Back to Baltimore, end of the season

Boats. Always a frickin' adventure.

Russ and I have a new rule based on this one: If anyone besides Russ is in the engine rooms, we need to sit in the water for 10 minutes with the engines running before we move anywhere.

I had a doctor's appointment made months ago for this day. When we dropped off the boat 12 days ago, we figured it would be splashed within a week and there's be no issue. However, boats. 

The holdup came with a small request to lube our seacocks, specifically the ones for the engines. They largely use the outside water to cool them, sucking it in from beneath the boat. Sliding levers allow you to open or close them. Ours have been sticky for a while so Russ wanted them lubed. But once the folks got started the kits used to do that were no longer available. So instead, they were going to replace them. Again, no longer available but they cast a wide net and found 6. Once they came in, however, they weren't threaded right (I'm hand-waving a lot of these terms since I only overheard the conversation between Russ and the tech). The only answer was to change to totally new bronze ones which fit perfectly. All of THAT took several days to sort.

Of course they wanted us to splash on the same day as my doctor's appointment. I remained hopeful it would work, since my doctor's appointment was at 11 am, and the splash was at 1 pm. But it was a 1 hour Uber ride to the yard so time was critical. Our plan B was Russ would go alone and single hand the boat back by himself. I personally thought that was a terrible idea -- after getting work like that done it would be better if I could be driving while he checks (and double checks) things while underway. By the time it was 11:20 am and I still hadn't been called I asked how much longer. They said another person was still ahead of me (my doc takes her time, which is great when you're seeing her, not so much when you're waiting). Russ was about to leave when I offered to cancel the appointment and reschedule for the Spring. 

Hoisted, with new paint!

I cancelled, we got our Lyft, and arrived around 12:30 at the boat yard. "You folks are early." "Why do you say that?" "You splash at 3 pm." Nuh-uh! Thankfully, they pushed the other 2 boats scheduled to splash at 1 back and got inQuest the water first. Thank goodness. Of course the whole doctor thing would have worked out better but, given it's a 3 hour ride back to Baltimore, we'd get in after dark. We were lifted, paint was touched up (where the chocks were), and we were in the water by 1:30. The tech and Russ checked all the seacocks and other places were work had been done, and it all looked great. We turned engines on, and all was still good. And Russ started to back out.

Normally I pilot the boat. But Russ had kinda wanted to do this, having thought about single-handing the boat himself. He doesn't do a lot of piloting. He backed out, spun her around, and started down the fairway, nice and slow.

And the port engine died.

I've had a bit more experience piloting with only one engine, which is a pain in the butt to do in fiddley spaces like marina fairways with wind. Which we had. I took over. 

Note the red 0 and gauge for the port engine.

We tried the engine a second time. It ran rough for a few seconds, then died again. Then I notice that the port fuel tank reads totally empty. How the heck did that happen? We had about 20% coming in! We called the yard but can't go back -- turning around with one engine is right out with these vessels. Russ knew there was a fuel dock at the end of the marina. It just would take 2 90-degree turns to get there, again, tricky with 1 engine, trickier with the 15 knot wind.

There were moments I was thinking this wasn't going to work. Then I was able to correct enough for the wind to help turn or slow us, then we could bump forward another 50 feet. It took a long time to get out of beyond other boats, beyond the rip-rap wall, and aim for the fuel dock. The yard had called ahead so two guys were there waiting to catch lines and pull us in.

Once we finally got tied off we were told they have no fuel (!) due to some kind of electrical problem. That frustrated me -- now what would we do? Sit here until it's fixed? Russ was sure we did have fuel and that the sensor was bad. 

The yard tech joined us, and he and Russ sussed out that our fuel filter had been shut off, which effectively starves the engine of fuel. Also, while they worked on the seacock, they bumped the tank sensor, detaching one of the wires. To be fair, there is not a lot of space in these "engine rooms".

As soon as they reattached the wire the gauge went up -- yep, 20% still in the tank. And once they mucked with the filter the port engines started right up.

I am SO glad I insisted on coming. Russ dealing with that while single-handing the boat would have been miserable, or even resulted in a call to Sea Tow.

Anyway, 3 hour later, Russ got his chance to handle the boat by putting inQuest in her slip. Now all that's left to do is winterize her. 

Until next year.

I shot this as they brought inQuest to the basin. A boat had been chocked in the driveway that was "only going to be there for a few minutes", and a pickup-truck and tow was on the other side. I thought that was going to be the big excitement to the day. Ha!

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.

Continued stay in Newport

The Breakers, summer cottage of the 
Vanderbilt family, from 1895 - 1972 when it was
sold to the Preservation Society

Due to weather and Russ fighting a cold we've extended our stay in Newport. Sadly, we haven't been able to explore town much as we didn't want to spread whatever Russ has. It isn't Covid, btw. He's taken a number of tests, all completely negative.

I have plans on meeting a friend in NYC next Monday for a couple of days. The weather looks like it will cooperate in making a beeline to Port Washington. From there it's just a 45 minute train ride into the city.

But for now we're bobbing a bit on the water, despite cloudless days and cooler temps.

Now, you can tour it. It's one of several mansions in Newport
that you can visit, but most say it's the grandest of them all.

We did an escape room (tomb themed if you couldn't tell)
with Hanna's folks, Rebecca and Keith. Russ sat out
due to his cold -- not a good idea to be in a small room with folks.

Woods Hole -> Cuttyhunk -> Newport, ball

After a lovely and quiet night near Woods Hole we planned on going to Cuttyhunk. Cuttyhunk is the western-most point on the Elizabeth Islands; After lies a stretch of open water until you hit Long Island. Well, there's a small island in between but, pfft! It's open water.

