Canajoharie 2

En Route on The Erie Canal
N 42 57.211 W 074 14.526

Saturday, 10:00
Sorry. I've been delinquent for not writing blogs for several days. My excuse is that we've been busy.

We returned from Vermont on Wednesday. The weather was still hot and hazy so we didn't get inspiring views of the mountains. On Wednesday evening, while Libby was away doing laundry, our friend Tom came down to visit at Lock 7. We knew Tom from the days when I worked for Digital Corp.

There were thunderstorms in the area, the air was very unsettled. Tom and I watched the boats cycling through the lock. After a time, we saw rain coming so we ducked inside Tarwathie. The rain didn't amount to much and it soon passed, leaving cooler weather behind. Surprise. The next morning I bought a newspaper and read that severe storms caused damage and deaths nearby to our north, south, east and west. It is remarkable how local and quirky those storms can be.

Friday, we spent the day visiting my sister Marylyn. She didn't know that we were near by so it was a surprise to her when I called. I took her to our favorite restaurant, Oliver's. Then we went to the boat. Then, Libby took her shopping and finally I took her bowling. It made a perfect day from Marylyn's point of view.

In the evening we got a call from John and Mary Ann and they invited us to their house for dinner. We haven't seen those two since sailing in the Chesapeake last fall. Their grandson Grayson was visiting from Phoenix.

Grayson

Friday morning, Mary Ann and Grayson joined us for the voyage from Lock 7 in Niskayuna up to lock 10 in Amsterdam. It turned out to be a splendid summer day and everybody had fun. Along the way, we got a call from Carmello and Diane, our sailing companions from last September. I invited them to join us too and soon we had six people on board.

We checked out the new boater's center in Amsterdam. They have a lovely spot with electricity, water, showers, laundry and [a broken] pump out. Unfortunately, they also want $1/foot for overnight stays. With so many other places along the canal offering free facilities I expect that they get very little business. Perhaps not enough to pay the wages of the person hired to collect the fees. The only worse place is Schenectady; despite all the free state money available for waterfront development, Schenectady has no facilities, not even a place to stop for an hour. Tsk tsk.

Diane and Carmello

We stopped at Amsterdam and Diane and Carmello treated us to dinner. That was fun. Thank you Carmello and Diane. It made quite a day.

Today, our goal is Canajoharie. They have a Winslow Homer museum there that we'd like to see. We may also be able to meet with my sister Nancy and her family. They are en route from Boston to Thousand Islands by car and their route should take them within a few hundred meters of us. We just passed lock 12 at 10:00.

Boy it sure is fun to return to our home territory to be able to see so many of our friends and family once again. When the time comes to decide finally to pass through the Panama Canal and set out for a five year circumnavigation; I'm sure that our emotional heartstrings will be tugging at us saying, "Don't go."

What about the scenery on the canal? It's so beautiful that I fear sounding repetitious if I say the same thing every day. Even in New York it is still true that 95% of the shore lines still appear to be undeveloped, wild and very beautiful. The other 5% shows evidence of man. The trees along the banks block our view of all low lying land around us so we don't see the buildings. The river appears mostly as it must have been before the white man came to America. Whoops, wait. Before all the dams, most of the river must have been shallow or white water. I withdraw my statement about the wild appearance.


Saturday 12:45
We just passed through lock 13. There are lots of signs of flood damage here. I asked the lock master how high the water got. He pointed to a spot just below the red light you see in the picture. Yipes! That is about 12 feet higher than the dam. The amount of water flowing down the river at that height must have been amazing.


This part of the river is snuggled in the cleavage between pairs of steep ridges. I love watching the hawks soar on the ridge up drafts. It makes me want to go soaring. Years ago in Vermont I learned to fly a glider and to soar the ridge lines. One flies along the ridge with the wing tip just a meter or so away from the tree tops. One flies on the windward side. As the wind it lifted by the ridge it in turns lifts my glider or lifsts a hawk. It is like getting a ride on an elevator. The hawk I was watching just slipped over t the other side of the ridge line and then he suddenly plunged like a stone. One tries to avoid that in a glider because the consequence is that you could be forced to land abruptly like it or not. It happened to me once. Luckily, I was able to reach a freshly mown hay field to make a nice easy landing. If there had been no field I could have been pushed down in to the trees. How does the hawk manage? I'm confident that the hawk had no trouble navigating to wherever he wants to go.


Now we're entering a region where the valley opens up more. It is still not the location for Libby's and my favorite painting, Peace and Plenty. We always try to identify the place when we travel the Mohawk Valley. Actually, we may never succeed in finding the scene because it doesn't exist any more. 200 years ago, New York and New England were 80% farm land and only 20% forests. It must have offered wonderful views of fields and meadows viewed from the hill tops. Today, the ratio is reversed and most panoramic views are blocked by trees.

Some years ago we were touring Fort Ticonderoga in New York. I was talking with a woman who was involved in the restoration work and who was very proud of what they have accomplished. However I could see paintings depicting the battles at the fort and they plainly showed that all trees for miles around were cut down to expose invaders to defensive gun fire. I asked the woman when they were going to finish the restoration by cutting down all the trees around us. "Over my dead body," was her reply. Chuckle.

Anyhow, I digress. Here, where the valley opens up a little, we have the New York State Thruway to port and we have the Amtrak track and New York Route 5 to starboard. I wave to the people I the cars and the trains but they move too fast to see if anybody waves back. The train passing by could be the famous Lake Shore Limited. A moment ago I got a call from Nancy. They are in Springfield Massachusetts and heading our way. We'll meet them in Canajoharie.

This is the season when day lilies are prominent in upstate New York. They are so beautiful and so hearty. They grow wild any place on the border between sunny and shady spots. Most of them are a beautiful orange. We don't see many day lilies in other states.

Every place there is a buoy in the water, there is a corresponding sign nailed to a tree on the shore. For example, on a tree near buoy 337 is a sign that says "337" The state workers remove all the buoys for the winter because they never would survive the ice floes. They can use the signs to accurately replace the buoys in the spring to their designated locations. What if the tree gets washed away? I suppose they could always fall back on the old fashioned method and use their GPS :)

I just spotted a corn field for the first time this summer. The corn is knee high, just about par for this part of the country. In Oklahoma the corn would be as high as an elephant's eye by the Fourth of July.

The weather is splendid today. The temperature is about 75F (24C), the sky is blue with brilliant cumulus clouds. There is a fresh 15 knot breeze that makes Libby and I just ache to be able to sail. Perhaps we can rig the sail on the dinghy?

Saturday, 16:20
Now I'm near the traffic circle in Canajoharie. We had a nice visit from Nancy and her family, Karl, Lena, Alexandra and the Kudra the dog. They met us at the river front park here and we had fun sitting in the cockpit and swapping stories.

When it was time for them to leave, I asked for a ride in to the town to find a hot spot. I'm sitting here under a tree, 20 feet from where I got out of their car and I find 3 WiFi signals. It's getting easier all the time to WiFi.

