Home in Mystic

     I've written how we've come to think of Marathon, FL as our second home and Annapolis as maybe our third home but now we are back to our 'real' home, Mystic, CT. At one time Wallingford may have been our home but our home now is not dirt related. It's on the water. On our boat.

     Mystic, CT. Home number one.

     We got here about 12 days after leaving Annapolis. It's never taken us more than a week or so and lately it has been much quicker but this time we had a stop for Carol's travel.

     We left Annapolis by noon the day Carol got back from California and went all the way to the Bohemia River which is the northern part of the Chesapeake Bay, almost to the C & D Canal. It was another new anchorage for us. This snowbird round trip cruise saw us go to quite a few new to us anchorages. This would prove to be the last. It wasn't bad, a little exposed but only slightly to the wind direction expected. It was fairly shallow but nothing we're not used to. Just not used to being shallow in the northern part of our cruising range.

     We were looking at a very small weather window to get to Long Island Sound with wind easing a bit then returning with rain along with it. We departed at first light and headed to the canal against the current. By the time we got to the eastern end we had current with us and it it stayed with us most of the way down Delaware Bay. We encountered America 2.0 a couple of times and got some photos while they were sailing.

     We were motoring, what wind there was was on the nose, and they were tacking back and forth across the shipping channel. We believe they were timing their arrival to New York City. We were trying to time our arrival at Hells Gate the next day so we had different agendas.

     Towards the end of the day the sun came out and it was merely cold and choppy, not cloudy, cold and choppy. Going around Cape May was slightly rough but not too bad, mostly swell just off the nose. The wind and seas faded as we got into the overnight hours but it got cloudy again and started to rain. Due to the cold we only did hour on hour off watches and didn't get much sleep. On watch we were cold and wet, off watch we were only cold but we've had worse. Much worse.

     Did I mention it was cold? In Annapolis I had days in the high 70s and a day it got to 85. The very next day it was 55 and it stayed that way for quite some time, nearly two weeks. Yuck.

     We got to the Narrows-Veranzano Bridge (New York Harbor) at about 1100 Sunday morning, tried to see Mike and Heather on the Brooklyn shore and went through Hells Gate around 1300. Didn't see them. They saw us.

     We picked up a free mooring at Port Washington, Manhasset Bay and they were nice enough to let us stay a week without paying. Not a busy time of the year yet. Carol flew off to Chicago and we went to brunch with Mike and Heather at the end of the week. A very cold, rainy, windy week.

     From there it was to our usual spot at Port Jefferson and, because of the weather, we stopped in Mattituck for a night before heading home to our Mystic mooring.

     Here for the summer. Not as much boating planned this year but we'll get some in. Wedding planned for September so that may keep us busy.

Annapolis, almost our third home

     We're in Annapolis, MD. It is the area we spend the third most time out of every year. We are in Mystic about four months, Marathon about three and combining our fall and spring stops here in the upper Chesapeake area we stay a little more than a month. Sometimes a lot more if we have major fall work done. We like the area.

     We left Wrightsville Beach in late morning right after Carol got back from LA and headed to our usual stop at Mile Hammock, Camp LeJeune. When we got there we saw a boat we had talked with earlier in the day. He was aground, way out of the dredged anchorage basin. It took TowBoat/US several hours to drag him out. He then anchored in front of us. We stared long enough at him to get him to move farther away and off to one side. Not far enough.

     In the middle of the night I was awoken by a large bang and found him, a Grand Banks 42 trawler, broadside against our two bows. A bad situation that was rapidly getting worse due to his slow response time to suggestions. Took a while to get him to start his engines. He was just trying get free by pushing off us against the wind and his 20 tons of boat. Not going to work. He had also smashed his teak railing against us which was threatening to impale someone. Luckily when he started his engines and backed away he did not catch our bridle or anchor chain. He then went in the opposite direction I suggested and promptly went aground again. We discovered that his extra weight on us had caused us to drag and we had to re-anchor up near our original spot. Hard to do in complete darkness. Few people in the US these days know what complete darkness is like. In some areas, boaters do. It looked to us that he had thousands of dollars of damage to his boat. We had some scraped paint and scratches. A little buffing and we'll be fine. We cancelled our insurance claim.

     End of adventure one.