We thought we'd stay at Cuttyhunk and head to Newport in the morning. But the weather was so amazing, and that open water was like glass. Moreover, it wasn't clear how nice it would be in the morning. It wasn't going to be nice by the afternoon, and we're not fans of small weather gaps.

Hard not to run when the water looks like this.

So after some lunch and naps Russ and I headed onward to Newport.

We'd had made ball requests in Newport a couple of days ago. We were put on a waitlist. So when we arrived, given we still hadn't heard, we start looking at anchorages. Russ decided to just call the harbor master and see if anything was available. Sure enough, they had a ball. Go figure! We could even stay for 4 nights.

The mooring field in Newport. One of the biggest
we've ever stayed at.

That's what we plan to do. I've been wanting to do the hike here, and we didn't get a chance to a couple of months ago, either due to weather or timing. Fingers crossed!

Boston to Wood's Hole, anchor

This is a long one... so buckle up!

While we love Boston it was time to be moving along. The folks at Charlesgate Yacht Club are very gracious, and we're looking forward to staying with them in the future.

First everyone needed to either fuel up of pump out. Task one for the day was get across the Boston Harbor, and while Highwind fueled up (the docks are in separate locations at this fuel station), then we switched. Worked well -- pumped out, fueled up, and ready for the day.

The first 5 or 6 hours we a little choppy. Not the worst we've experienced, but it made watching for prop traps particularly fatiguing. 

Once done we got a "break" going through the Cape Cod Canal. something I was looking forward too. Especially since we had the tide with us, adding 4 knots to our speed. But the boats going the other way all felt they needed to make up the -4 knots with speed, making for massive waking. There are "no wake" signs when you enter, but clearly it's optional.

Passing Highwind on Cape Cod Bay.

The last hour or so was on Buzzard's Bay, and it was ideal. Wonderful water, blue skies, moderate temps. It was a nice end to a long 8 hour run.

We had plans on taking a ball at the marina in Woods Hole, but when we arrived there was only 1 ball available, even though we thought they reserved 2. Since we were ahead of Highwind we swapped texts and decided to anchor in the inner harbor, specifically Hadley Harbor. Hannah and David spent a night there on the trip up a couple of months ago, and raved about it. But it, too, was full. So they dropped a hook (that anchorage was also full but he eeked out a decent spot -- apparently, this is a hot spot on Labor Day Weekend), and we tied up to them.

Like we've done so many times before...

The evening dinghy ride back from dinner
in Woods Hole.

Once set we all piled into dinghies and headed to explore Woods Hole, which was hopping on this Labor Day. We needed 2 dinghies since Hannah's folks, who are boaters too, were aboard Highwind for a week.

We've always known that there might be some occasion where we'd have to do an emergency release, and odds are it wouldn't be in great conditions. Well, that time had come.

I woke to the boat bouncing around 11:30. The winds had come up significantly (20-25 knots) and we were bucking, which isn't unusual or even uncomfortable. There had been "small craft advisories" all day, so this wasn't a huge surprise. On a whim I checked my phone. David who was still up, and had been texting us about the worsening conditions. Nothing other than "I'm still monitoring" type of texts. But I remembered there was a low point near us. I went up to the helm to check our depth. Sure enough we had 2.3 feet under the keel. In bouncing conditions this didn't please me. I texted that info to David, and the decision to reset was made.

Engines on within minutes, lines were tossed and inQuest got away from Highwind. It's one thing to  maneuver in a crowded anchorage on a moonless night surrounded by rock, it's another to do that in a 20 knot blow. With Russ on the bow and the use of our spot light we got out of Highwind's way so they could reset. They hailed to come on back.

After a few minutes (staying station was NOT fun even for that short time) they hailed all good. We carefully rejoined them, another small feat but it all went well. By the way, Hannah's folks were a huge help as they had a crew of three catching lines and getting us snugged.

Engines off we all took a breath. Our depth went to 17 feet, so we were relieved. However, we managed to get closer to some other boats in the anchorage. And we didn't feel comfortable with that in these winds -- boats swing, and with 2 boats tied together we swing differently. And these winds were forecasted to last well into morning.

We all looked at charts. Outside this small anchorage was a much larger one, more exposed to the weather, but (I noticed while coming back from town) was totally empty. We picked our anchor points ahead of moving, giving each boat a destination before heading out. That helped with coordination. This time we'd drop separate hooks and discuss next steps in the morning.

Engines on again, lines tossed, and inQuest headed into the wind through the small channel, bucking while crossing the narrowest point. Yep, this could be a rough night, but at least we'd have space to swing. As we turned toward our spot we got just enough shelter that the ride calmed a bit.

Highwind and inQuest, side by side.
Alas, it wouldn't last.

We dropped our hook, which caught wonderfully, then put out a ton of rode. Next we decided to put up our dinghy (which had been attached to our hip all this time). Given the rougher water it would only keep bumping into our hull all night. Putting it up in this weather was tricky -- we both wore PFDs for the process.

But after ALL that we were finally able to rest. The night was a little bumpy but not the worst we'd experience. By the time we went to sleep it was 2 am.

So, why didn't we just do this anchorage to begin with? Because this anchorage was off the main channel. Woods Hole is what high speed ferries pass through between Newport and Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket. Their wakes finally got us up and out of bed around 7 am.

We took a walk to the Nobska Lighthouse

After breakfast we lowered the dinghy and scoped out the rest of Hadley's Bay. To our surprise there were a couple of mooring balls available in there, and it was dead calm. We dashed back to inQuest and texted Highwind.

And that's where we are spending this evening. Which is looking to be oh so much calmer than last night.