Canajoharie 1

En Route on The Erie Canal
N 42 57.211 W 074 14.526

Saturday, 10:00
Sorry. I've been delinquent for not writing blogs for several days. My excuse is that we've been busy.

We returned from Vermont on Wednesday. The weather was still hot and hazy so we didn't get inspiring views of the mountains. On Wednesday evening, while Libby was away doing laundry, our friend Tom came down to visit at Lock 7. We knew Tom from the days when I worked for Digital Corp.

There were thunderstorms in the area, the air was very unsettled. Tom and I watched the boats cycling through the lock. After a time, we saw rain coming so we ducked inside Tarwathie. The rain didn't amount to much and it soon passed, leaving cooler weather behind. Surprise. The next morning I bought a newspaper and read that severe storms caused damage and deaths nearby to our north, south, east and west. It is remarkable how local and quirky those storms can be.

Friday, we spent the day visiting my sister Marylyn. She didn't know that we were near by so it was a surprise to her when I called. I took her to our favorite restaurant, Oliver's. Then we went to the boat. Then, Libby took her shopping and finally I took her bowling. It made a perfect day from Marylyn's point of view.

In the evening we got a call from John and Mary Ann and they invited us to their house for dinner. We haven't seen those two since sailing in the Chesapeake last fall. Their grandson Grayson was visiting from Phoenix.

Grayson

Friday morning, Mary Ann and Grayson joined us for the voyage from Lock 7 in Niskayuna up to lock 10 in Amsterdam. It turned out to be a splendid summer day and everybody had fun. Along the way, we got a call from Carmello and Diane, our sailing companions from last September. I invited them to join us too and soon we had six people on board.

We checked out the new boater's center in Amsterdam. They have a lovely spot with electricity, water, showers, laundry and [a broken] pump out. Unfortunately, they also want $1/foot for overnight stays. With so many other places along the canal offering free facilities I expect that they get very little business. Perhaps not enough to pay the wages of the person hired to collect the fees. The only worse place is Schenectady; despite all the free state money available for waterfront development, Schenectady has no facilities, not even a place to stop for an hour. Tsk tsk.

Diane and Carmello

We stopped at Amsterdam and Diane and Carmello treated us to dinner. That was

Today, our goal is Canajoharie. They have a Winslow Homer museum there that we'd like to see. We may also be able to meet with my sister Nancy and her family. They are en route from Boston to Thousand Islands by car and their route should take them within a few hundred meters of us. We just passed lock 12 at 10:00.

Boy it sure is fun to return to our home territory to be able to see so many of our friends and family once again. When the time comes to decide finally to pass through the Panama Canal and set out for a five year circumnavigation; I'm sure that our emotional heartstrings will be tugging at us saying, "Don't go."

What about the scenery on the canal? It's so beautiful that I fear sounding repetitious if I say the same thing every day. Even in New York it is still true that 95% of the shore lines still appear to be undeveloped, wild and very beautiful. The other 5% shows evidence of man. The trees along the banks block our view of all low lying land around us so we don't see the buildings. The river appears mostly as it must have been before the white man came to America. Whoops, wait. Before all the dams, most of the river must have been shallow or white water. I withdraw my statement about the wild appearance.


Saturday 12:45
We just passed through lock 13. There are lots of signs of flood damage here. I asked the lock master how high the water got. He pointed to a spot just below the red light you see in the picture. Yipes! That is about 12 feet higher than the dam. The amount of water flowing down the river at that height must have been amazing.


This part of the river is snuggled in the cleavage between pairs of steep ridges. I love watching the hawks soar on the ridge up drafts. It makes me want to go soaring. Years ago in Vermont I learned to fly a glider and to soar the ridge lines. One flies along the ridge with the wing tip just a meter or so away from the tree tops. One flies on the windward side. As the wind it lifted by the ridge it in turns lifts my glider or lifsts a hawk. It is like getting a ride on an elevator. The hawk I was watching just slipped over t the other side of the ridge line and then he suddenly plunged like a stone. One tries to avoid that in a glider because the consequence is that you could be forced to land abruptly like it or not. It happened to me once. Luckily, I was able to reach a freshly mown hay field to make a nice easy landing. If there had been no field I could have been pushed down in to the trees. How does the hawk manage? I'm confident that the hawk had no trouble navigating to wherever he wants to go.


Now we're entering a region where the valley opens up more. It is still not the location for Libby's and my favorite painting, Peace and Plenty. We always try to identify the place when we travel the Mohawk Valley. Actually, we may never succeed in finding the scene because it doesn't exist any more. 200 years ago, New York and New England were 80% farm land and only 20% forests. It must have offered wonderful views of fields and meadows viewed from the hill tops. Today, the ratio is reversed and most panoramic views are blocked by trees.

Some years ago we were touring Fort Ticonderoga in New York. I was talking with a woman who was involved in the restoration work and who was very proud of what they have accomplished. However I could see paintings depicting the battles at the fort and they plainly showed that all trees for miles around were cut down to expose invaders to defensive gun fire. I asked the woman when they were going to finish the restoration by cutting down all the trees around us. "Over my dead body," was her reply. Chuckle.

Anyhow, I digress. Here, where the valley opens up a little, we have the New York State Thruway to port and we have the Amtrak track and New York Route 5 to starboard. I wave to the people I the cars and the trains but they move too fast to see if anybody waves back. The train passing by could be the famous Lake Shore Limited. A moment ago I got a call from Nancy. They are in Springfield Massachusetts and heading our way. We'll meet them in Canajoharie.

This is the season when day lilies are prominent in upstate New York. They are so beautiful and so hearty. They grow wild any place on the border between sunny and shady spots. Most of them are a beautiful orange. We don't see many day lilies in other states.

Every place there is a buoy in the water, there is a corresponding sign nailed to a tree on the shore. For example, on a tree near buoy 337 is a sign that says "337" The state workers remove all the buoys for the winter because they never would survive the ice floes. They can use the signs to accurately replace the buoys in the spring to their designated locations. What if the tree gets washed away? I suppose they could always fall back on the old fashioned method and use their GPS :)

I just spotted a corn field for the first time this summer. The corn is knee high, just about par for this part of the country. In Oklahoma the corn would be as high as an elephant's eye by the Fourth of July.

The weather is splendid today. The temperature is about 75F (24C), the sky is blue with brilliant cumulus clouds. There is a fresh 15 knot breeze that makes Libby and I just ache to be able to sail. Perhaps we can rig the sail on the dinghy?

Saturday, 16:20
Now I'm near the traffic circle in Canajoharie. We had a nice visit from Nancy and her family, Karl, Lena, Alexandra and the Kudra the dog. They met us at the river front park here and we had fun sitting in the cockpit and swapping stories.

