Journey Archive - August through December 2006
Wednesday, 27 December 2006
Still here in Nassau after a very un-exciting day. We started the day with high expectations, but the day kind of disappeared without a trace before we really got going. Still, when you're tied up at a dock in paradise, who really cares?Well, maybe paradise is a bit of stretch. The cold front that was supposed to come through yesterday finally did so late in the afternoon, dropping the temps rather substantially. Today was a sweatshirt day, even around noon. I was up early, as usual, and ducked directly across the street to Starbuck's for a latte. The world is getting so homogenized. Maryann got up later, and we both decided we might be coming down with something. Maybe just laziness. :-)
We went out at noon and had lunch at the Poop Deck, a local establishment popular with cruisers and visitors to Nassau. Afterwards we stopped at the local computer store that actually stocks Apple stuff, but struck out trying to buy an iMic. We need one so we can use Skype for phone calls (somebody left off audio input on all the latest Macs, eh Ruby?). Our cell phones work here, but the roaming charges are exorbitant. Our sat phone is a buck a minute, but it's tricky - it drops calls or just doesn't complete them a distressing percentage of use. We then dropped in on the 3 big marine stores along the main drag that runs along the waterfront and pretty much struck out on our other lists of things to get. I'd particularly like to get the SSB radio working; I hooked it all up, but it's not showing signs that it's communicating with the outside world. I suspect it's the antenna connection, but given the antenna connection is about 25' in the air on the backstay, it's not something I'm wild about troubleshooting.
There's a nice shopping center across the road from our marina that includes a large supermarket and Radio Shack (and the Starbucks mentioned above). We stopped in for some dinner fixings and by the time we got back to the boat it was already 5PM. We never did end up cooking dinner and ate chips and dip instead. Kids, do as we say, not as we do. :-)
Tomorrow we're suppose to play tourist and will visit Paradise Island across the harbor and Atlantis, the Vegas/Atlantic City like casino they built here a few years back. Maryann wants to play some blackjack; we'll see. Anyway there's some other tourist destinations here that we'll try to hit; more on that tomorrow.
The weather is supposed to improve through the weekend. Our next passage is over the Great Bahama Bank, several 10's of miles of 8-9 ft depths. Just what I love to do in our 7ft sailboat. Not. Well, others have done it in the same kind of boat, so I suppose we can. After we cross the Bank we'll end up in Exuma Sound. We'll stop at Great Exuma Island, which is a national park, and then on to Georgetown, described as a Disneyland for adults. We'll see.
OK, time to go read before bed. We made a deal; I'd update the web site and Maryann would make the bed with the freshly laundered sheets. Think I made out on that deal.
Whoops, can't go yet. Promised info about the cruise ships and the jet skiers.
Slaughter Harbor between Little Stirrup and Great Stirrup Cay is a lovely tropical destination. The cruise ships all drop anchor off the north side of the 2 cays, and shuttle their passengers into a couple of private islands owned by the cruise companies. There the guests can walk the beaches, snorkel, fish, scuba dive, or ride jet skis. We were in Great Harbor, which is just to the east of Slaughter Harbor. But directly on a path described by the once an hour jet skiers. The jet skiers took great delight in coming close to the boats at anchor. We were a bit too far out in the anchorage (remember our draft - this was the first time it was to our advantage!), so they didn't get all that close to us. Anyway, looked like not a lot of fun to spend a day with 2000 of your closest friends and shipmates taking part in intesive, organized FUN.
Tuesday, 26 December 2006
Merry Christmas, everybody! Just a quick note to say we left Old Bahama Bay Marina last Saturday evening at midnight and motorsailed to Great Harbor in the Berry Islands, arriving midday Sunday. We spent Christmas at anchor - I'll write more later about the cruise ships and jet skiers in the harbor...Other than a couple of nervous nights due to concerns about the anchor dragging, we had a lovely Christmas, just the 2 of us. But the sleepless nights contributed to tiredness tonight, so will keep this very short.
We left Great Harbor this morning around 8AM, and arrived Nassau around 3PM. We're tied up in a marina and expect to work a little and play a little over the next 3 days before heading for the Exumas.
Saturday, 23 December 2006
Waiting. Still waiting for a weather window. We did try to leave yesterday, but turned around after less than 2 miles. Trying to motor into the 20-25 knot wind and getting tossed around by the 4-6 foot seas just wasn't going to cut it.But first, a recap of the week. Wednesday was so exciting I don't even remember what we did.
Thursday was market day. We caught the local bus at 9AM and headed into Freeport. We were looking to get out and about, as we were going stir-crazy on the boat. Freeport is a typical Caribbean "big city", which means it's anything but. Lots of low buildings with specialized shops selling everything but what you need. We were looking for a replacement printer, as the one we brought lives a bit too close to the galley sink and managed to catch a couple of quarts of water in a hair-rinsing.
