A Real Offshore Passage

     We are now at Fort Pierce, FL visiting good friends, resupplying, doing maintenance and upgrades. We've had to find a new anchoring spot because of new islands being built in our usual spot off the City Marina of Ft Pierce. Building islands? Yep. Hey, it's Florida.

     How did we get here? Well, that's interesting.

     Our last stop had us in Charleston, SC and Ft Pierce was the next stop. That's right, no stops in between. In a (mostly) straight line, Ft Pierce is about 350 nautical miles from Charleston.

     We stayed an extra night in Charleston to allow the seas to die down a bit after the long term offshore storm we'd been dealing with and also to do a little tourist stuff. We love Charleston.

     Then we got underway. 0630. Still mostly dark, clear and cool. We leave the Ashley River, get into the main harbor and then exit by going around historic Fort Sumter. The main shipping channel is about 10nm long in order to get clear of the breakwaters and the shoals. This often a very lumpy trip and this year was no exception. Not as bad as last year but rough enough. About 3/4 down the length of the channel we can turn south. This put the seas (about 4') and the wind directly on our stern and this is not too uncomfortable for us. A straight line to Florida puts us about 50nm off the coast of Georgia and as the day went on conditions improved. Lower seas and wind. During the first day we had a very large pod of dolphins join us again and stay quite a while. Really stunning.

     Our first night at sea was pretty nice, too. Reasonably calm, not too cold. I keep referring to our first day or first night. Yep. Normally it's about 24 hours to the Florida border from Charleston or 30 hours to St Augustine but conditions were good and forecast to remain that way so we decided to keep going and spend a second night at sea and continue on to Ft Pierce inlet, the next Class A inlet available to us. Class A means 'safe' in nearly all conditions. St John's River Inlet and St Mary's River Inlet are both Class A but St Augustine Inlet is not.

     We passed by St Augustine and headed for Cape Canaveral. Things went well... until about 2300, about 10nm from the cape. It got much windier and choppier, right on the nose. Not the favorite conditions for a catamaran. Not conducive to sleeping either. We had about 8 hours of uncomfortable bouncing around. Not dangerous. Just not much fun. And very tiring.

     Our third day at sea was okay overall. Better later in the day than earlier and we were around Cape Canaveral. We arrived at Ft Pierce late in the day, checked our 'normal' anchorage and then moved to our current spot outside of Faber Cove across the ICW from downtown Ft Pierce. It's nice and protected but it's about a mile from a spot to tie up the dinghy. Not too bad a trade off.

     We got to sleep well for the first time in a few days, shower at our friends home and enjoy mostly upper 70 degree days. Hatches open at night, too. It's been way too long since the last time for that. We are looking forward to a month or two of similar days. We can only hope.

     So that's the story of of 350nm and 58 hour passage offshore. At times we were about 50nm offshore and at others just a mile or two. Carol got really into it and was willing to keep going. Maybe someday. Maybe not.

     Oh, did I mention our encounter at sea with a Chilean Navy submarine? No? Maybe next time ;>))

Myrtle Beach

     We're at a marina in the North Myrtle Beach area now. Why?

     Welllll, it's been an adventure getting here. And it's cold. Cold means not wanting to shower on the boat. Sooooo.... we're paying for a marina to have access to a hot shower, laundry and other amenities. We also had to get some paperwork notarized so a stop was in order.

     We had nice passagse from the Solomons. Pretty calm conditions. We stopped at Portsmouth, VA so Carol could get off the boat to go earn some $$$$ to keep us going. I spent 4 days at a free dock at Great Bridge, VA in the town of Chesapeake. Chesapeake is not on Chesapeake Bay so who knows why it's named that? It is a site of an important Revolutionary War battle so I was able to learn about that, get groceries and fuel and do laundry while there.

     Of course the weather took a turn for the worse while sitting. And it was worse for a while. A storm parked itself off the Carolinas and stayed. And stayed. And stayed. This made for very strong northerly winds and rough seas in the open water portions of our passages. Albemarle Sound wasn't too bad with following seas. Neither was the Alligator River. But it would not have been fun going north in those conditions. Then we had to deal with anchoring in 30+ knot winds as well as crossing the Pamlico, Bay and Neuse Rivers in atrocious conditions. Four or more foot seas, heavy rain, gusts to 40 are not our idea of fun. Yet we pressed on. Can't get to warmer weather if we're parked. And we do need warmer weather. It's been in the low to mid 40s at night, low to mid 50s in the day. With the strong winds it felt much worse.

     Now we're getting highs in the mid 60s so things are looking up. We are only a couple of days from Charleston and from there we hope the seas have layed down enough that we can make a 30 hour passage to Florida offshore.

     We can only hope.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Afloat Finally!

   
 We are back floating in the water and we don't seem to be sinking. This is always good. The repair job is done and it was an excellent, quality job if a little on the expensive side. $19,000.

     Okay, maybe more than a little on the expensive side. Our previous boat only cost a five thousand dollars more. For that we got an entire boat. Oh, by the way, you can make an offer on that boat.

     Here is what all that money looks like. The before photos are in my previous post.

