As I noted in my previous posting, we are in Annapolis. Again. We stop here both north and south bound. Carol flies out of BWI and we (or I) go to the boat shows.
This year was/is a little different. Instead of doing our annual maintenance a little north of here in Pasadena we did it in August in Essex, CT. This meant we had more free time before Carol had to fly out to work.
We left Mystic a week after Heather's baby shower hoping to beat Hurricane Jose to the corner of Cape May, NJ and Delaware Bay. We went to Port Jefferson with mostly adverse current and calm conditions. We could not find our usual mooring to borrow so it took us a bit to find another suitable one. After getting secure we saw the one we really wanted not too far away. Oh well. Didn't move. We then went to Port Washington to pick up another free mooring because the timing wasn't right to go through Hell Gate in NYC. At sunrise we were underway with a small trawler accompanying us and planning to go offshore NJ overnight, too. We missed seeing Mike and Heather at the Gate because we got there a little sooner than planned and "someone" did not get up early enough.
We had a pretty calm passage overnight offshore NJ. There were some swell from distant Jose but it did not get bad at all. The forecast was for huge swells by the time we got to Cape May and Delaware Bay but we beat them to the corner. It was still dark by the time we got to the Bay so we went the long way and used all of the main shipping channel. Added a little more time but not much. It was mostly nice and calm, too. Nice. Had good current up the Bay and through the C&D Canal, too. We anchored in the Sassafras River fairly early in the afternoon.
After that we had a lot of time before we wanted to get to Annapolis so we just wandered around to different anchorages. We spent two nights in Worton Creek as Jose made its closest approach to us. A few hours of a little extra wind but not too bad. It's protected in Worton. That's why we were there. Then we went to Bodkin Creek to get fuel and a shower at Pleasure Cove Marina. Chatted with friends there and had lunch at the Crab before anchoring in our usual spot down the creek.
From there we decided to try some new to us anchorages. We went into the Magothy River and went up into Sillery Bay. We anchored in Eagle Cove for two nights. A nice place. Decent protection. Then we went to Ridout Creek off of Whitehouse Bay. This is just a couple of miles north of Annapolis. We were close but had no need to get there yet. We also spent a night in Mill Creek which also is off Whitehouse Bay. A very pretty spot but not quite a hurricane hole that Ridout seems to be.
Finally we got to Weems Creek, West Annapolis. Our number three home. Right away we went to Great Harvest Bakery for one of their terrific breads and ordered Pizza Bread for later in the week.
The other unusual thing this year is some friends from the Waterbury Power Squadron are starting their first snowbird southbound trip. Al and Sue joined us in Weems Creek and we've showed them around a little, dined out together and visited each others boat. My blog entry yesterday was written while sitting next to Sue in a coffee shop. Really unusual. Not Sue, the circumstances. Okay, maybe Sue is a little unusual, too.
After the boat show next week we'll restart our trip south. We are not sure of our winter destination due to the uncertainty of the situation in Marathon and when we need to fly home to meet our new grandchild. He or she has not arrived yet.
Friday, September 29, 2017
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Summer 2017
I always make blog entry at the end of our summer in Mystic but... I forgot. We've started south and we're in Annapolis already but I'm going to pretend that hasn't happened and we are still in Mystic.
Our summer season started off very cold and windy. We got home in good time and just before the poorer weather started at the beginning of May. By the time Memorial Day weekend came around things had gotten better. We went to Hamburg Cove with the squadron and found very few moorings were in for transients like us to 'borrow'. We got there early so we got one and shared with Afternoon Delight. Heather and Mike did not join us this year due to a wedding they had to attend.
We then started our usual round of medical appointments as well as getting Perfectly Normal ready for summer sitting and hoping to be sold time. New this season was building or rebuilding two dinghies. Our RIB had seen better days. We bought it 2003 and the fabric was so thin you could see the air inside the inflatable tubes. W-e-l-l, almost. It needed constant patching so I decided to rip the tubes off and rebuild it out of wood. Yes, turning a inflatable dinghy into a hard dinghy. But first... I had to finish a dinghy kit we had in storage (and before that our garage) for more than 15 years. Had to have a dinghy to use while I was building the old dinghy. The kit took less than two weeks but the inflatable-to-wood project took more than a month. And about $300 of materials. And a little blood.