     We then went to a free dock in Oriental to watch the semi-final game in the UConn WBB run to the National Championship. After that we usually anchor somewhere in the southern end of the Alligator River. The winds were pretty strong out of the south but some time during the night they were forecast to swing to the north and approach gale force. This meant the next day would be bad, very bad. We decided to do something we had never done before, travel at night on the ICW. This is usually not recommended. And for good reason. But we were going to cross Albemarle Sound which is open water, then go up the Pasquotank River which is fairly open until Elizabeth City, the seas would be behind us most of the way, and we have a chart plotter we have come to trust. We had an hour of rough stuff when we had to turn broadside to the seas but otherwise it was kinda okay. Much better than the next day would be.We tied up at the free dock at Elizabeth City a little before midnight. BTW: we watched the NCAA final and we won our 11th National Championship. No other basketball team (of either sex) has that many.

    End of adventure two.

     Now we were going to be going up the Dismal Swamp Canal, something we enjoy even though it is very narrow and we have hit many things... logs, trees, and zombies. Okay, unknown things not zombies. It is only three hours to the Dismal Swamp Visitors Center which is a highway rest stop, a free dock and a park. We stayed two nights and did some walking and bike riding when it wasn't raining.  The boat that had dragged and hit us days earlier came up the Canal but, lucky for us, kept going. Then it was up to Deep Creek and Elizabeths Dock. This is a free dock near the Deep Creek Lock that is a short walk to groceries, hardware, automotive supplies and now, diesel. It is also a great resource for the history and ecology of the Great Dismal in the person of Robert Peek, the Deep Creek Lockmaster. I had several chats with him as traffic was still pretty slow. He also offers breakfast to visitors. He talked us into staying a second night at the dock because of the weather forecast north of us. I also got to start the fill operation of the lock. Robert went to one end of the lock to start the procedure there and told me to go to the other operation shack and push three buttons labeled UP. Because of my years as a chemical reactor operator I could recognize the word up on a button. And could push them. With authority, of course.

     Then it was up to Hampton, VA and the end of our seven night string of staying at free docks. $1.25 per foot but we got water, showers and laundry facilities. We were also able to put things back up at the top of the mast that would get destroyed by the low bridges of the ICW. After that we headed out into the Chesapeake Bay. A little rough but not terrible. The second day we were bouncing into 2-3 ft. seas when our engine water alarm went off. Investigation revealed a leak in a coolant hose caused by chafing with a serpentine belt. Of course I had spare coolant, and I did a temporary repair but sea conditions did not make it easy at all. Or fun. The next day I had to re-do the repair but didn't lose much coolant. It got us to Annapolis where I could buy a replacement hose and more antifreeze.

     End of adventure three.

     I hate adventures.

     We are hoping to get home without any more. Our next passages should take us back to Long Island Sound but do involve a stretch off of the New Jersey coast. The forecast is not good. And it's colder up there.

                                                   CVN George Washington

Lynx out of New England, southbound in Hampton Roads. Saw it a while later in Annapolis getting a Coast Guard inspection.

The WB

     No, not that WB. This one is Wrightsville Beach, NC. We are anchored here for Carol's work period after an interesting time since we left Marathon. Interesting. Not quite as bad as an adventure. Those are worse.

     We knew when we left Marathon we didn't have quite enough time to get here and we'd have to do something to pick up days in case we had bad weather or other issues. We went from Marathon to Tarpon Basin, Key Largo our first day. A little rough due to wind and sea direction but not terrible. You'd like your first day underway after a three month layoff to be a little nicer to get acclimated. Well, not this time.

     We left the Keys and instead of stopping in Miami we went out Government Cut and kept going. All the way to Fort Pierce. I expected to go overnight and get to FT Pierce Inlet between 0900 and 1100 but we were on the edge of the Gulf Stream and sailed fast. Very fast. Even though  it was a little choppy we were doing close to 10 knots. During the night I calculated (okay, the GPS calculated) we would get to Ft Pierce before 0300. Dark. I furled the genoa, shut off one engine and near idled the other one to slow us down to a first light arrival. This one overnight passage gave us more than three days in hand for the future. We visited our friends Mike and Carol, topped off fuel and groceries and moved on the next day in late morning. Even though we left three or four hours later than normal we went close to our normal anchorage and were caught up. The next day we pushed all the way to Daytona and so picked up another day. Then we visited St Augustine and had dinner with friends Bob and Jane and their guests from Conn. Things were going great.