We found the address of the only computer store in town, according to the yellow pages (remember the yellow pages? turns out google and yahoo don't do so well in the Bahamas). Whoops, now it's a real estate office. Luckily, directly across the street was another computer store, but their selection was pretty skimpy. And I'm being very kind calling it a computer store - it had one open room about 20x20' with computers and peripherals and accesories widely scattered about.
There didn't appear to be much else to do in Freeport, so we got some cash out of an ATM and did a shopping run at the Winn-Dixie. It turned out to be remarkably well-stocked. After shopping we crammed about a dozen bags into 2 canvas totes and caught the bus back to West End. All of the public transportation is provided by mini-vans and they each have their route. Ours took us back up the western end of the island to West End and Old Bahama Bay. About an hour's journey each way and not a whole lot in the way of scenery. And that was our exciting Thursday.
Yesterday several of the boats that were heading to the Abacos left, leaving just us and one other occupied sailboat in the marina. The weather forecast looked promising in the morning, but by the afternoon the wind and waves were up. We had intended to leave around 2PM for a 20-hour overnight to Nassau. Well, we actually did leave around 2PM. But once we got out of the harbor and on our way, we found we were barely making 3.5 knots into a 20-25 knot headwind, bucking some pretty good sized waves. The GPS had us taking about 48 hours of this to get to Nassau, so we bagged it. Turned around and headed back to the marina. We got a warm return welcome from the marina staff when we called them for a slip assignment. They were kind enough not to say, "we told you so". Oh well, we chalked it up as a learning experience.
Last night we had cocktails with the other couple still here on a sailboat (actually a motor-sailer). It was nice to pay a social call and then have them onto our boat. But we ended up drinking dinner and somebody had a pretty rough night of it. That was a pretty big bourbon to start the evening! Oh, wait we did have a bag of tortilla chips and some salsa along with the couple of bottles of wine. We're going to have to be sociable without drinking (so much).
With the wind mostly out of the north these past few days, we've not had a lot of boats crossing the stream. Yesterday we had one sailboat arrive just as we were turning around. They ended up anchoring north of the marina after they had checked in to immigration and customs and were off again this morning. They're braver (crazier) than we are. Today we got another sailboat in from Lauderdale - they left last night at 10PM and it took them 14+ hours to get here. And midway they had their fuel filter clog, so ended up drifting for 45 minutes or so (wind from the east and southeast, so no sailing for them) while they cleaned it. They thought the waves were 6-8ft, consistently, with occasional higher. No thanks!
The weather forecast isn't very promising through Tuesday next week. Yesterday it looked like maybe Christmas day would be a good day, but now they're calling for a front to pass through with high winds and waves, higher than yesterday and today. We'd really like to see the wind out of the west, or northwest, or north, and the waves down to 2-4 feet, but that's just not in the forecast. So we'll sit here a while longer. We really haven't taken much advantage of the resort so far, as we've been thinking we'd be leaving every other day since we got here. But today Maryann used the fitness center and now she's dragging me off to shoot some pool. Maybe we'll even give the pool a try. The water is still too cold this far north for swimming or snorkeling. Of course there's always the never-ending list of boat projects.
Update: tried the printer again after it dried out for several days and it works!
Tuesday, 19 December 2006
On Sunday we had a very nice dinner at the resort/marina fancy restaurant, Aqua. It was very retro, early 60's with the wait staff doing Caesar Salad, Steak Dianne, Cherries Jubilee, and Bananas Foster at the table, using lots of brandy for the flaming effect. They were all such a feature of "fine dining" years and years ago and got so stale that nobody does them anymore. But it's been so long that it was actually kind of fun. And at the conclusion of dinner we got a rendition of Happy Birthday - only not for Maryann, for another table. But we shared in it anyway.Yesterday we kept scanning the weather reports and the charts and the cruising guides, trying to decide where to go next in the Bahamas. After going back and forth several times we decided we'd leave Old Bahama Bay and head over to Lucaya, which is a resort area just the other side of Freeport. The reason we were so indecisive was the channel depth problem. There are no anchorages and no marinas in Freeport, only a handful of marinas in Lucaya. And each of the marinas in Lucaya have entrance channels that would have us aground at low tide. But we really wanted to be moving, and the 25 nautical miles or so would get us closer to Nassau, where we'll eventually stop.
We finally convinced ourselves that since we'd have a high tide (all of 2 and a half feet!) at 6PM, that we could leave around 2PM, arriving just at high tide. So we hurriedly got ready to go, and left just about 2PM. The wind was finally blowing from the right direction for us to sail, so we let out the main. When we went to unfurl the jib, we found the furling mechanism had loosened and I wasn't sure that it wouldn't cause more problems if we unfurled the jib. So instead, we unfurled the staysail. Unfortunately, we had to continue running the engine, as the batteries were in need of a charge (the electricity at Old Bahama Bay was not operational where we had the boat docked). So once again it was motor-sailing along.
