Needed new paint

We took inQuest across the Chesapeake Bay to a haul-out facility. There she'd get a new bottom paint job done. While out of the water Russ also wanted all the seacocks (thru-holes on the boat) to be cleaned and lubed. Lastly, we wanted someone to inspect the black tank macerators -- we have not gotten them to work, and while not our first choice of eliminating black tanks, it would be handy to have as a back up.

The plan was to drop her off Monday, and hopefully pick her up on Friday. As fate would have it there have been issues, and parts ordered, and, well, boat stuff. The current splash date is Wednesday. Meanwhile, we're staying in a VRBO until the following Friday.

I've booked our train tickets to Tampa for Sunday, arriving Monday afternoon. I'm looking forward to that.

She is a silly looking thing, ain't she

Once we get her back to her slip in Baltimore we need to winterize her before heading south. That will take a couple of days to comfortably complete. But I don't have a "warm and fuzzy feeling" about splashing on Wednesday, since boats life is notoriously about things going not-as-planned. 

I did have the foresight of buying insurance for the trip, which would give us a full refund, just in case.

As soon as inQuest was chocked the lift picked up Highwind, right next
to us. They got hauled a week earlier. We did a bit of boat-pooling: 
Hannah and David came with us to the haul-out, and we rode back
to Baltimore with them.

Cape May to Baltimore, slip, just not ours

Yesterday we'd moved from the Sunset anchorage to the Canyon Resort Marina, too small a voyage to bother mentioning. But it accomplished 2 things. First, it took 45 minutes off our journey today, which would already be long and, second, got us easy access to shore. That made it much easier to go to Walgreens, for example, to pick up Russ's Paxlovid.

Cuz, yep, we have Covid.

Leaving Cape May in the sunrise

Mine isn't as bad so I'm just trying to get by with cough suppressants and decongestants. Neither of us feel particularly sick, which is why, once we could just see the water, we headed out this morning around 6:30 am.

The plan was to drop a hook on the Sassafras River, leaving an easy 5 hour trip to Baltimore tomorrow. It looked like we'd get in right around 4pm, which made for a long day. But we managed to catch a very favorable tide, which meant we traveled around 10 knots almost all day long -- once while we headed up the Delaware Bay, again crossing through the C 'n' D Canal, then down the Chesapeake. With all that push we got to Sassafras by 2:30, and that seemed way too soon to stop. So, we went all the way home. Thanks to that continued push up the Patapsco River, we got lines on the dock around 6 pm.

After so many windy day delays, the water was
like this or better all day long. Worth waiting for.

Not quite 12 hours, but it didn't seem too long to me. Unlike the long trip to Atlantic City where I literally kept asking Russ "Are we there yet?" I'm feeling pretty perky, odd since I have a runny nose.

Our slip, however, is being rented, and won't be vacant for a couple more days. Highwind is off getting some work done, so Hannah and David have offered their slip to us until then.

Nevertheless, we're back in Charm City.

Gonna be heartbreaking for a long time.

Happy to be back.

Atlantic City to Cape May, anchor

Given the weather remains a total bother, we continued on the New Jersey ICW southward. 

We recalled from last year that this section, from Atlantic City to Cape May, was the worst part, with lots of skinny water and twisty routes. For some reason, this time it just didn't seem that bad. It took us a while to realize why.

First, we thought the trip was about 8 hours. It goes by many neighborhoods filled with slow zones. Turned out it was only 6, getting us here in time for naps!

Second, we had a brandy-new Corp of Engineers scan to go off of. Last time we used the sonar charts on our Navionics. This was so much better. No guess work, totally accurate.

Up and out early in the morning.

Third (and we only realized this in the last couple of miles) they'd dredged the channel. Some sections remain (or quickly became) shoaled. But mostly we had good depths. Also, it wasn't as twisty as I recalled.

To be fair, it's still skinny. This is what we see on the water...

...and this is what the charts read. Throughout the day, tho, 
we mostly had 10 ft or more. This section was thin, around 5.
But with wind and tide we never saw less than 3 feet beneath us.

Needless to say we had a good day, staying off the choppy and miserable Atlantic, and boy does it continue to be.

We finally got to Dock's Oyster House, in AC.
Had halibut with their "pommes souffle".

Not sure how long we'll be here, now. We're thinking Thursday or Friday to get up the Delaware, then it's a quick 2nd day ride back to Baltimore. Our slip is rented until Oct 5, so this should be good timing.

Too bad I've relapsed and am now sicker than I'd been since before my trip to NYC.