When it was time for them to leave, I asked for a ride in to the town to find a hot spot. I'm sitting here under a tree, 20 feet from where I got out of their car and I find 3 WiFi signals. It's getting easier all the time to WiFi.

The Easy Life

Main Street Park, St. Albans, Vermont
No LL

Ah. Most people would say that Libby and I really live the easy life on board Tarwathie. True is it an easy life, but not the easy life. The easy life is out on Burton Island.

Yesterday we had an extended family group of 22 people, 12 adults and 10 kids. Our activities for the day were to eat breakfast, walk around the island, swim, play Frisbee, play volleyball, make 2, 343,568 trips to excort a kid to the bathroom, cook dinner, and then listen as John read the Jean Shepard story about Ludlow Kissel and the Dago Bomb that Struck Back, before going to bed. Now, that is the easy life. You might be able to tell from my writing that we like it on Burton Island.

Needless to say, Libby is in seventh heaven with so much family and children around us. Family contact is the one thing we miss most in our cruising life.

Today I'm on a mission. Besides coming ashore to post a blog, I have to buy missing items from the grocery store. It's not so onerous. I first drove to the library to use their WiFi signal, but alas, they didn't have any WiFi. Therefore, I walked to this park in the center of town, sat on a bench by the fountain and presto I found 14 WiFi signals. Ain't technology great.

Saint Albanians at the Park

Comments on this Blog

I enabled the comments feature on this blog. Some years ago, I enabled comments but 99% of the comments coming through were spam.

This time, I've enabled "moderated" comments. They appear only after I approve them, and I can do that only when I get real web access. I can't approve them via email on my ham radio.

But you, loyal readers, are invited to, indeed encouraged to post comments if you so desire. A comment, unlike an email, is visible to all the other readers of the blog.

Happy commenting.

Jenny's

South Burlington, Vermont
N 44.47 W 73.16


Yesterday morning, Libby had her debut as captain on Tarwathie. Believe it or not, even after all this time and all this experience, she had never taken Tarwathie anywhere without me on board.

The mission was to return Tarwathie from Scotia to Lock 7 along the stretch of the Mohawk that I thought so beautiful last week. She also had passengers. John and Mari, our friends from West Charlton, wanted to ride along because they too had never seen the Mohawk from the water. They also brought along their grandson, Adam, who had never been on a big boat before. It made a merry crew. They set off of their short voyage, while I drove ahead in our borrowed car to meet them at the lock. All went well and they arrived on schedule fresh with new appreciation of the hidden beauty of their own home territory.

We tied up Tarwathie to the lock 7 wall to leave her for a week. I'm confident that she should be OK there. Strangely though, I would have felt more confident had we left her swinging on the hook.

This afternoon as we were driving to Vermont, we passed over the crest of the ridge overlooking Ticonderoga, and suddenly the beauty of the Champlain Valley came in to view below us. Oh it was wonderful. It was a day of instability in the atmosphere, with huge cumulus clouds soaring 30,000 feet into the sky. The sunlight lit the white tops of the clouds brilliantly, against the deep blue background of the sky behind them. There was a intense thunderstorm visible in the distance over Camel's Hump. Below us was every shade of green imaginable in the forests and farm lands.


As you can tell from our blogs, we are lovers of natural beauty. We love upstate New York and Vermont in particular because they are such jewels of natural beauty. One thing I must admit is that the beauty in Vermont is best seen from hilltops, not from the surface of Lake Champlain. From the lake you can see the mountains, but from the hilltops you can see both the mountains and the valleys at the same time. Strangely, the lake itself is hidden from view from all but a select few vantage points in Vermont.

We spent the night with our daughter Jennifer and her s. o. Christian. It has been nearly a year since we've seen them so it was great reunion. Jennifer also had good news to tell us. She just landed a new job at Coffee Analysts. The job fits her very well and I'm sure that she'll do well at the tasks. Amazingly, she'll have her office at the spot I've always considered the prettiest I've ever seen for scenery out the window.


Decades ago, I brought my boat to Lake Champlain every October for vacation trips. Back then, as I approached Burlington, I admired the General Electric factory right on the shore in South Burlington. I thought, "Those G.E. managers must have the best view in the world." Looking out their windows, across the widest part of the lake and seeing New York's Adirondack Mountains on the far side. Years later, G.E. sold the buildings to Blodgett Oven Company, and fantastically, my daughter Jennifer got a job there. Now, Coffee Analysts took over the building and refurbished it, and Jennifer will work there once again. I'm very proud of Jennifer and happy for her good fortune.

Reunions

Schenectady Public Library
No LL

Wow! We have such great friends, and we're being reunited with so many of them this week.

Yesterday afternoon I went to see our dear old friend Rollie at his office in the Stockade. After that I went to PTI and got to meet almost all the PTIers who were there in the old days when I worked there. While I was away, another friend Roger stopped by the boat to say hello.

In the evening, we drove out to West Charlton. We got a peek at our old house. We hardly recognized it because they may so many changes. Then we had dinner with our friends and former neighbors John and Mari. What a great day it was for Libby and I. It made us realize how much contact we miss with our vagabond life style (not that we regret the cruising life, but every choice in life has its consequences.)

Today we had a visit at the boat from Diane, Carmello's wife and sailing companion from last year. It would be great to have Dianne and Carmello join us for another passage sometime soon. We also had a visit from Rollie. It's always good to see Rollie any time.

I also had the chance this morning to visit my favorite restaurant ever. Oliver's Restaurant in Glenville NY. Oliver's offers two attractions. First is the owner and hostess Claudia who has become a good friend over all the years we stopped there. Second, Oliver's makes the best home fried potatoes on the planet. Now that I am officially traveled wide and far, I can attest that nobody makes them better than Oliver's. I have been know to fantasize about Oliver's home fries while standing watch at sea. Anyhow, I ate my fill of them this morning.

Tonight, we're going out for dinner with Fred and Mary. The fun just goes on and on.

Tomorrow we head for Vermont to spend a week camping with our kids and grandkids. It should be a great time. I'll write blog articles, but it is likely that I can't post them until we get back. We're camping on Burton Island in Lake Champlain. There is no electricity, no Internet there on Burton Island.

Scotia

Scotia Landing
N 42.821583 W 73.953808

On Monday we moved from lock 7 to Scotia. Since we have a borrowed car, Libby drove the car and I took the boat alone.

The journey by river is not a long one; only 7.5 miles. However I have never seen that stretch of river from a boat before and I was struck by how beautiful it is. The river is hemmed in by cliffs on both sides. Sheer 90 degree limestone cliffs on the south and 70 degree wooded cliffs on the north side (see the pics below). It comes up behind the Knolls Atomic Power Labs, and the General Electric R&D center; although neither is visible from the river.



After a stop at the Schenectady Yacht Club for a pump out, I continued on to Schenectady and then to Scotia.