     And here we have the guys who did the work.

     Now that this ordeal is over we are heading down the Bay towards Solomons Islands where we'll stop while Carol goes off to work. I don't know when we'll ever get to the Keys and it sure is damn cold up here. Yuck!

Back on the Boat Again

     We're back on the boat again after a week and a half away. I usually only write after a passage or two but the boat is still on land in Pasadena, MD.

     The paint job turned into a sand blasting paint removal job which turned into a grind off inches of epoxy from a poor repair job done by the original boat builder about 10 years, and several owners, ago. Boooooo!

     The boat had more than an inch of epoxy filler removed in some places. Putting that much on is an improper repair procedure and we're paying the price now. 5 figures. To the left of the decimal point.

   
   We were away from the boat to go "home" to empty and prepare our house for a closing.There were several last minute issues which cost money and stress but now it's done. We are without a house. Our only home floats. Yay!

     Frankenstorm is heading our way or to New Jersey or to New England in the next few days. We should still be on land and therefor reasonably safe. We'll see.

Pasadena

    We are now on land for annual service to the boat. It's going to be a very expensive stop. We've been having issues the last few years with peeling bottom (anti-fouling) paint. It's going to cost a lot to have the bottom soda-blasted, barrier coated and painted.

     To make things more hectic we have been negotiating (now finished) our house sale and repairs and are waiting for financing confirmation, then the closing.

      Getting here was interesting. My last post was written while underway off the coast of New Jersey. We had a good sail until we got to Atlantic City right around sunset. The course change put us more into the wind and seas. The bigger chop only lasted about an hour before the seas dropped to under a foot again. Not bad.

     We had to go around Cape May in the dark through a very narrow passage in the reefs. We came pretty close to a 6 foot shoal before making it through the most dangerous areas. Then we aimed for the main shipping channel. I went to bed for two hours just before we reached the channel and woke up for my shift to find us a mile or more off course on the wrong side of Ship John Shoal. Scary. Took me a while to get back on track. Fortunately daylight came and all was well.

     We started through the C & D Canal about 0800 and passed by Chessapeake City and its free dock to go on to the Sassafras River off Chessapeake Bay. The last segment from the Canal to the Sassafras was nasty, bashing into a very big, nasty chop. Pounding is no fun. It was a nice quiet anchorage, however. We'd never been there before. All in all it was a 30.5 hour passage.

     The next day we went to 'our' spot in Worton Creek. It was only two hours away so even though it wasn't a great day to be on the Bay again, it was short.

     After that we went to Bodkin Creek where Pleasure Cove Marina is.

     And that's where we are now. Not knowing when we will leave or how much it's going to cost us.

Southbound Sailing

     Southbound! And sailing! Wow!

     We are off the coast of New Jersey as I write this. Close enough to get a wi-fi signal. And we're sailing.

     We had a slightly rough first few days after leaving Mystic. Big head seas to Mattituck and then way bigger following seas to Oyster Bay. Decent speed however.

     From Oyster Bay we went through New York Harbor to Atlantic Highlands, NJ. NYC and the East River - Hell Gate passage was mostly uneventfull for a change. only one stop to avoid a ferry and one log that went between the hulls without contact, or even being seen.

      

     Freedom Tower under construction. We had a great view of it from the anchorage at Atlantic Highlands. This isn't that view.

     We stayed a few extra days there because of offshore head wimds and pretty big seas. There was also a major front forecast with storms. The storms just missed us but the winds didn't. Heather took advantage of this delay to take a ferry from Manhattan to stay with us for the weekend. Yay!

     Now we have relatively small waves but they'll likely get bigger later. The wind will shift to on the nose later, too. We are on a very long passage. It's one we haven't done before at all at once. We are going (hopefully) from Atlantic Highlands all the way to the C & D Canal in one shot. It's at least a 30 hour trip, maybe more. We'll be going around Cape May in the dark. Risky? Maybe a little. We'll write if we don't make it. Errr... maybe not.

    

     Roosevelt Island Tram over the East River.

End of Summer

     Wow! It's September and I haven't updated this blog since May. A little bit has happened since then.

     We did a lot of work on the house and listed it for sale as mentioned in the previous blog but we also spent all summer continuously updating, repairing and replacing stuff. Major $$$. The good news is that less than a week before our departure for winter we are getting an offer we can accept. That's also bad news because, as I said, it's less than a week before departure.

     We got a little bit of cruising in this summer since the trip to Hamburg Cove for Memorial Day. We went to Coecles Harbor, Shelter Island for a rendezvous with the squadron. We did a one week cruise of the Buzzard's Bay area with Heather and Luca aboard. There was a solo long weekend at Montauk and then the season finale at Watch Hill, RI for Labor Day weekend. Above is a photo of a Portuguese Man O War jellyfish off one of the Elizabeth Islands (Cape Cod). We've never seen one this far north. Actually we had never seen one until we cruised to Florida. This big one could be fatal if you got up close and personal with it.

     That's it! Not much traditional boating. Being liveaboards makes it all different.

     I will be updating this blog on a more regular basis after we get underway and head south.

     Until then...