Our first problem was discovered when we had to use the dinghy to go to dinner on City Island because the Clubs launch service ends at 6 pm in the waning days of the season: it started right up but stopped in five seconds. So we paddled. And the night of the seventh was unpleasantly rocky on the mooring due to strong SW winds kicking up big chop in Eastchester Bay, impeding sleep.
The passage was from 9:45 am on the eighth until 7:30 am on the tenth, 45.75 hours with a two hour "stop" to be discussed later, so 43.75 hours underway. The first of the two days (NYC and the Atlantic coast of New Jersey) was warmer than expected for the season, both day and night, with sunny clear skies and a big full moon; the second of the days (Delaware Bay, the C and D Canal and Chesapeake Bay) was raw and cloudy but not frigid and not rainy. This chart, created by Jims Spot device shows our route, except that it connects the dots every four hours or so and hence cuts off the corners and shows us crossing land. [Image to be added.]
We actually left, after mango pancakes, about an hour too early due to my impatience so we did not experience the favorable tide while we fought strong headwinds until near Hellsgate when the tide started flushing us out of NY Harbor. A tug with four barges (2 x 2) came up behind us near Hellsgate and called I
LENE by name to advise that we would apparently be going through Hellsgate together and that his four barges would be swinging to port. I did a short 360 degree loop to let him pass and observed that his tow did indeed sweep far to his port side and "crab" through the most problematic tidal strait of the passage on a diagonal. We passed parallel to the FDR Drive with its snarled traffic on which I drive so often to get to the Club.
Here is the Freedom Tower to the left, currently New Yorks tallest structure, and a tower of the Brooklyn Bridge to the right, which held that title in the 1880s.
We put up sails, starting with double reefed main and small jib, after we passed Governors Island and we were on starboard tack all the way to Cape May, though we gradually shook out the reefs and changed back and forth to the genoa when passing through periods of apparent winds of 20-25 knots and periods where they were in the mid teens. The Verranzano Bridge, our ninth of the passage, was emotionally my last point in New York until around May, 2015.
Unlike the similar passage on Pandora about two weeks before, on which the wind was never forward of the beam, on this trip it was almost never aft of the beam, though rarely close hauled and predominantly about 60 degrees off the bow. Jim, who made the trip on both boats is a great man to have aboard. He is a fellow Cornellian, an engineer and very knowledgeable as a sailor though he wears his experts mantle lightly, without a trace of the arrogance that some experts have -- laid back and a pleasure to sail with. He agreed to my request to sleep the earlier part of each night and stand the later night watch. During our first night I was "racing" a green light that started off our port bow. At times he would get ahead and by changing sails, at times, I would get ahead. Our speed varied from 3.5 to 8.1 knots depending on the wind. When very close I hailed the "sailboat with another sailboat on your port quarter", identified ILENE and thanked him "for keeping me awake last night". He reciprocated the thanks and identified himself as "Momo" a Valiant 40, here shown off Wildwood,
bound for Florida with a planned stop for a day in Cape May harbor. I told him I hoped we would meet up with them in Florida or along the way. He is a very good sailor because ILENE is a faster boat but he kept up.
Jim took the watch for most of the passage up Delaware Bay, in which we avoided the worst of the adverse tide. Having rounded Cape May at about 9 a.m., using the inside passage a hundred yards off the beach, with main and engine but no headsail, Jim suggested a diagonal course, away from but toward the shipping channel at Miah Maull light, after which we stayed just outside the channel on its right side almost all the way up. A tug with barges ran near adjacent to us most of the way and we put up the headsail when possible to gain speed and sailed without engine, close reaching on port. Unfortunately, when the tug got ahead of us during lighter winds, we got long doses of his diesel fumes. About 5-10 miles before the Canal, when we are slightly ahead of him, I called on VHF and told him our plan to cut across his bow to get to the other side of the channel in anticipation of our left turn into the Canal and he replied "OK".
As we entered the canal Jim came up with the good idea to stop for a couple of hours to avoid the worst of the adverse tidal flow. We would tie up for free at a dock in the Summit North Marina on the north side of the Canal to have dinner in their excellent Aqua Sol Restaurant. And we shared a bottle of red and a nice assortment of appetizers while motoring in the canal. This is the same marina where ILENE spent a night on our last trip in June 2012 and where Pandora went in for fuel two weeks ago. But on our way in, going slowly, of course, we went aground. We used the preventer to swing the boom, with Jim sitting on its end, out to port, in an effort to tilt the boat and break us free. No luck, we were stuck hard. And we created this lead line, the old fashioned depth meter, out of a green divers weight, a wire wrap, a length of light line and red tape to mark where the wet part old the line ended.
Yep, we were stuck alright and it was mud, which you can see, dried on the bottom of the weight. What to do? Wait for the tide to come in and float us off. I took the watch and two hours later, at about ten, I saw us drift, turned on the engine and woke Jim. We motored to the inner end of the cul de sac, turned in the deep turning basin and headed out of there. Then I slept for four hours until 2 a.m. while Jim took us out of the Canal and into the Bay. I took the watch from 2 until 7:10 a.m., when GPS put us ten minutes from the red daymark guarding Back Bay harbor of Annapolis, where Jim lives with Ann and where we docked at Bert Jabins Marina -- where I
LENE had stood on the hard during the winter of 2005 in which we bought her.
Ann came over to take us to breakfast at Grumps, an Annapolis breakfast institution, where no two coffee mugs ever match. But the Captain ordered another batch of pancakes and put Jim to work peeling mangos for the three of us.
Then how to best utilize the time before Lenes arrival at about 4 pm. Well the most critical task was fixing the outboard, the engine of our car. And it being Friday, when mechanics are at work, I searched and found Steve of A and B Yachtsmen, who disassembled the carburetor, cleaned the rust from it, and emptied our fuel tank and line. She runs again! We are across the dock from a beautiful Tayana 55, "Karina"
owned by Dr. Miles (both M.D. and a boat doctor) and Ann, who are leaders in the Caribbean 1500. Ann gave Ilene a lot of good advice about sailing with cats in 2010 and unfortunately their cat has gone to heaven. I introduced myself as a graduate of the 2010 run and he pretended to remember me and invited us to an Alumni reunion we attended that night.
Before that I washed Ilenes salt crust and New York grime and freshened our water supply, cleaned up the interior a bit and took a shower and a nap. Lene and Witty look happy to be here and we got a good nights sleep.
The adventure has begun!