This is really ground zero for us. To our right is our former home in Scotia and the school where John and Jennifer started kindergarten. To our left is our former home in Schenectady's Stockade neighborhood and the school where David started kindergarten. Also to our left was Libby's art studio. Also to the left is Collins Park where my friend Ken and I flew my gas powered model helicopter. Behind us is the PTI building where I worked for 17 years, and in front is the old General Electric Schenectady works where I worked for 4 years. Also in front of us is the Western Gateway Bridge with narrow sidewalks. John Undrill and I used to cross that bridge every day on our way to work riding on a bendy and hard to steer tandem bicycle. We used to scare ourselves on that thing and absolutely terrorize any poor pedestrian who saw us coming. The spot where we are docked is almost exactly the spot that we came to for Fourth of July fireworks every year. Yes indeed. We have lots of memories from this locale.

In the afternoon I went out to buy new eyeglasses. I've needed them for more than a year, but we've been waiting for an opportunity to get to a Lenscrafters. They are the only ones that offer one hour service. All other optometrists that we can find require 10 to 14 days to make glasses. We can't use them because we are always on the go.

I'm also going to try to connect with my dentist while we are in the area.

This morning, after posting the first draft of this blog, we were visited by Tom. Tom's wife Kathy sold our house for us two years ago. Tom happened to be in Scotia and happened to see the blog just posted and realized that we were near by, so he stopped to say hello. That was a nice surprise. Soon after that, we had a visit from Carmello, my sailing buddy. Last year Carmello and his wife sailed with us from Cape Judith to Cape May

I'm beginning to realize that we have so many friends in this area that no matter how many we see this trip, we'll leave 95% of our other friends who may be disappointed that we didn't stop to say hello to them. I apologize to all of you. Our days here are limited, and we are operating ad hoc without a plan. So I'm sorry that we missed you.

Father's Day Weekend

Friday night with Pete and Mary Ellen -- our Balderdash opponents

The locking crew: Mary and Libby

My locking mate: Fred

How many Westsail 32s can one fit in a lock? See W32 Neverland behind Tarwathie is the Erie Canal lock 7.

Wow! A Great Father's Day

Lock 7
N 42 48.273 W 73 50.903

Sunday, June 17
Wow! What a great day this has been. It started with Libby bringing me coffee, a donut, and the Sunday newspaper, and a Happy Father's Day card in bed. She loves to spoil me. Then, our friends Fred and Mary came to Waterford to join us for the morning's sail.

Fred and Mary live up near lock 7. So they dropped one of their cars off at lock 7 then drove the other car to lock 2 to meet us. We took off at just about 08:00 in the midst of a beautiful Sunday morning. A second sailboat, Caribbean Dream, left at the same time as us but there was hardly any other boat traffic. Caribbean Dream with Captain Nick we had met in Nyack some weeks ago.

Mary was a little apprehensive about going through the locks as she had never done it before. Nevertheless we drove directly in to lock 2. The lift on all these locks is about 35 feet, pretty steep. We were traveling in the direction of increased altitude. Therefore, as we stopped inside the lock and they close the gate behind you, it seems that you are shut in a deep, dark, cold and clammy box. Then one hears the eerie sound of heavy slabs of concrete sliding over concrete as the gate valves are opened beneath you. The rate of ascent was pretty rapid, yet the turbulence was minimal, attesting to well designed locks. We had no difficulty holding Tarwathie against the wall. In a couple of minutes, we were lifted to the level of the wall height, and our faces felt the touch of the sun once again. It felt like a rather abrupt dawn.

This procedure repeated 5 times in only two hours; much faster than I had anticipated. The lock tenders knew we were coming and they had things ready for us so that we zipped through with no delays. The service in the canal is excellent, even in a year when they waived the canal fees. Most years one has to pay to use the New York State Canal System, but they declared 2007 as a fee free year. Finally, we had a 10 mile river passage to make before coming to lock 7, today's destination.

Along the way, we passed by Crescent Boat Club, and lo and behold wasn't there another Westsail 32 sitting there with two men waving at us. Actually, I wasn't surprised. The Westsail was the vessel Neverland. I had been corresponding with the owner, David, for a year. David bought Neverland in Annapolis, and he stored her over the winter in Solomons, Maryland. He learned about Tarwathie from our blog. Now he is en route to his home base of Georgian Bay, on Lake Huron. David was waiting for crew at Crescent, and I had promised to stop by if we got there before he left. As it turned out, we got there just one hour before he planned to leave.

But that's not all. As we turned in to the boat club to raft up with Neverland, a big power boat passed by with another man on the deck waving to us. It was Rich, my former boss from NYISO. It wasn't Rich's boat, he was just a guest onboard. Rich is a good friend and a loyal blog reader. He shouted over that he was just telling his friends about me and Libby and Tarwathie, when he looked up and there we were in the flesh.

That's still not all. Just a few minutes later, the phone rang and it was my son David calling from Kuwait to wish me a happy Father's Day. My goodness, for Libby and I who have become accustomed to being kind of lonely, apart from friends and family most of the time, it was an amazing cornucopia of friend and family contact all occurring at the same hour of the same day. Amazing.

Anyhow, we're staying the night at lock 7, after having spent the afternoon at Fred and Mary's house. I also got Father's Day calls from Jennifer in Vermont and John in Rome, NY, thus making my day complete. Fred and Mary, being abundantly kind, lent us a car to use for a few days. Wow! Once again. We hadn't had a car to use for a long time, so it was a rare privilege to be able to drive to a store and shop.

Pete and Mary Ellen

Waterford Public Library
No LL

Last evening we had a visit from our friends Pete and Mary Ellen. Pete is knows for his days at PTI and at NYISO. They are also boaters and they now keep their boat up at Sacandaga Lake at Holly's marina where we used to keep our Tanzer.

They took us in their car over to Troy to find a locally famous ice cream stand. There we all enjoyed ice cream cones.

After the ice cream, we returned to the boat and engaged Pete and Mary Ellen in a game of Baldersash. We all had a lot of fun. Balderdash is something we were introduced to in Vero Beach. It is a great game for adults.

Tonight, we're expecting a visit from more friends, Fred and Mary. They live close by near the Mohawk River.

On The Way to The Erie

This is a reproduction of Henry Hudson's ship, Half Moon

In the Troy Federal Lock

Our friend Mary Ann stops by to say hello.

The local guy who fishes here every morning.

Scenes From Hudson, NY

We didn't find a historical society to learn about the history of Hudson, NY. However, if this historical marker is any indication, they have a hard time coming up with better historical events.

An example of a beautiful Queen Anne style home, now in disrepair.

The Hudson Opera House

The main street

Seen Along The Hudson

The Kingston Lighthouse

The Saugerties Light House

Some very strange looking herons.

This house, just south of New Baltimore, NY on the western shore, is in my opinion the nicest waterfront home on the entire east coast. It is a modest place, not affluent at all, but it looks so very pleasant. Keep your eye out for it if you go by.