     In order to pick up one more day we went back into the ocean out of St Auggie. Things were not so great. It was very choppy, 2-3 ft just off the nose. Not a good direction for a catamaran. We could turn towards Europe or turn towards shore and hit land sooner. Neither option would work and we pounded on. Then the extension of our stern arch that holds up the dinghy and the wind generator broke. This dropped the dinghy down and almost caused us to lose the generator. I managed to secure both at great peril and we headed for the St Johns River and comfort and safety (relatively).

     We hadn't wanted to go this way due to dredging and bridge construction but we managed those areas okay and ended up at Cumberland Island, GA. From here we had normal passage days until we got to Thunderbolt, GA, part of Savannah. We had our damaged arch evaluated and stayed two days for very expensive repairs. $100 for stainless steel and $1000 for labor. We have to consider ourselves lucky that they were willing to do this on short notice at any price. We were docked among multi, multi million dollar yachts who looked down at us in more ways than one. This two day delay was not an issue because we had picked up enough time earlier with our off shore passage and other long days on the ICW. Plus we only stayed one day in Ft Pierce.

     We had good days from Georgia  with mostly positive current until our last passage to here so we still got here a few days before Carol's flight. Pushing a bit and good weather made up for the bad scheduling. Cruisers are NOT supposed to have schedules and one day we could be bit on the  
          if we keep tempting fate.

Damaged stainless steel. Bottom middle pipe leads to the wind generator.

     Our small boat among the rich. They looked down on us in more ways than one. We needed repairs.

Northbound 2016

     It's been a few days short of three months since we arrived in Marathon. Boot Key Harbor. It's time to start heading north.

     December here was very warm and humid, mid to upper 80s, then the El Nino effects started to affect us. Windy, squally, rainy about once a week. Record rainfall amounts but with all that it wasn't really all that bad.

     The end of the month turned out pretty nice for Heather and Mike's Christmas Holiday week. Mid to upper 70s, very little rain, and several beach days. We took the boat out to Sombrero Light Reef for the first time since we started coming here and had a great day of snorkeling. The reef is less that three miles offshore and has mooring balls for public use. Very nice. Mike and Heather treated us to a  New Years Eve sunset cruise off of Key West. Very, very nice. We left them the car and took the bus back to Marathon. Due to poor scheduling and demand we waited a long time to get a bus and spent midnight on the bus somewhere on Route 1. Not so nice. Normally we are asleep at midnight so I'm not sure this was an improvement or not.

As Marathon has become our winter (second) home we have gotten even more involved in the community. I was asked to be the net controller on the morning cruisers net on the VHF a couple of times We also became NOSE pickers and proud of it. I can't quite remember what N O S E stands for besides Nautical Obstruction something something. It's a program where we boaters help clean up the harbor and the mangroves and get a small rewards like credit on your laundry card and coupons at local businesses. We may have done enough in February to get some prize but we won't know as we'll be GONE. No problem. Happy to contribute.

     I also play senior softball about three times a week. I managed to avoid serious muscle pulls until late in February but some of the bruises were impressive. I'll need a couple of weeks to recover once we get to sea.

     January was kinda normal weather for here. Mostly in the 70s with a norther every 10 days or so. Northers are cold fronts but cold is a relative term. A high temp of only 60 is pretty cold. The tourists are in shorts and tee shirts but we are bundled up like the natives. January didn't get below 60 but a few days in February did... 58... twice. Awful.

     It's amazing how quickly our three months here have passed. Too busy, I guess. Worse still is the fact I now have a job. Not just magazine freelancing (previously mentioned) but also writing for the Waterway Guide, Northern Edition. With a contract and everything. Oh, the pressure. It's terrible. The Waterway Guide is a major cruising publication. I will be in the 2017 edition covering most of Long Island Sound out to southern Mass. and the Cape of Cod.

That's my update. Next one should be once we get to Wrightsville Beach, NC, Carol's next work stop.

   
                                           Sombrero Reef Light

Marathon

     We have arrived in Marathon, our winter home for two months. The mooring field is filling up earlier and faster than our experiences in the past. Makes us glad we got here more than two weeks sooner than is usual for us.