Coney Island to Atlantic City, marina

When people say "curse like a sailor" it's not that the sailor is a particularly bad fellow. It's more that he had a long and miserable day and, *** **** ****** *****, he's just tired. I can relate.

We were up at 5 am for a 6:15 go time, the destination was Atlantic City. After one last weather/wave check that looked really ambitious to us. We decided we'd bag at Manasquan, which was the first inlet off the Atlantic. Then we'd casually bop our way down the Jersey ICW, and anchor somewhere. Since that inlet can spicy, we delayed our departure by 2 hours so it would be near slack tide when we got there. Highwind and One Eye Dog (OED) took off at 6:15 as planned.

They warned us the water was pretty bad across the mouth of the New York Harbor, but got better once off the Jersey shore. Armed with that, he headed out.

It was pretty bad. We had 4 footers on the beam, but in 11 second periods which is the only reason we though going was doable. It did get better once we got near the shore but it in no way was good. Or reasonable. I know the water is bad when I check my watch every 5 minutes wondering how much longer.

While the waters improved once off the ocean
the weather just got worse...

...and worse...

...and worse.

That part of the journey took 3.5 hours. Once we got in the inlet, which was perfectly easy, everything was smooth, and stayed that way for the rest of the day.

Right away we started looking for where to anchor. In chatting with OED we thought there might be a chance to get up the Delaware Bay tomorrow if we made it to AC tonight. We did some calculations and realized we could do that, then make a trip up the Delaware part of a long day tomorrow. So we called a marina and made reservations.

But as the day wore on (and on, and on) we realized the bay might not be so inviting after all -- all the weather apps have mixed predictions, which tends to mean "it's going to bite." And the Atlantic was still a mess, so we'd have to take the JICW to Cape May before getting onto the Delaware, and that track will take close to 8 hours alone.

Before we pulled into the marina (around 6:30 pm), we'd decided we'll just stay here a few days and see how the weather shakes out.

It's been a long 3 weeks, and today's been a long day. With Hurricane Helene coming at us, it doesn't appear we're done with this yet, either.

UPDATE: I forget to mention the highlight of the day. Very late, only a few miles from AC, in the very dim light we saw a sailboat. It's location made us assume he was in the channel, but as we neared he appeared anchored. Weird. Through binoculars I didn't see anchor line, but they clearly weren't moving, and (now we could see) they were not in the channel. We slowed way down and Russ got on the bow, asking them if they needed help. They did... they wanted us to wake them. So we put the throttle down, bucked up the water behind us in a huge wave, and went by them. They gave us a big thumbs up as they sailed northward and on their way. That definitely made us feel a little better about the day, being in the right time at the right place -- always happy to help someone.

Port Wash to Coney Island, ball

This is a new marina for us, right next to Coney Island. It's called Miramar. We picked it because it makes a quicker jump off point to start southward, making it about 2 hours shorter than starting at Great Kills on Staten Island.

The weather is looking only marginal for my taste. But with the next hurricane, Helene, already thundering it's way up the gulf, there's an argument to "just get it done." The plan is to head south and get to (at least) Manasquan, which is the first "GET OFF THE WATER" point along the coast. If we're feeling confident, we'll go all the way to Atlantic City for the night. But we won't make that call until we're underway.

NYC in the gloom

Three of us, One Eye Dog, Highwind, and ourselves, made reservations for balls here a couple of days ago. We all immediately got positive responses ball assignments. Because they work Highwind got underway right at the crack of dawn. OED and we started later, largely because we wanted to pick up a little bit of fuel -- just to make sure we had enough to get to AC if we laid the throttles down.

When Highwind got here, tho, there was a vessel on their ball. They got reassigned, no biggie. When we got here we were re-assigned their ball. And a vessel was still on it. The launch didn't seem to believe us so came out to investigate and, lo, ball is occupied. They apologized then (and this was a new one) moved the other vessel. I found that amusing.

Moving a derelict boat from our assigned ball.

Due to rainy weather we aren't going to explore Coney Island. But I suspect we might come back.

Russ working on some bugs while passing the old Pepsi-Cola building.

The ride to Coney Island, just past the Verrazano Bridge.

Not the best. Not the worst.

Yep, still in Port Washington

Between an onslaught of hurricanes and a very stubborn low off the coast the waters off the Jersey shore remain abysmal. It's been a week since I got back from NYC, and we thought we'd need an extra day or 2 before we had a window to travel, but this has been bonkers.