Scenes from the Mast Unstepping

Ready to Go

The Monster Machine That Did The Lift

Down She Comes

Some pics from Nyack

The Nyack Boat Club

The club's meeting room. The windows look out over the Tappan Zee Bridge and Tarrytown and the Rockerfeller Estate. Breathtaking view.

This is one of the houses in Nyack that impressed me so much. It was very hard to photograph.

Home Territory

Waterford, NY Public Library
No LL

Well we got up lazily this morning because leaving early would have forced us to fight the ebb tide. We left around 09:00 and by 13:00 we were in Albany, and by 15:00 we were in Troy.

What a pleasure it was to see "home" again. I say home even though we never lived in Albany or Troy. However they are part of the tri-city area (Albany, Schenectady, Troy) that was our home for more than 25 years. I've worked in Albany and I've taught in Troy so there is a home like connection.

We couldn't have asked for a nicer day to do it. We had clear dry air, puffy clouds, and moderate temperatures. Albany looked great. Troy looked like it always did.

After passing Troy we came to the Federal Lock and we were locked right through with no delay. The lift at that lock is 16 feet, but there is no discernible turbulence as they flood the lock. It must be well designed.

We are now tied up to the north wall at Waterford. This is the place where the Erie Canal meets the Hudson River. There sign in the picture below is right behind our stern.


As I tied us up on the wall, I went to check the tide as is my custom. Then it hit me. There are no tides here. In fact we won't see tides again for quite a long time. How disorienting. No tides, no SSB radio, no anchor light, no side stays to brace yourself with. Both Libby and I were also unable to resist checking the clearance height of all the big bridges we passed under today. Our habits are well fixed now.

We'll stay here in Waterford for 2 or 3 days.

Waterford is a very hospitable place. They provide free docking, with free electricity and free water, although all the electric spots were taken before we got here. Now, I'm up at the libraray using their WiFi signal.

Athens and Hudson

Middle Ground
N 42 15.865 W 73 48.055

Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Always before, when we traversed the Hudson, we anchored in Middle Ground, right between the town of Athens to the west and Hudson to the east, but we never visited either town.

Today, we did those visits for the first time. We were a bit disappointed. Both towns show signs of formerly rich and stylish places that passed their peak of popularity long ago - like in the 19th century. Both had beautiful classic houses that were in a state of decay and disrepair.

Athens is a very small place. It has a free dock, so we tied up our dinghy there and walked around the town. It took only 15 minutes to see everything in town and to see that there was nothing of interest.

We took the dinghy across the river to the Hudson side, and tied her up at the yacht club (actually, it is called the Hudson Power Boat Association.) We asked permission from the two old folks sitting on the porch and they said, "Sure." Hudson is quite a bit bigger than Athens. It took us two hours to see the whole place. Most interesting were the Hudson Opera House, the bank buildings with lovely marble columns and the huge Victorian brick houses along the main street with wonderful decorative cornices and lintels. Alas, we couldn't get inside to see any of them, and outsides were in poor repair. It was clearly evident though that in its prime it was a city built for wealthy high society. Where we did see dates on the buildings, they ranged from 1875 to 1895. We didn't learn what attraction or industry made Hudson so prosperous. There are no traces visible today.

Libby and I talked about what a good investment it could be to buy depressed properties in Hudson and Athens. It seems certain that as the population increases and as the rich get richer that these two jewels of waterfront towns must surely be destined for rejuvenation.

Unstepping The Mast

Middle Ground
N 42 15.865 W 73 48.055

Tuesday, June 12

If you own a sailboat and if you travel widely, you may go through the mast unstopping/stepping experience like we did yesterday. I though I’d describe it from our point of view.

First a disclaimer. If you want descriptions of how to raise and lower the mast without the help of a boatyard, see Bud Taplin. Bud has instructions including a video for how to do it yourself. If I had a couple of men to help me I might have tried it myself, but with just me and Libby on our live aboard boat, I don’t want to take the chance of someone getting hurt or of damaging critical equipment. I elected to pay about $150 to have it done professionally.

• The first step is to find a place to do it for you. This year we used Hop-O-Nose marina in Catskill, NY, based on good recommendations we heard from several sources. Having experienced and skilled workers doing the job is important, hence recommendations were welcome. Catskill is 50 miles south of the Erie Canal. If you wait until you get to the mouth of the canal and then ask who can help with the mast, the answer is, “50 miles behind you.” Beware of one thing. The boss at Hop-O-Nose said that most other marinas got out of the mast stepping business, and perhaps some day Hop-O-Nose will too.When we called in advance they said come the earlier the better because they were expecting 7 sailboats that day. We got there early at 08:30, and we were the first ones in. The night before we did our preparations including:
• Remove all sails and stow them below decks. We have a hanked on jib, so I did not have to deal with a roller furler.
• Remove the topping lift and lazy jacks from the boom and secure them to the base of the mast.
• Also secure both ends of all halyards to the base of the mast. Do not leave any loose ends hanging around.
• Remove the boom and store it on deck.
• Remove the whisker pole and store it on deck.
• Remove the lightning ground lead from the base of the mast.
• Go below and remove the mast end of all wiring. Be sure to label and/or document it in such a way that you can put all the wires back when you are done. I removed 10 wires for the radar, 4 for the wind instrument, one for the VHF antenna and 4-6 for lighting. I had them all labeled by color and with wire ties, and then wrapped the ends in masking tape to protect them. The first time I did this job, two years ago, I made a label for each wire, and attached it with scotch tape. Then I wrapped the entire bundle of loose wire ends in duck tape to protect them from the weather. Some months later when I went to restore the wiring, I pulled off the duck tape and the tape pulled off all my labels with it. Don’t do what I did.
• Prepare to remove all the stays. I took off all the vinyl tape, and straightened all the cotter pins but left them in place for the evening.
  

When we arrived at the marina and positioned the boat under the crane, I did the final preparations.

• I removed the cotter pins and clevis pins from the chain plates releasing the fore and aft side stays from both sides. Just relive the tension using the turnbuckle and slip out the clevis pins. Focus intensely on what you are doing so that you don’t drop any overboard. I also removed the cotter pints, but not the clevis pins from the cap stays and fore/back stays.

• We also carried the sails up to the marina’s lawn, spread them flat and folded them carefully. They only occupy 1/3 the volume when neatly folded.

• We needed some kind of a wooden support to hold the mast. Two years ago, when we did this, I had a rental car and we bought wood and parts and made a custom A frame to hold the mast in the stern. I tied the forward end of the mast to the bob pulpit. It worked OK, but I the pulpit isn’t really strong enough for that. This time, we used a wooden support to stand on the fore deck and hold the front end of the mast. The aft end I dropped in to the boom gallows. I was going to make the wooden stand but the boat yard had an old one sitting around that they sold to me for $10. Great price.

When everything was ready, the workers came and attached the crane to the mast.

