Isle of Hope (made it!)

We left Sunbury around 9:30 am, just shy of slack high tide. Turns out, getting off the dock was still a bit tricky, even with the slowing tide. As soon as we untied the stern line the back drifted into the current. I was concerned to over use the port engine given it only had 1 belt. It wasn't a pretty exit, but we didn't hit or damage anything, so we claim victory.

At our normal speed it should be a 4 1/2 hour run to Isle of Hope. But we wanted to go slower this trip, largely to keep the port's RPM lower than normal just to make sure it was alright. We ran around 1800 RPM, and usually we go 2300. However, we also wanted to time the tides. Low tide would be just past 3 pm in Savannah. Going slower meant we'd arrive right around then.

Russ at the helm

The trip was uneventful. No rain, no wind. Just some patchy cloud cover. Russ checked the belt a number of times during the trip while I kept a watchful eye on the engine temp. It ran just fine.

Getting in a little earlier than we planned meant we still had a little current. Docking required going past the marina, turning around, then coming in. The spot they wanted us was between a huge and beautiful Nordhaven and a fishing trawler. We were to parallel parking right between them.

I told Russ I was bummed not to get up to the Hudson this year for one reason only -- to see and thank Keith, the dock master at Poughkeepsie. He taught us "The Poughkeepsie Manuever" which has been one of the handiest things we have ever learned. And we used it today.

With the current coming at us I aimed for a boat on the dock beside ours, Nectar (turns out we know him -- he was in Ortega Landing while we were there). Then I just turned the bow slightly towards our dock. The current does the rest, pushing us sideways. All I have to do it apply enough engine to keep us in our "slot," and off the fancy Nordhaven (Russ coached that we shouldn't hit boats we couldn't afford to rent for a week.)

I aimed for the boat on the far left, with the green canvas.
The tide pushed us all way to the right against our dock. Ta Da!

We slowly slid to the starboard side, and settled nicely into our slip. Which was extremely encouraging since we had a couple of iffy days.

We've rented a car for the week to get some shopping and errands done, including getting new belts. So we'll be here a while. 

This stretch is called Hell's Gate, due to it being
both shallow and narrow. It's been dredged 
recently. So it's only Heck's Gate now.

Lovely sunrise in Sunbury