     We left Fort Pierce two days after Thanksgiving. We had Thanksgiving dinner with our friends Mike and Carol at their home with members of their family and friends that have also become our friends over the years. Great dinner! It had been breezy in Fort Pierce for several days and the wind was mostly east which meant our crossings of the ICW going to our anchorage in our dinghy were semi-rough to very rough. This trend continued as we made our way to the Palm Beach area, our first stop. The next day continued breezy from a poor direction so we went to Fort Lauderdale on the ICW instead of the ocean. This isn't much fun because of all the bridges we have to wait at due to their schedules. A slow day. We found a spot in Lake Sylvia, Ft Lauderdale to anchor despite it being pretty crowded. This used to be a nice spot but it's hard to get into because, well, it's a nice spot. Form Lauderdale we have to go out into the ocean because a bridge was built in Miami well below the mandated height of 65 ft. It only has 56 ft. of clearance. We often wonder who it was that got paid off to allow this to stand. We know there had to be pay-offs, we just don't know who got them. Sigh. The ocean was not ideal due to the continued easterly wind direction but it was nothing we couldn't handle. Mostly 2-4 ft. seas with occasional 6 footers. Not fun. Not terrible. Our next stop was Key Biscayne, Baggs State Park. This is another very nice spot that can be very crowded, especially weekends. We got there on a Monday and the was only one other boat there. What a surprise! A total of five boats were there eventually. Room for lots more even though one boat cruised by complaining we all were taking up too much room. This boat showed up in Marathon and we overheard them bothering the marina staff. Some people should consider suicide, they're self-centered enough. Their boat name was (censored). Ha! Didn't think I was going to tell you, did you?

     Anyway we spent one more night anchored out. At Matecumbe Key. Mostly an open area with protection to the east which is where the wind had been coming from for a week. Had a nice sunset over Florida Bay.

     Our last ocean passage was also a short one, about four hours, that gets us to Marathon. The only issue was a nasty roll cloud that threatened severe weather for us but just missed us and gave us just some rain, semi-heavy, but no storm. Since it was Carol's turn on the helm, I stayed dry. This was the general pattern since we left Ft Pierce, the storms would cross our path behind us or in front of us leaving us to stay mostly, but not completely, dry.

     So, we're here in Marathon just starting to get into the social activities. We know a lot of people on the moorings and on shore after all our times here. We still like it. In other news, as previously mentioned I been doing some writing and I had my first (of many, I hope) article published. It is in the December issue of Points East Magazine. It is the 'Last Word' column and is about the being a snowbird. What's a snowbird? Read the article. If you don't get down to shoreline marine facilities to pick up this free magazine you can go to www.pointseast.com and click on "read the issue". Hope you like it.

Fort Pierce Pause

     We are now in Fort Pierce, FL, anchored in Faber Cove. We got here in record time and it is hot!

     We were very concerned with conditions in South Carolina after the flooding they had there. A number of bridges were reported to be too low for us to get under. Or at least so close that we couldn't be sure of getting under them. Of course, the bridges did not get lower but the water under them got higher. Another bridge that normally opens on request for boaters broke down and had to be opened by hand, and only hourly. South Carolina had a lot of issues. Boating/ICW issues. It has lots of other issues, of course, but they normally don't concern us. The rest of the country, maybe, but not us directly.

     So... when we left Wrightsville Beach we went down the Cape Fear River and went straight when we came to the turn for the ICW at Southport. Out into the ocean. First time we went out into the Atlantic from this inlet. Once out to sea we spent a day, a night and most of another day underway. We went into the Savannah River and rejoined the ICW. Our offshore passage was okay. Not great. Not bad. Seas were a couple of feet and the wind was almost on the stern. Okay for sleeping but, again, not great.

     Usually we go out into the ocean from Charleston and head to Florida but Charleston is where? South Carolina. See above issues. Leaving the ICW much farther north meant not getting to Florida in one 24+ hour day so we went into Georgia instead. However, that one full day offshore meant we skipped nearly 6 days of twists and turns on the ICW. We picked up a lot of time. This got us to Ft. Pierce more than a week before Carol's scheduled work period. We now had the time to go all the way to Marathon in the Keys but that would have meant major work transportation rescheduling, skipping resupplying and fueling and missing our friends, Mike and Carol. Missing Thanksgiving Day Dinner with them, also. Not recommended.

