberty Park. The only entrance/exit to the park was to the NJ Turnpike.

Today's start was really slow. We motored out at 7AM and it took us 30 minutes to move 1000 feet from Liberty Island to Ellis Island. Wind and current were against us and the East River was pumping out swells and swirls holding us captive. Soon however we escaped the East River and the wind changed, and eventually the current changed. We kept picking up more and more speed.

Libby had the helm and she gave me the most fun tour of Manhattan I ever had, albeit only the part with the view from the Hudson. We didn't have must trouble from river traffic. I called Pete Lemme from about 14th street and asked him to post to the blog for me. Thank you Pete.

The relics of glories past, the American Lines pier and the Cunard Lines pier, were melancholy. The berth of the New liner SS United States (Is that the right name?) was grim. The erected a huge scaffold around the slip and hung from it wire mesh screens. The screens we guess were to prevent people from throwing bombs on board.

Going by the USS Intrepid, (the aircraft carrier on display), we got a surprise. A Concorde airplane was sitting beside Intrepid on a barge. In front of that was a submarine with a 1940's style cruise missile ready for launch on the deck. It must have been a memento of the post war years. If my memory is correct, it was called the Regulus or the Romulus missile.

By 11 we were at 42nd street, by 1300 we were at the George Washington Bridge, by 1500 at the Tappan Zee Bridge and by 1900 we were at West Point. All together we did 50 miles today. We were under sail for 10 of the 13 hours. The current was against us for 5 hours and with us for 8 hours. I was especially happy to go past downtown NY under sail. I thought of all those envious office workers looking at us from their windows.

I thought I'd be clever and try WiFi email from the boat as we went by Manhattan. It was a bust. I got dozens of WiFi signals, but each of them for only 30 seconds or so because we were mobile. I couldn't succeed in connecting with any of them.

Tonight we're anchored behind Pollepel Island. If you ride the train from Rensalleer to NYC you know this place well. It's the island near the shore with a ruin of a seemingly medieval castle. Bannerman Castle to be exact. When you ride by on the train the ruin really catches your attention.

I must say that the lower Hudson has the most beautiful maritime scenery I've ever seen in the USA or Europe. Only Norway's Fjords beat it. I really recommend that each of you try sometime to take a summer trip by water from Albany to New York City. I promise you'll love it. If you ride the train, you get glimpses of it, but from the river it's spectacular. There are several tiny communities on the river's east bank, seemingly accessible only by train. They look absolutely lovely.


Rondout Creek
Kingston NY, N41 55 W73 59

(7/13/05) In my head, I've begun to think of the crazy tugboat driver who nearly ran me down as Crazy Ivan (see the 6/20/05 blog). Tonight I encountered Yosemite Sam. After dark around 22:30 I went up on deck to see if things were secure. After all I was in tight quarters. I was anchored in 18 feet of water but surrounded with 4 foot shoals in three directions. In addition, some of the concrete parts of the castle ruins were sticking out of the water less than 100 feet away. In addition, the wind was blowing one way and the current pushing the other. I felt insecure.

Anyhow, when I was up on deck I heard the sound of a boat motor. I looked up just in time to see a 20 foot runabout pass between me and the island. That's not the place to be. It is about ¼ mile from the river channel, and it is only 1 foot deep and peppered with submerged piles and ruins. Sure enough I heard the boat strike one of the submerged piles. THUMP. He didn't stop or slow down. He continued straight across another ½ mile of water that the charts say are too shallow to navigate. I watched him go. About 2000 meters down river, he stopped his engines and turned off his navigation lights. I guess he was drifting. 30 minutes later he started his engine, drove ½ mile back upstream then shut down again. I think the captain must have been into the juice if you know what I mean. I call him Yosemite Sam.

We stopped for lunch in Newburg. Free docks for restaurant patrons. More than lunch thought we wanted groceries and a place to post blog articles. Darn, if neither grocery store nor email site was within walking distance. I'm beginning to realize how few grocery stores we have remaining in this country and how few of them are accessible without a car.

Libby is getting noticeably more skilled day-by-day at boat operational tasks. It should help her relax more if she feels more in command.

Tonight we put in on a creek off the river. The place is alive and looks very bohemian. There are outdoor cafes everywhere, 8 marinas, and I think some kind of big theater or performing arts center. It reminds me a little of Copenhagen. Kingston is less than 100 clicks from Schenectady where we lived for so many years. It is remarkable that we never heard about this place.