We passed Freeport with its fairly large and very busy commercial harbor. There were 3 or 4 container ships, a couple of tankers, and 2 cruise ships. Not too much trouble to dodge them, though. As we got closer to the marina we'd picked in Lucaya, we couldn't' identify any of the navigation marks that we should have seen. We called the marina on the phone to make sure we could transit the mile-long channel without running aground and were surprised to hear them advise against coming up the channel. The usual confusion ensued, with them at one point saying we were at low tide! Then they decided that we could make it, but that we shouldn't try to enter until 7PM. Well, high tide was definitely at 6:10PM, and it was now 5:30PM, just sunset. I freaked, thinking that if an hour was going to make the difference between making it in or ending up on the reef on either side of the channel, that we just weren't going to chance it. Not to mention a lack of navigation aids (conversation: are the navigation marks there? Yes, all 4 of them. What about the sea buoy? Not sure, but we think so. Is it lit? Well, someone was supposed to go out and fix it, but we're not sure if they did). So, I decided there was no way we were going into that channel. Oh, and forgot to mention the seas were running 3-5 feet, so it was relatively rough.
Since the wind was favorable again for sailing we hoisted the main, but couldn't let it out. One of the traveler lines had gotten wedged into the big main sheet block! We then spent a frantic 15 minutes trying to get it freed. At that point we just wanted to get back to the marina ASAP. Luckily we were not traveling with the wave train, so the trip back was fast and comfortable, albeit in the dark - no moon last night.
The marina here has a pretty easy entrance that's well lit and other than a few tense moments when one set of eyes thought we needed to be farther right and the other set of eyes thought we were just fine, we made it into the marina and tied up at the fuel dock. We checked in (they were surprised to see us back), had a drink, and went to bed.
Today has been pretty uneventful. Maryann washed down the boat, rinsing off a lot of the salt we picked up last night, and kept at her boat inventory task. I got our US flag reinstalled (the original flag pole is now obscured by the arch, and we had a dorky flag pole on the arch that I ended up removing), the oil changed in the dinghy, our FCC restricted radiotelephone operator's permits filled out, etc. In other words, another day of boat chores and boat projects. But we have a couple of filet mignon steaks in the reefer which I'll put on the grill in a bit, and we'll serve it with a salad, some green beans, and a baked potatoe. Will pull out one of our nice reds from the cellar (under the saloon bench seat). So it should be a nice evening.
Sunday, 17 December 2006
Happy Birthday, Maryann!Thursday ended up being an incredibly rainy day. It poured for hours on end. We were very glad we weren't trying to cross the Gulf Stream in that downpour. The weather router (Commander's Weather) told us that Saturday would be the best day to cross, as Friday was supposed to be a repeat of Thursday with its rains, and that there would be gusts up to 35 knots in thunderstorms in the stream.
Friday dawned beautifully, with little wind and calm seas. We kept going back and forth about leaving, until it really got too late in the afternoon to leave. Several other boats left in the late morning, which meant they weren't getting into the Bahamas until after dark. One of the things experienced cruisers say is to never enter an unfamiliar port in the dark.
We met a nice couple from Texas and their 2 young children (10 and 8?) on the boat anchored nearest to ours. They had come down from the Great Lakes (the Great Lakes, the Mississippi, and the Atlantic Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico are all interconnected) on their 46' Beneteau. One of the things we've not experience so far is the very social group of cruisers. Perhaps we're just anti-social. Or curmudgeonly. Hmm, who resembles that statement? :-)
Friday did give us a chance to do a bunch more boat chores, but that goes without saying.
Yesterday morning we were up around 5AM, trying to decide whether or not to go. The weather prediction was for 5-10 winds out of the northeast, and seas 3-5 feet. Those that are supposed to know say never, every try crossing the Gulf Stream with any north to the wind. We found one place that said it's OK so long as the wind is less than 12knots. After a bit more discussion we hoisted the anchor and were on our way across the Gulf Stream.
We exited the Lake Worth Inlet around 6:30AM, just as it was getting a bit light, and this time the waves were only 2-4 feet for the first couple of miles. And then boom, our autopilot cut out, with an indication that the rudder was turned completely to the left! I grabbed the wheel and found that the rudder was centered. Damn, looks like the sensor that tells the autopilot the rudder position has crapped out. Are we going to hand-steer for 50 miles and 8 hours? After a bit of agonizing, we decide to keep going.
And other than the autopilot failure, we had a pretty uneventful crossing. The waves did get up to 3-5 feet, but that's very doable in this boat of ours. We had the mailsail up for the first half the crossing, but the wind was pretty much to the east of north, so we were unable to sail without tacking. And we didn't want to tack, as our goal was to get across the Gulf Stream ASAP.
It was odd sailing a course of 120 degrees, when the island we were heading for was more like 95 degrees to the east. But that's what you need to do when there's a current flowing south to north at 2 and a half knots. We ended up sailing a pretty straight line from Lake Worth Inlet to West End on Grand Bahama island. We arrived around 3:30PM, and tied up in the marina here. Very nice place, completely redone after the last hurricane that devasted the area.