     The one strange thing about Georgia was we had never gone through it southbound. Only northbound in the early spring. It was more than a little disorienting because our usual anchorages were not in the same place. Okay, THEY were in their usual spots but they weren't their usual distances from previous places we anchored so it seemed we were getting to them earlier in the day than we are used to. Because of this we had to find new (to us) anchorages. Wasn't a problem. Maybe even a new adventure. We normally hate adventures but this wasn't bad at all. We found ourselves cruising with boats we had met years ago in places much farther north and running into people we knew more often than what usually happens. Nice actually. We were semi-lucky to get a mooring in St Augustine because there were so many boats heading south at the same time as us. We usually are a couple of weeks later in the year when we get to Florida. Another 'downside' to this is the weather. It's hot. And humid. And hot. And muggy. And hot. Did I mention humid? Snowbirds complaining about it being too warm? Should be taken out and shot. Of course we're in Florida so that's always a possibility.

     So we are going to spend about three weeks here in Ft Pierce and then head to Marathon. We should be there the first week of December instead of the third as normal. We are hoping we'll be able to get a mooring being earlier in the season. Economy is doing too well, a lot of people are cruising. More than last year which was much more than previous seasons. Maybe the country will vote in Republicans and they'll crash the economy as they usually do.

Here is a video shot at the dinghy dock we use at the City Marina, Ft Pierce.

Momma manatee and her baby.

Chesapeake to Wrightsville Beach

     We're in Wrightsville Beach, NC. It's near Wilmington. Carol is off to Nashville for a conference. We got here 5 or 6 days early so we did some dining out, sightseeing, shopping, lying on the beach, etc. Did I mention it was near 80 degrees? Had a couple of rainy days but that's to be expected over 10 days or so. We hope to head offshore from Cape Fear, downriver from here, but the window is a little small. We could be in Florida by Monday or Tuesday or it could be a couple of weeks from now. That's cruising.

     We left Annapolis is nice conditions and went to the Solomons as usual. Then Jackson Creek, Deltaville, VA. From there we headed back out into the Chesapeake Bay but conditions had really changed overnight. They were pretty bad. 2 to 4ft seas on the nose and 20kt winds. After 13 miles and 5 hours we had enough and turned around and went back to Jackson Creek. It only took two hours to get back to where we started.

                                           A flowing rainbow at Jackson Creek

The next day was fine and we made it to Norfolk/Portsmouth, VA and the ICW. There was a lot of traffic as many boats were trying to get south of a railroad bridge that was scheduled to close and block boat passages the next day. But we got to Great Bridge. Spent some time giving advice to a couple that was heading south for the first time on a smaller catamaran. Advice is very dangerous to give but they seemed to appreciate it. They maintained contact with us and had more questions over several weeks.

     We crossed Albemarle Sound in NC with little difficulty but the Alligator River Swing Bridge was having mechanical problems and we got held up there for about a half hour. Fortunately we got there fairly early because the next group of boaters was held up longer. The next day it didn't open at all. The next day was Pamlico/Neuse day. One of the worst spots on the trip south. It can be very nice, it is beautiful, but slightly adverse conditions feel terrible and nasty conditions are beyond awful. The Pamlico is only three miles across so we went and I could barely hold onto the helm. Because of this we anchored in a new spot for us, Bear Creek. It is just south of the Hobucken Bridge. It was pretty protected but to get to the protected area we had to snake up the creek following the white areas on our chart plotter. Could not have done this without GPS. When we left we saw that several boats had anchored in the open area of the creek. Not as comfortable as we were. Then we continued and crossed the Neuse. This day was not quite as bad. The wind had shifted further aft and eased... a bit. We stopped early in our usual spot in Cedar Creek off Adams Creek. Then it was an easy passage to the Mile Hammock anchorage at Camp LeJeune. Shortly before we got there we saw a long line of amphibious vehicles waiting to cross the ICW. Fortunately they waited to begin their assault until after we passed.

     The other interesting event happened at Brown's Inlet. It is a tricky area that shoals rapidly after dredging and has a really odd buoy pattern. We slowed to let a medium sized sportfisherman pass relatively slowly. He gunned the throttles after passing us and completely missed the buoy pattern and went across the shoal. A week or so earlier a larger sportfish vessel did the same thing and it cost him nearly $100,000. Our guy was lucky it was high tide or he could have suffered the same fate. He was a bit rude (and from Westport, CT) so you can guess which way we might have been rooting. From Camp LeJeune it's one day to Wrightsville where we are now.

     My cousin that lives near here did not respond to my email so we did not see her this trip. Maybe there's a new email address. Or illness. At our age (and she's an older cousin) it could be anything.

Next posting will be from Florida. I hope.