Odd, the weather here's been pretty nice.
Didn't even get the rain they predicted.
But the winds out there are miserable!

Good news, though, If you have to be somewhere for 3 weeks, Port Washington gets high marks. Between a slew of excellent restaurants, convenient access to groceries and drugs stores, a free launch service, cheap mooring balls, and reasonable trip to get to the city, Port Washington remains a favorite even after an extended stay.

We are among a bunch of boaters all buckin' to get south. There have been texts, chats, and phone calls as everyone compares weather and wave information. General consensus says get to a launching point Thursday and start down the Jersey coast Friday. It won't be fun. Some of us will jump off as soon as we can (this is my tribe) at Manasquan, then take the JICW down to Atlantic City. Others will just put the throttles on the table and book it all the way to Cape May.

Today is Tuesday, and this Friday window has been stable for a while, so we're hopeful that it remains. 

But it doesn't look like it will be fun.

But neither will be waiting.

A Few Days In NYC!

I have had a plan for months to meet a Californian friend, Jennifer, in NYC. So we timed our arrival to be near the area to make that easy. From here we'd start heading south as soon as I got back to the boat. Weather, of course, has changed that. Gonna be here for maybe another week. So, I might take and other day trip to the city.

However, here are some highlights to my 3 days in NYC.

Of course, New York 'za. Village Square Pizza, Midtown
rated 4.9 on Google. It was definitely one of the best pizzas
I've had in a while. 

The New York Public Library.

Did an escape room. We escaped with 1 minute to spare!

Dungeons and Dragons! 2nd time I've seen the show.
And just as fun as the first.

If you play Asgard's Wrath II, you know what to do.

We also saw Once Upon a Mattress, a play about the Princess
and the Pea story. Very funny.

Breakfast of champions! Sesame balls and jasmine tea.
Seriously, I love New York.

Port Jefferson to Port Washington, ball

We're in a sweet spot of calm waters this week. Probably will change once the remnants of the latest hurricane, Francine, heads north.

We plan on being here a while, maybe a week. Port Washington is a cute town with easy access to NYC, it's just a 45 minute train ride. And the balls are pretty inexpensive. AND they have a pump out boat. What's not to love?

Some swans and swanlings... swanlets? Swansters?

If we had another 4 day window (which is a luxury in boating so not very likely) we could make it to Baltimore from here. Those are long days, too. We have to cross the Jersey short to head south. Any east wind makes that a "no go" typically -- you don't want the fetch of the entire Atlantic to have to deal with.

We're not in a massive hurry but things are getting a bit crowded in October. We know our slip in Baltimore is rented until Oct 5; that's not a huge inconvenience since we could put inQuest in another slip until it frees up. We do have some things we'd like to do to the boat that requires it to be hauled, like replace the thru hulls, check the bottom paint and repaint if necessary, and install new macerators on our black tanks (fun one, that!). On top of that we need to winterize the boat before we leave Baltimore. If possible we'd like to go see FLIBS (Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show), which is the last week of October.

Another placid day on LIS.

Oh, and we have a condo rental in Tampa that starts Oct 15. 

It's feeling like a busy month to me.

Port Washington. Look at all that space between boats!

Newport -> Old Saybrook -> Port Jefferson, anchor/ball

It was a tricky call after so many days of winds but we decided to make the 6 hour run from Newport to Old Saybrook on Tuesday. Good thing, too. We had a good ride. A little lumpy leaving Newport -- which always seems to be true -- but the rest of the day went from ok to excellent.

Once in Old Saybrook we tried to grab a ball in the North Cove. We've been there a couple of times already, including on the way up, but for some reason it felt more crowded. It's a very tight field. Highwind (who left Newport a number of days earlier) was on the hook in the middle of the Connecticut River. We opted to simply raft with them.

Moonlit night in Newport

Russ and I took the dinghy into town to dump some trash and recycling as well as do a little shopping.

Wednesday we got up and out quite early. Highwind has plans to stay on the north side of Long Island Sound while we're heading for the south.

Long Island Sound was almost totally flat all day long. We had an amazing trip across. Once in the bay there were any balls available for us to use. We snagged one, we took naps, then headed into town for some excellent Indian food.

Tomorrow it's onto Port Washington, where we'll be for nearly a week.

Sept 11, beeline to Port Jefferson

Peaking sun at dawn

Excellent food at Curry Club. One of our favorites places to eat.

This submarine-thing is a cruise ship tender. While in Newport
these things came in and out constantly. You can just spy
one of the cruise ships behind it and Goat Island.