We're most likely going to stay here today so we can take advantage of the very nice restaurant for Maryann's birthday. We also really need to finish setting up our Iridium phone and figure out how to get weather without internet access. We'lll probably head to Freeport tomorrow as we need to get a replacement rudder sensor for the autopilot and we're likely to have better luck in Freeport than here. But that's just about a 16-mile sail, so it's not a big deal.
Thursday, 14 December 2006
We left Lake Worth Inlet this morning around 5:30AM. Maybe we should have noticed that the flotilla of boats that have arrived here the past couple of days were all staying put. The forecast was for rain showers and seas less than 2ft. Hah. We started bouncing in the channel and it only got worse. The rain wasn't bad, on and off, but oh boy were the seas uncomfortable. And with the headwind we were only making 4-5 knots with no possibility of sailing, as we were dead into the wind. About a mile or two out we see 3 sailboats heading back into the Lake Worth Inlet. Uh oh. And they seem to want to home in on us! After some 30 degree course changes, we get past them, and we're charging along into the Atlantic. But it's not getting better. So about 2 miles out we decide to turn tail and head back.Once headed downwind things are so comfortable we wonder what all the fuss was about. Experienced sailors will know what I mean. But we figured discretion was the better part of valor and all that, so we came back to the crowded anchorage and dropped the hook. Anchor down at 6:45AM. And then it started to rain,and I do mean pour. It's been raining ever since and it's near noon. Definitely would not have been a pleasant day to head to the Bahamas.
It's back to boat chores for us. I discovered yesterday that the guys who installed our arch hadn't reconnected a couple of grounds and in the rain this morning we found their caulking job around a wire that enters the hull was slipshod, leaking once again onto Maryann's side of the cabin. Never out of things to do. Other stuff that's been occupying our time: Maryann's inventory system. I think Amazon or FedEx could run their operations with this database. Want to know how many sheets of toilet paper we have? Where's John when you need him?
And for the folks who can't get enough of mechanical and electrical systems: a couple of days ago we were running the generator and noticed a rattling sound. We shut it down on the theory that it shouldn't oughtn't be rattling. Yesterday, on a hunch, I pulled the impeller (the little rubber wheel that pushes seawater through the generator, cooling it), and sure enough 2 of the lobes had sheared off. No big deal. Consult the database for the location of the spare, pull the old one, lube up the new one, and we're good to go. No more rattles. Of course the 2 missing lobes were never found, so hopefully they ended up being spit out through the exhaust stream.
No idea when we're going to try to leave again. This time we're going to pay Commander's Weather to pick our weather window. NOAA weather service sure did let us down.
Tuesday, 12 December 2006
Still here in Lake Worth. Ran around like crazy today with a rental car trying to get everything done and ready to go by tomorrow. Not enough time. Will stay here tomorrow hopefully finishing up boat projects. Just trying to stow all of our provisions from Costco and the Winn-Dixie is going to take a couple of hours. Still, we have provisions and we have clean laundry and the list of things to get is vanishingly small. We'll do boat chores tomorrow and hopefully leave on Thursday. Probably for the best anyway, as the forecast isn't quite as nice for crossing the stream tomorrow; should be better on Thursday.Sunday, 10 December 2006
We're still stuck here in the middle of Lake Worth, just north of Palm Beach. The wind has been blowing hard and out of the north for the past couple of days, and there's no relief in sight. Well, that's not strictly true; Wednesday the wind is supposed to move around out of the east and the seas are supposed to subside substantially. We need to go due East to the Bahamas, so we'd end up motoring yet again, but the forecast for Wednesday is the first day we've seen Gulf Stream waves predicted to be *below* 2 feet! If we can get everything done on our todo lists, we'll probably set out on Wednesday for the Bahamas.Our days have been pretty consistent this past week. We haven't so much ventured ashore, as the 15-25 knot wind out of the north makes for a nasty little chop on Lake Worth. I did take the dinghy in on Friday afternoon, as I needed some stuff to complete my SSB installation, and we were out of milk. It was OK heading in to the marina, but I was in such a hurry to get to Boat Owner's Warehouse that I managed to leave the dinghy engine running in idle. Oops. I got back to the dinghy just at dusk, so mounted the red/green light at the bow and the white steaming light at the stern and took off for the mile or so ride back to the boat. I noticed the right side of the dinghy was going soft, but thought the cooler weather had simply reduced the air pressure.
To get from Riviera Beach Marina to where the boat is anchored we have to pass the Port of Palm Beach, which is actually a very busy little container facility. Friday night there was a large tanker that was docking. Or so I thought. I gave it a wide berth as I passed between it and the inlet. And was then somewhat aghast when it turned and exited into the Atlantic via the inlet. I have no idea if he saw me with my puny little lights (the stern steaming light in particular got water-logged at one point and now only glimmers a bit). You really don't want to be in a 10' rubber dinghy with a 300' tanker bearing down on you.