• They lift from the spreaders and also attach back up lifting lines to the sheet winches. Then they lift with the crane just enough to take the weight of the mast.
• With the crane supporting the mast, I removed the clevis pins and released the fore stay and the two cap stays. In my plan, the back stay remains attached. That is because the back stay is my SSB antenna and I didn’t want to remove the antenna wire.
• Now, use some lengths of line to lash all those stays, including the pin rails, to the mast. You can’t help having some loose ends dangling, but lash it up the best you can.
• Also lash, the wooden mast stand on deck to make it support itself.
  

Now we were ready to unstep.

• First, we used the crane to lift the mast 6 inches. (Westsails have deck stepped masts, not the keel stepped ones that go all the way to the bottom of the boat.)
• Then I went below and guided the wires up trough the pipe that guides wires trough the cabin roof. I went above again and carefully pulled each wire up through the pipe until it was free. I noticed for the first time that Tarwathie had a conical shaped canvas boot that the wires went trough. The end of the boot fit over the pipe. It’s purpose was to keep rain water out. This boot was not on the pipe and last winter we did get a few drops of water coming in during rainstorms.
• With the mast free, the yard workers simply pushed the base of the mast forward, then lowered the whole thing slowly using the crane. It dropped into the wooden base up front and into the boom gallows aft with no problem.
• Next, use as many lines as necessary to tightly (TIGHTLY) secure the mast from moving left or right or (especially) fore and aft. If we run aground at 6 knots the boat will halt abruptly and it would be disastrous to have the mast come crashing down on our heads at that time. Use over kill rather than under kill in securing everything.
• Last, use some more small lines to tie up all the drooping stays and halyards that hang down in your way.
  

Neglecting time waiting for the men to show up, and not including the preparation, our total time at the marina dock was about one hour. If you came to the dock without the advance preparations, it would take two or three hours.

One thing I did not realize until last night at anchor. (1) I can’t post blogs with the SSB radio when the mast is down. (2) We can’t use the normal anchor light. Fortunately, we have an old oil lamp anchor light that we rigged up.

At the far end of the canal, we reverse the process. If I remember right from past experience, it takes about the same time and effort to step the mast and rig the equipment as it does to unstep it. That’s assuming that your labeling system for the wires worked and assuming that you can find all the clevis and cotter pins.

p.s. One more tip. An old timer in Vermont recommended that I get brass cotter pins rather than stainless ones. Brass pins are much softer, easier to bend, and don’t have the sharp edges to cut your fingers like stainless ones do. I bought a box of 100 brass cotter pins from Jamestown Distributors for $15 and I’ve been very glad that I did ever since.

Mast Down Day

Catskill, NY Hop-O-Nose Marina
N 42 12.82 W 073 51.97

Well, this is a sad day. We're preparing to take the mast down. That means no sailing for a long time and that makes us sad. The good part is that we're about to come into our home stomping grounds -- the capital district of New York -- Albany Troy and Schenectady.

By the way. I owe an apology to the people of New Jersey. A few days ago I made fun of them for caring too much about the Sopranos finale. Well, yesterday it was on the front page of The New York Times and the subject of a 20 minute discussion on National Public Radio. I guess that the whole nation (except Paris Hilton) was captivated by the finale, and sad to see the end of The Sopranos.

I'll write up a more complete report on masting/demasting tonight.

The Hudson River Near Storm King Mountain

Did you know?

You can see an arial picture of where we were when the blog was posted as follows.

1. At the beginning of the blog, where you see the location such as:

Kingston, Rondout Creek, NY
N 41 55.013 W 73 59.060

use copy (ctrl-C) to copy the ladditude and longitude to the
clipboard.

2 Go to http://maps.google.com/ and paste (ctrl-com) the clipboard
to the search window.

I would create a link for you directly in the blog article, except that when I post blog articles by email, they must be just plain text, no HTML, no links.

A Day Sail From Kingston

Kingston, Rondout Creek, NY
N 41 55.013 W 73.59.060

Friday night we stayed over at the complimentary dock at the Mariner's Inn restaurant on the Hudson across the river from Poughkeepsie. As an extra bonus we had a ring side seat to the Friday night fireworks display from Poughkeepsie.

Ayhow, it turned out to be a very noisy place. First it was the disco music from the tiki bar at the restaurant right beside us. Then, when the restaurant closed, we realized that we were only 150 feet away from a railroad crossing. All night long, every 12 minutes, a fast freight would come roaring by and blow his whistle when he was right beside us. We didn't get much sleep.

On Saturday we motored up to Kingston and anchored out in the river right near the lighthouse. We had lots of ambitions to use the dinghy to go ashore and to clean off the brown mustache that Tarwathie picked up along the waterline and then to wax the hull. In reality, we were both so tired from lack of sleep that we just napped the day away.

Today, we had a visit from Bud and Nan from West Charlton. We haven't seen them in more than a year so it was great fun to get together. They drove down to Kingston and we met them at the water front. Then we went out in to the Hudson for a little sail, and headed down river towards Hyde Park. There was very little wind. By the time lunch was ready the wind had died to zero, so I just took down the sails, we motored a bit, and then we just shut off the motor and drifted. We didn't drift very far because it was nearly slack tide but it was nice and peaceful.


After returning to Kingston, the four of us walked to the visitor's center and spent time looking at the exhibits of the local history of Kingston and Rondout Creek. The creek was the terminus of the Delaware and Hudson Canal. The D&H canal has a history rather like the Great Dismal Swamp Canal. It was dug by hand with private money. When it was complete, Kingston became a real hub of commerce. Shipbuilding, concrete, coopers, bricklaying, ice harvesting, and blue stone quarrying industries all sprung up here because it was a hub of transportation. Also, the D&H railroad started here, and the railroad eventually made the canal obsolete. All this local history is, I think, very interesting.

We finished up the day with drinks on the patio of a Mexican restaurant on the shore of the creek. Thank you Bud and Nan, we had a very fun day.

Repowering Project Summary

Some blog readers asked me to follow up on the repowering project summary after gaining some experience with the new engine. Here goes.

First, you can find the individual posts of the 17 day long project by clicking here. In each day's post is a link to the next day's post. Follow all 17 links and it will bring you back here.

The following summary is copied from the blog of March 11, 2007 with four differences.

1) The Re-Haul. When we splashed the boat I immediately noticed leakage from the shaft log. We had to re-haul it up on the hard, purchase and apply a new Marine-Tex putty kit and splash it once again. That mistake cost $400.

2) Taplin Labor. Initially I expected to pay Bud Taplin for his labor. Indeed, as explained in earlier blogs, I considered him to be the prime contractor and the job to be a turnkey installation. Well, that was wrong. When the boatyard asked for an insurance certificate, Bud explained that no, he is not a contractor, he was just a friend helping me with a do-it-yourself project. He would not be charging me a penny for labor. Well, the final story is that a few weeks after the project, I got
an invoice in the mail: $500 for Bud's Labor. I consider it well worth the price, but because of the history, the invoice came as a surprise to me.