I was reasonably happy with the results of the project but with everything else that was going on I was very busy. Writing work had to get done. Pearson work and two dinghies to be built all kept me extremely busy. Where did I ever squeeze in the time to have a full-time job?
Things mostly quieted down by the 4th of July. We has a great sail over to Montauk for a holiday rendezvous but lost our port-side propeller assembly en route when we had a lull in the wind and started the engines. At times we were travelling at more than 8 knots over the ground with several knots of current against us. For non-sailors, that is fast. Very fast.
We had a week long cruise with Heather later in July that weather messed up a bit but still wasn't bad. Spent more time in Block than we planned or had done in many, many years.
In August we had the boat hauled to do our annual maintenance. We usually do this in Pasadena, MD after we've started south but decided to try a local (Essex, CT) business this year. It was a bit cheaper and we could do most of the work ourselves. We got our new propellers installed just before our two week window was up so it all worked out right. Except for the expense.
About this time a dinghy I was looking at at Defenders was reduced in price by $300. I looked at it at $900 before deciding to take on the dinghy rebuild project but now at $600 (after spending $300 on the project), it was too much of a bargain to pass up. It's a cheap PVC Zodiac that will probably not last very long with year round use but at $600 for a 11 1/2 foot dinghy we could not pass it up. We'll still use the wood dinghy when we are in Conn. and take inflatable south with us.
Just before we headed south we had a baby shower for Heather. She is due around Thanksgiving and we'll be trying to arrange our cruising destination with having to fly back for birth time. All this is complicated by the devastation in Marathon for Hurricane Irma. We're not sure we'll be able to get there.
Our summer season started off very cold and windy. We got home in good time and just before the poorer weather started at the beginning of May. By the time Memorial Day weekend came around things had gotten better. We went to Hamburg Cove with the squadron and found very few moorings were in for transients like us to 'borrow'. We got there early so we got one and shared with Afternoon Delight. Heather and Mike did not join us this year due to a wedding they had to attend.
We then started our usual round of medical appointments as well as getting Perfectly Normal ready for summer sitting and hoping to be sold time. New this season was building or rebuilding two dinghies. Our RIB had seen better days. We bought it 2003 and the fabric was so thin you could see the air inside the inflatable tubes. W-e-l-l, almost. It needed constant patching so I decided to rip the tubes off and rebuild it out of wood. Yes, turning a inflatable dinghy into a hard dinghy. But first... I had to finish a dinghy kit we had in storage (and before that our garage) for more than 15 years. Had to have a dinghy to use while I was building the old dinghy. The kit took less than two weeks but the inflatable-to-wood project took more than a month. And about $300 of materials. And a little blood.
I was reasonably happy with the results of the project but with everything else that was going on I was very busy. Writing work had to get done. Pearson work and two dinghies to be built all kept me extremely busy. Where did I ever squeeze in the time to have a full-time job?
Things mostly quieted down by the 4th of July. We has a great sail over to Montauk for a holiday rendezvous but lost our port-side propeller assembly en route when we had a lull in the wind and started the engines. At times we were travelling at more than 8 knots over the ground with several knots of current against us. For non-sailors, that is fast. Very fast.
We had a week long cruise with Heather later in July that weather messed up a bit but still wasn't bad. Spent more time in Block than we planned or had done in many, many years.
In August we had the boat hauled to do our annual maintenance. We usually do this in Pasadena, MD after we've started south but decided to try a local (Essex, CT) business this year. It was a bit cheaper and we could do most of the work ourselves. We got our new propellers installed just before our two week window was up so it all worked out right. Except for the expense.
About this time a dinghy I was looking at at Defenders was reduced in price by $300. I looked at it at $900 before deciding to take on the dinghy rebuild project but now at $600 (after spending $300 on the project), it was too much of a bargain to pass up. It's a cheap PVC Zodiac that will probably not last very long with year round use but at $600 for a 11 1/2 foot dinghy we could not pass it up. We'll still use the wood dinghy when we are in Conn. and take inflatable south with us.
Just before we headed south we had a baby shower for Heather. She is due around Thanksgiving and we'll be trying to arrange our cruising destination with having to fly back for birth time. All this is complicated by the devastation in Marathon for Hurricane Irma. We're not sure we'll be able to get there.
As I said, as I write this we are in Annapolis but my report on our passage here will be in my
next blog entry.
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