I made it back to the boat, just as the starboard pontoon completely deflated. Luckily the dinghy still floats, even with one side flat, although it's more swamped than floating. We managed to unload our mail and my few purchases and get the dinghy up on the davits, getting the engine weight relieved a bit. Of course it then proceeded to bang against the stern of the boat all night long. Maryann tried fitting a fender to it after I fell asleep (dead to the banging!), and then I hoisted it up a bit more at 3AM when I awoke to the banging.
It wasn't a fun night.
Saturday we wrestled and muscled and cursed and sweated, but we never did manage to get the dinghy on deck. Of course we were trying to get it on the stern through the small boarding area. We finally just hoisted it up on the davits after re-inflating the flat pontoon. And after 24 hours it's still holding air. We figure the fill valve must have gotten knocked loose as there appears to be no hole we can find. Oh well, we weren't going anywhere yesterday or today with the wind gusting to near 30 knots.
Maryann's been spending the week doing inventory and trying to find semi-permanent places for things. We have had the saloon littered with spares we've purchased the past week, and it's good to get them in the data base and put away. It's tedious work, but she's much better than I at finding space for things.
I've been spending the last few days installing the SSB radio. It really turned into a bigger job than I'd expected. The real breakthrough came when we mounted the new stereo sidways in the cabinet where the old one had been located. That freed up the upper half of the cabinet for mounting the SSB, and it was near enough to power and the control panel and speaker that running cables was vastly easier. I had to run power, a speaker cable, a control head cable, a coax cable to the antenna tuner, a control cable to the antenna tuner, a separate ground cable, and a coax to a SeaTalk/NMEA box for GPS and UTC time info. Don't worry if you don't understand any of that - it was just a bunch of cables!
I also ran power to our AIS receiver, as well as a coax to the stern where we'll mount its antenna on the radar arch. The AIS is this nifty box that receives broadcasts from all large ships as to eactly where they are and what they're doing (course, speed, size, destination, name, etc., etc.). Just as soon as I get the new VHF antenna mounted we should have AIS input into our computer navigation software.
I promised pictures, so here's a couple of the nav station comms panel and the wiring behind it:
Note the new watermaker panel in the upper right-hand corner, and the SSB speaker and control panel on the left side of the panel, above the VHF radio.
This isn't quite how it ended up. I had to move the AIS receiver 90 degrees since the DB9 connector bumped into the SSB control panel and the antenna connector ended up too long.
Ah, truly a site for nerds... These probably aren't the pictures that people have been asking for. :-)
It seems not a whole lot of progress for an entire week's worth of work. But after getting up in the morning, eating breakfast, checking the web for overnight happenings, doing some email, and maybe reading a bit that it's time for lunch. And after lunch there's the occasional nap. And sunset comes early these days, even at this latitude, so there's not a whole lot of time for labor.
Just a final note; we really think we're close to being done with everything we wanted to do before leaving the good old US of A. This week we managed to spend almost nothing, even trips to the boat store are totalling less than $100 a crack. Well, except for the new computer we asked Erik to buy for us this week. But hey, it's the season for giving; we're just giving to ourselves.
Saturday, 2 December 2006
Yesterday was yet another day full of running errands while we still had the rental car. One interesting thing happened, though - we dinghied over to the marina where we had left the rental car yesterday morning and as we were getting in the car noticed the license plate was missing! Somebody had ripped off the rental car license plate, probably the night before last. We figure they're probably going to stage a bank holdup and use the stolen license plate in the getaway car. Just hope they don't link it back to us!We had to make 2 round-trip dinghy trips yesterday because the first time we forgot to bring our propane bottles for refill. The 2 round-trips wouldn't have been interesting if the wind hadn't been blowing from the southeast at 15-25 knots, which allowed the waves to build on Lake Worth. Going from the boat to the marina wasn't an issue, but coming back through a 2-3 foot chop was miserable. We both got soaked the first time; luckily the temps were in the low 80's.
When we got back to the boat yesterday evening around 5PM we found the anchorage full of boats. This is a very large anchorage, but there hadn't been more than a dozen or so boats anchored here in the past week. Last night we had something like 40 or 50 boats, or at least that's what it seemed like. And they were mostly all gone this morning. Today is a great day for crossing the gulf stream, with winds out of the southeast about 10-15 knots, and seas 2-feet or less offshore, and maybe 2-4 feet in the stream. Too bad we couldn't take advantage of it, but we have more stuff coming in next week to Riviera Beach and need to be here to pick it up.
Today is a pretty quiet day, working on inventory and boat projects. We have gotten so much stuff this past week that it's difficult moving around with all the parts and pieces and equipment spread about the boat. We need to get it catalogued and stowed.
We did get our email account that we can use with our satellite phone set up today. We will use this for general email to us that should work regardless of where we are in the world. Please note that it goes over a fairly expensive satellite connection, so plain text and no attachments, please. The address is (note I don't include the actual address so the spam harvesters won't start spamming it!): svaurora (at-sign) uuplus.com.