3) I moved Diagnosis A from the core project to the supplemental project. The reason is that I expect that most people would not include the cost of deciding to do the project as part of the cost of the project.

4) I include an engine performance summary at the end.

Here is the summary, starting with the core project. These are the things that were inescapable.

New Engine.....$9,300
Parts............$900
Boat Yard......$1,100
Tools............$200
Re-Haul..........$400
Taplin Labor.....$500

...Subtotal...$12,400.....(70%)

Parts includes the new propeller shaft, control cables, fuel lines, hoses, clamps and stuff. Bud Taplin generously provided a kit with almost everything I need in all lengths and sizes. He said to ship back the unused items and to scratch them off the invoice before paying. Thanks Bud, that makes it fairly easy.

The boat yard fee included the haul out, storage, use of their fork lift to remove the old engine and place in the new one, plus about 5 hours labor for their men to do several miscellaneous jobs for us.

The $12,400 subtotal sounds low for a repowering project. Unfortunately, that is not the whole story. Next are the items that were real costs to me, but may or may not apply to you. Call it the supplemental project.

Diagnosis A.......$500
Diagnosis B.......$500
Batteries.........$300
Paint.............$300
Living..........$3,738
.......Subtotal.$5,338....(30%)
...Grand Total.$16,838...(100%)

In this, Diagnosis A was the fee for the mechanic to take apart the old engine and to pronounce it fatally wounded.

Diagnosis B was the cost of the mechanic putting the old engine back together to keep our batteries charged while waiting two months for Bud's availability.

Batteries and paint were side projects. You may wish to exclude all side projects from your budget. On the other hand, it may be wiser to include 15% for contingencies.

The biggest item in the second group was $3,783 for alternative living arrangements. That included marina fees, mooring fees, apartment rental, and car rental, but excluded food. Since we live aboard, these alternative living arrangements are an additional expense that we would not have to pay if we were traveling and living on the hook. If you are repowering but do not live aboard, then you would probably not count those living expenses toward the repowering project.

Not included in these numbers are my labor (about 150 hours), and Libby's labor (about 100 hours). If I had to purchase all that labor at boat yard rates, it would have cost me another $20,000! On the other hand, professionals would not have needed as many hours as Libby and I. I probably could have negotiated a fixed price contract for the labor for perhaps $6,000.

Engine performance:

As I write this, we now have 266 hours on the new engine and we have refueled 6 times and changed the oil twice.

The first day out, I was very concerned with vibrations. The engine sounds were alien to me and I was afraid of engine misalignment, which would be very serious. I finally qualmed my fears by holding the handle of a boat hook pressed against the propeller shaft while we were under way at 2000 RPM. The boat hook would telegraph any vibrations up to my hand, thus giving me a tactile measurement of vibrations rather than an audio one. There were no vibrations. Over all, the new Beta Engine is
much quieter than the Perkins was.

We have settled on 2,000 RPM as the normal cruising speed under power. At that RPM Tarwathie moves at 5.5 knots in very still water and still air. We idle at 800 RPM and recharge batteries at 1200 RPM.

The measured fuel consumptions on refueling were: 0.49, 0.51, 0.62, 0.52, 0.55 and 0.58 gallons per hour. The average is 0.55 gallons per hour. We carry 40 gallons of fuel, so I estimate our range under powe rto be 300-400 nautical miles,

Oil consumption so far has been zero. Oil changes have been wonderfully easy and clean compared to the ordeal with the Perkins. I use the built-in oil change hand pump to suck out the oil directly into a one gallon container. After all the oil is out, I wait 5 minutes, then suck again, then remove the old oil filter with an oil absorbent cloth held below it to catch the few drops that spill.

Thanks

Thanks one more time to Bud Taplin, and especially to my faithful mate Libby. I would never have made it without their loyalty, patience, and sweat.

Oh How Beautiful

On the Hudson River
N 41 36.155 W 73 57.281

Nyack lives up to it's reputation. It is a delightful little place to visit. We went ashore this morning and showered at the Nyack Boat Club. That is an excellent boat club with wonderful facilities and very friendly staff and members. If we lived some place near by I would be very happy to be a member of that boat club. The same comments apply to the Capitol Boat Club in Washington, but I think one needs to be a millionaire to afford that place.

AFter hour shower, we walked around the town. It is filled with small shops and restaurants of all kinds. Nyack obviously has no big box stores nearby. We saw some of the biggest and most beautiful and exquisitely maintained houses ever in Nyack. They were so big that they would make our place on Union Street in Schenectady's Stockade look tiny. I tried to take pictures of some of them, but I had trouble standing back far enough to get the whole house in the lens. Anyhow, Libby and I never
heard of Nyack when we lived in New York, but it is a lovely little place to visit.

The populace amused us. We saw a lot of people too old to be yuppies. They appeared to be affluent, so they weren't upwardly mobile any more. Yet they seemed desperate to maintain that yuppie image so they walked around looking silly in their spandex bicycling outfits. I invented a word to describe them. Paternal Urban Pretender in singular, or puppies in plural.

We had coffee and a turnover at a nice coffee shop, and we ate a delicious lunch at a Greek lunch counter. Then it was time for the tide to turn in the river so we had to leave.

With the tidal current with us we make great time. We've averaged 7.4 knots for this afternoon. We learned from past trips; it doesn't pay to travel against the current in the Hudson River.

The portion of the river between Peekskill and Newburgh, including West Point, Storm King Mountain, and Pollepel Island with Bannerman Castle is just too beautiful to describe. The river is enclosed by mighty wooded mountains on both sides with the shore lines formed by the cliffs plunging directly in to the water. Even the river is very deep here, 180 feet deep. There is a flat place to make a boat landing at West Point, but I suspect that it is man made.

Past this stretch, one comes to Newburgh and Beacon. Here, on a clear day one is treated to wonderful views of the Catskill Mountains to the West. Unfortunately today is a very hazy day so we didn't get to see those scenes.

I recommend to all our friends that they arrange to see the lower Hudson River by boat. You can't see it from any road or from the train or from a plane -- only by boat. There are cruise boats leaving from Poughkeepsie that will take you down to New York City and back to Poughkeepsie in the same day. Do yourself a favor and take that trip. If you can arrange to do it in the first week of October when the fall colors are in their peak, so much the better.

Tonight we plan to stay in Poughkeepsie and tomorrow night to stay in Kingston. Our friend Nan from West Charlton is going to come down and sail with us.

The Battery looks very different without the World Trade Center Buildings. It is very sad passing by ground zero.

The Lady

There's a tug like no other

Who is buried in this tomb? Hint: Groucho's favorite.

If you answer this correctly you really date yourself.

Look out New York. Here We Come

Nyack, NY
N 41 05.444 W 073 54.816

Last night, at 03:00 around 15 miles south of Sandy Hook, NJ, I saw a number of fishing boats anchored about 5 miles off shore. I figured there must be an inlet nearby. I looked toward shore, and sure enough there was another fishing boat coming out. I was 3 miles off shore so I didn't worry much.