We'll also use the email/satellite phone connection to get daily weather forecasts, weather conditions, and to send updates to this web site when we're on-passage or away from civilization (internet cafes and wireless hot spots). Very cool technology indeed.
We have an international phone number for the satellite phone, but since it turns itself off automatically and we have no voice mail, it probably doesn't make much sense for anybody to call us. Still, for completeness, the phone number is 881631571239. Note that this is an international number and you must prefix it with the 011 country code. Calls are charged to the calling party and they are very, very expensive.
Thursday, 30 November 2006
Today we finally got our new stereo hooked up. We have tunes!The boat came with a stereo and CD player, but it didn't have an input to use with the boat computer. And since we transferred all of our CDs to iTunes on the boat computer we couldn't play any of them. We bought a new marine Sony stereo way back in Stamford, CT, but just hadn't had time to hook it up. It only took the best part of today, but it's installed and playing through iTunes. Earlier we had steel drum music blasting with all the hatches open and a warm tropical breeze blowing through the boat. Then we moved on to Jimmy Buffett and Songs You Know by Heart. Now we've switched gears and playing some schmaltzy oldies for Maryann. :-)
While I was sweating and cursing trying to wire up the new stereo, Maryann took the dinghy and the rental car and ran errands today. She got way more done than I did, but we're both pretty pleased with what we managed to accomplish today. I'll let her relate her day in one of her email updates.
OK, think I'll grab a quick shower and finish my wine and read my book. It's not for everybody, but if you've got the slightest interest in fairly recent U.S. history, I'd highly recommend it: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Master of the Senate by Robert Caro. The man was fascinatingly flawed, and it's interesting to read of history that was happening before and just after I was born.
Oh, and tonight we get to crawl into our new sheets and cotton blanket. The down comforter and duvet cover were just way too warm in this climate!
Tuesday 28, November 2006
Busted! Received my first ever on-the-water citation yesterday. Palm Beach marine police pulled me over as I was taking the watermaker guy out to the boat and we waved as we passed the patrol boat. Then he swung around and motioned for us to stop. He wanted to see the registration for the dinghy. Since we plan on being out of the country, we figured we'd punt on registering the dinghy in any state. Bad idea. And since he had us, he also noted the lack of PFDs (Personal Floatation Devices). After hearing my argument for no registration he just wrote me up for no PFDs. And we almost got out of that when the watermaker guy "casually" mentioned his personal relationship with the Palm Beach chief of police. :-) But by then the citation had been written, so it's going to be a $55 fine. We're going to skip the registration, but we're now carrying PFDs in the dinghy.The watermaker problems were easy to solve - the installer had changed a setting in the programming when he was demonstrating it to us after installation, which was why the gallons/hour was no longer registering, and apparently we managed to crack a fitting while re-packing the lazarette where the watermaker had been installed with lines and fenders. But as with everything connected with boats, it took half a day to get it all squared away.
We spent yesterday afternoon getting more spares and other stuff in Riviera Beach. Most everything we needed was in stores within easy walking distance of the marina where we docked our dinghy. It was very pleasant having lunch at the Tiki Room, an open-air restaurant and bar right in the marina. It was close to 80 out and we had a nice breeze. Tropical al fresco dining at its best. Reminded us of what we're out here for!
Today I hope to complete the installation of the new stereo (which will allow us to play DVDs on the boat computer and pipe the sound through the stereo system). It's just like a automotive stereo, only it costs more as it's been "marinized". We also made some progress on installing the SSB and now have a location picked out for all of the components. Nice to be making progress, albeit slowly.
Maryann has acquired a new skill. She's been learning how to splice lines and finish ends professionally. She does nice work. And I learned how to rig a very serious-looking fishing lure for when we get off-shore. Not sure my monofilament knots are quite up to par, but otherwise it looks like it might be pretty efficient at catching fish. I've got supplies to make up another 9 lures, so hopefully my skills will improve.
Sunday, 26 November 2006
We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with my high school friend Gary, his partner Len, and some of their friends and family. I've known Gary since I was 11 years old and we were just starting 7th grade. We lost touch between high school and just about 6 years ago, but it's nice to reconnect with old friends.We moved on Friday morning from the marina in Riviera Beach back to the anchorage south of the Lake Worth inlet, after getting a pump-out and topping off our diesel tanks. For those not familiar with boats (or RVs), our toilets each have a 20 gallon holding tank. And that tank has to be pumped out by a shoreside facility, or emptied at sea once we're more than 12 miles off the coast. There was a fairly recent movie starring Robin Williams wherein he has to empty the holding tank in an RV. Not for the squeamish, but pretty hilarious. We saw it back in Salem or Newport shortly after we started this adventure and we could definitely relate.
The rest of Friday kind of disappeared in a haze. Don't know if it was food stupor or maybe a slight touch of something, but we both napped more than once - not at all odd for me, but very rare for Maryann.
Yesterday was devoted to boat chores. Maryann polished the above decks stainless and I installed a new pressure sensor on our primary water pump. The good news is we now have both of our water pumps operational again; the bad news is the primary water pump is once again running too often and over-pressurizing the system. Will return to the secondary and leave the primary as backup.
We wanted to make water yesterday, but found that not only do we have a minor leak, but the unit now reports it's only making 0.1 gallon/hour. Either it's reporting incorrectly or we have a more serious problem. The watermaker man is making a service call today.
We've decided that since we have such a great anchorage here, and such great access to marine stores and provisioning, that we'll take care of our few needs in Ft Lauderdale by renting a car and driving there. We'll stay here in the Palm Beach area, completing our boat projects and provisioning necessary before setting out for the Bahamas. Don't know when it'll be; the weather is unsettled for the next week or so, so it'll not be before next week. Still, the daily highs are predicted to be in the high 70's or low 80's, the daily lows are in the mid-to-high 60's, the water temp is a little over 80, and there are tropical fish swimming about the boat. We really couldn't ask for much more.
We've both noted a lack of communication from friends and family. Apparently this is usual for cruisers after about 3 months - it's no longer so novel and the folks back home have lives to live. But, if you're following our adventures, let us know periodically; we really enjoy hearing from you!
Thanksgiving, Thursday 23 November 2006
Happy Thanksgiving to everybody!We're still tied up at a slip in Riviera Beach at the New Port Cove Marina. It has been a very productive week. The watermaker installation went way better than anticipated, taking roughly half the time originally estimated, and the labor cost was a third less than the original estimate. Which means that it was just rather indecently expensive instead of the obscenely expensive we anticipated. But we were quite happy with the installer and the quality of work. It only took from about 9AM on Monday morning until just after noon on Tuesday and we were making water.
For those unfamiliar with the technology, our watermaker works by reverse-osmosis, pushing sea water at very high pressure against a semi-permeable membrane that only allows the water molecules through, blocking the salt ions. It's the same technology used in producing bottled water when there's no natural spring water available (Dasani and Aquafina, for instance). Our watermaker makes 12-13 gallons/hour, so running it every other day when re-charging the batteries should make us plenty of water. Very nice to not be dependent on finding sources of shore water.
Riviera Beach is an interesting place. We're just north of Palm Beach and West Palm Beach and just south of Palm Beach Gardens, which are all very expensive and up-scale communities. But Riviera Beach is run-down and poverty-stricken. Well, all except for the marinas. Since people with money don't want to live here amid the crime and poverty they haven't torn down the marinas and converted them to condo developments as they're doing throughout Florida. And because of the concentration of marinas and boating we have marine supply stores in easy walking distance. Which is all a long-winded way of saying we've made excellent progress in completing our outfitting. We've stocked up on spare parts and we've also completed our fishing equipment purchases.
We've also had time for some celebrations this week. One of use had a birthday (coy, ain't I?) on Sunday, and we saw a movie and had dinner in Palm Beach Gardens. For those who haven't seen it, check out the latest hot movie, Borat: Curltural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Truly something to offend everybody, but screamingly funny.
On Tuesday we had dinner with my old high school friend Gary who moved to Palm Beach Gardens from the SF east bay about 5 years ago. He and his partner Len have a lovely home and successful second careers here in Florida. We had a very nice dinner with them and their out-of-town visiting friend, Paul, and they have invited us to join their Thanksgiving dinner today. So after doing some boat chores, and maybe taking a little nap, we'll head over to their place later today to celebrate with their friends and family.
The only thing that could have been better earlier this week was the weather. With the cold front that passed through on Monday and Tuesday came windy and chilly weather. There was even a report of snow flurries in Orlando yesterday or the day before. Today it's supposed to be in the low 70's and the weekend is supposed to be very nice in the high 70's, but it was cold Tuesday and Wednesday, especially overnight.
Sunday, 19 November 2006
Hello all from Riviera Beach! We sailed (motorsailed) offshore from St Augustine to Riviera Beach starting early AM on Friday, arriving here around noon yesterday. It was pretty uneventful, though we had slightly more boisterous seas and a bit more traffic than our 2 previous off-shore jaunts.I woke yesterday around 7AM to water that had finally changed from the North Atlantic green to blue! Daytime temps are warm and nighttime is cool enough for a blanket. Very, very nice to be out of the freezing zone. The water temperature is even warmer than the air temp - in the low 80's.
We were originally thinking we'd anchor at the north end of Lake Worth, but as we turned north from the entrance inlet we ran aground. This time there was a sailboat anchored in the middle of the channel and we had to go right to avoid it; went too far right. Luckily we backed off immediately, but we turned tail and ended up anchoring south of the Lake Worth inlet. An overnight wipes us out, so all we had energy for was to grill a couple of steaks which we enjoyed with a nice bottle of wine. We were both asleep well before 9.