I took a bearing on the boat -- 270 degrees. I checked it again later -- 270 degrees -- uh oh. Again in 5 minutes -- 270 degrees -- uh oh. I had the right of way unquestionably. I turned on the spreader lights to make sure that I was highly visible. Still 270 degrees. I was determined not to yield unnecessarily. At last the bugger passed me less than one boat length in front of my bow.

I looked ashore again, and saw another boat coming out. Same story -- he was coming straight at me, even though I was not in the same place as when the first boat came out. I figured it out. These jerk fishermen were having fun playing chicken with the sailboat. This time I determined not to play and I stopped dead in the water to let him pass. Bugger.

We arrived at Sandy Hook around 09:00 right on schedule to pick up the flood tide. I gave Libby three choices, anchor, stay at the 79th street boat basin for the night, or continue up the Hudson. We heard from a couple of people that was a fun stop. She said that she felt burned out on cities after Washington, and Baltimore, so she chose to go on up the Hudson.

The tides in NYC harbor are hard to understand. We fought the ebb tide approaching the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. We made 4 knots at 2000 RPM. Passing under the bridge we picked up a flood tide and the speed jumped to 5.5 knots. That was faster than the trucks on the bridge above us. They seemed to go only about 3 mph.

A mile later and we were back to 4 knots. As we passed the East River, we had 0.3 knots ebb tide against us, but only 1/4 mile away in front of the UN building it was 3. knots flood tide. How could that be? Up by Hell's gate, the current was 9.2 knots at the same time.

We started to pick up the flood tide again as we passed Manhattan. By the time we went under the George Washington Bridge, we were doing 6.7 knots. That was 6.7 knots faster than the truck traffic on the bridge above -- it was completely stopped.

As the afternoon passed on a south wind picked up and blew stronger and stronger. If we hadn't decided to stop at Nyack, we would have been able to ride the tide and current another 50 miles before sunset. As it was, we did 184 miles in 31 hours. I confess though, that 22 of those 31 hours we were motoring. The wind was nil most of the time.

We've heard that Nyack is a very fun place to visit so we'll have a look tomorrow. We're staying at a yacht club mooring in Nyack. Just sough of us is the Tappan Zee bridge and across the river at the crest of the hill behind Tarrytown is (I think) the Rockerfeller Mansion. Just up the river are the Vanderbilt mansion, Roosevelt's Hyde Park, and many more sights. This is the start of the most beautiful scenery on the east coast. We say that, no because we are New Yorkers at heart, but because it so obviously true. The Hudson Valley and the Mohawk Valley and the Champlain Valley are all wonderfully beautiful.

NYC Bound

At Sea
N 39 30 W 74 11

We left this morning expecting light winds in the morning and a fresher breeze after noon. In fact, we had the opposite. Leaving the Cape May inlet we had a brisk 15-20 NW breeze. Ah the thrill of putting out to sea. We always love it.

Within an hour though the breeze stopped. We were forced to motor for much of the day. I know I wrote in the blog that I don't use the motor at sea, but today was the exception.

Around 19:00 the NW wind picked up again and we're tooling right along at 6 knots. I don't think it will last all night but we'll see.

If we can make it to the Verazzano Bridge by 10:00 tomorrow, we'll have a favorable current to carry us up the Hudson. If we miss that, we'll probably anchor overnight at Sandy Hook.

Our course takes us up the NJ coast, never more than 10 miles off shore. However, the NJ coast is boring. Just fishing trawlers and barges out here. There are a few inlets where we could put in if a storm came, but they don't sound interesting.

I did learn one thing by listening to the local radio stations. A poll of NJ residents say that they prefer that Tony Soprano should not get whacked in the finale episode but that he should go straight instead. Well, now you heard the word from the horses mouth.

No Respect for Delaware

Cape May, New Jersey
N 38 57.002 W 74 53.246

We made very fast progress today. 80 miles in 12.5 hours. If we maintained that for 24 hours it would have been a 150 mile day; our second best ever. It helped a lot that we had the current against us for only 3 of those 12 hours. Studying the current tables can really pay off.

This is the third or fourth time we made the passage to/from Cape May to the C&D Canal. Each time we pass from Maryland, through Delaware to New Jersey. Yet, we still haven't ever set foot in Delaware. I think that even when traveling by car, that we've always passed through Delaware without stopping. There seems to be nothing of interest to attract us in Delaware; hence no respect. Now I expect emails from blog readers who love Delaware. Let them come.

As we approached the C&D canal, we were making 5 knots under power at 2000 RPM. As we exited the canal we were doing 8.9 knots, still at 2000 RPM. Two hours after that we were doing 8.9 knots under sail, with a double reefed main. No wonder it was a fast day.

Coming in to the Cape May canal I plugged in my computer and the new WiFi gadget and scanned for a signal. Soon I found one coming from a house along side the canal. I told Libby to stop and circle near the house while I checked email. She did so. When I was done I came up on deck and saw an apparently irate homeowner on the shore staring at us. I suspect that he was angry at the thought of sharing his Internet with passers by. Too bad for him.

Havre

Havre De Grace
N 39 32.729 W 076 04.948

On Sunday the remnants of tropical storm Betty passed by. It was cold and rainy all day long so we just sat it out and did nothing all day.

Today started rainy too but we were restless, so we headed across the bay to Havre de Grace, at the mouth of the Susquehanna River. This is yet another place where we've never been before. We tried to get here last year, but just as we entered the very long (7 mile) channel in, we got hit by a very powerful 30 knot north wind that raised steep 5-6 foot waves almost immediately. That made us change our mind and we retreated to the Sassafras River.

Today, we had a mission. We were nearly out of clean clothes and some provisions. We hadn't had a chance to do either since Solomons. Therefore, we sailed here to Havre and took a mooring at Tidewater Marina for 75 cents per foot. While Libby did laundry, I walked around the town. There was nothing of great interest.

There is a railroad bridge nearby with an amazing amount of traffic. It seems that a passenger train passes every 15-20 minutes. I suspect that this might be the main train route from New York City to Washington DC. There is a highway bridge just upstream from the railway bridge and I suspect that it is the I-95 crossing.

When our chores were done I elected to not stay the night. I wanted to cross the bay to the Bohemia River so that we could be in a better position to traverse the C & D (Chesapeake & Delaware) canal tomorrow morning. We slipped the mooring but soon thereafter we got a weather report of a severe Thunderstorm near Annapolis heading our way, so we changed our minds and came back.

Tomorrow, we'll have to get up early and be underway by 05:30. The reward for timing it right is a rapid ride on the canal's currents. If we do it right, we'll have 4.7 knots of current with us as we pass Chesapeake City on the canal. Wow! If things work well, and if the weather holds up, we will be all the way or most of the way to Cape May NJ before sunset tomorrow.