Today we motored to the marina where they will be installing our watermaker. Of course we had to go right past the area where we ran aground yesterday. This time we were more careful (and the sailboat that was in the channel yesterday was gone), and we got past the shoal where we ran aground yesterday. But we ended up turning too early for the marina and went aground yet again. A very nice live-aboard by the name of Kevin took a line from our bow and swung us around and back toward deeper water. Then we promptly did the same thing again! Once again we managed to get off. We might have done it a third time, but by this time I was nearly apoplectic and I honestly don't remember. We finally got lined up for the marina and made it in, only to touch once more once we were in the marina's boundaries. Admittedly this was at low tide and our boat needs 7' which is a lot, but still, 3 times aground in the space of 15 minutes was a bit much.
We finally got tied up in our slip. We're expecting another "norther" to come through this week, so we'll be happy to be safe and secure, even if we're sitting in only 7 1/2 feet of water!
One bit to note: we used our new Rocna anchor yesterday and I was very impressed. It bit into the bottom nearly instantly and you knew it was set as the boat stopped abruptly. We pulled down on it (by going into reverse), and it held like a very large rock. I think I'm going to like this anchor.
Thursday, 16 November 2006
Apparently there have been some pretty major storms sweeping the south the last day or two, leaving something like 12 people dead. We had a front come through yesterday with very high winds and rain most of the night. Today it cleared by mid-afternoon, the wind abated, and it turned cooler. Apparently a pretty standard weather pattern for Florida this time of year. The wind was probably as strong as we've had so far, but we're still in the St Augustine municipal marina, so we were pretty well protected.Not a whole lot to report. We continue to work on boat projects, slowly, with intermittent bouts of playing tourist. We're definitely on the downslope of what we need to do to get ready to go offshore to the Caribbean, but it always seems like there's more to do. At some point we'll just say, "that's it", and we'll take off for the Bahamas in whatever state we're in. I think that'll be sometime in the next 2 or 3 weeks.
Tomorrow morning we'll leave St Augustine early, probably around sunrise, and head south again. We're going to be heading offshore again, as it's much easier for us than the Intracoastal Waterway. And the forecast is for wind out of the West and Northwest, which means maybe we'll be able to sail and turn off the engine for a change. We're planning on heading directly for Palm Beach, actually Riviera Beach where we'll our watermaker installed. It's about 200 miles from here, so we're expecting a 30-36 hour trip with another overnight. This time we have an iPod to keep us amused during the dark night hours, so that ought to make things a bit easier. We also have our WatchCommander to keep us on our toes (see Boat Projects, below).
Finally, for those left hanging in the long saga of selling the SUV - it's been sold! A friend put us in touch with someone in Amherst, Mass who owns a high-end "pre-owned" car dealership in Greenfield, Mass. I drove the SUV up there from Connecticut and left it in his very capable hands. He managed to get us a reasonable price for it, and better yet, took care of all the details of getting it sold. Thanks, John and Karen, and thanks Jon for putting us in touch with them.
Oh, I'll add one more bit: now that we're finally below 30 degrees latitude, we're no longer freezing. Even tonight, as the cold front passes, we're only getting into the high 50's. But more importantly, it's getting into the mid-70's and low 80's during the day. Very nice, warm days and cool nights. Life's pretty mellow and we're enjoying it a whole lot more.
Tuesday, 14 November 2006
We are officially Floridians. The process for getting a Florida State driver's license is pretty easy. All you need to do is show up, present your out-of-state license, pay your fee, and they issue you a Florida license on the spot. No written test, no driving test, no proof-of-residency. If you were issued a driver's license in another state then it's good enough for Florida. It felt a little strange surrendering my California license, but they wouldn't let me keep it.We should back up to Saturday. We spent the day in Jacksonville, not getting a whole lot done. We did watch a good portion of the Jacksonville Veteran's Day parade, which was interesting. The folks down here are pretty big supporters of the military; seems like every high school down here has junior ROTC. Lots of very young folks in uniform marching in the parade.
Sunday we decided that St Augustine would be a more interesting place to be, so we set sail early Sunday morning. It's very cool to call up the bridge tender on the VHF and have this huge bridge open just for you just as the sun is rising on a quiet Sunday morning. We had an unventful motor down the St Johns River with the outgoing tide boosting our speed. Once out in the Atlantic we had some good swells with a following wind, but not enough to sail the 30 miles or so to St Augustine. So once again we were motor-sailing and then just motoring.
We decided to stay in the St Augustine Municipal Marina since we knew we were getting our liferaft and new anchor on Monday, and didn't want to deal with them in the dinghy. The municipal marina is quite nice, with lots of folks like us heading south, and the anchorage is jammed with the other snowbirds saving a buck or two by anchoring out.
St Augustine is the oldest permanent settlement in North America, founded in 1565. For you history buffs, St Augustine was founded in 1565, Virginia in 1607, and Plymouth in 1620. We've gotten to see a little of the history in reverse order as we've come south down the coast. St Augustine has a fine old fort, the Castillo de San Marcos and several pedestrian malls with restored houses from the Spanish era. It's very walkable, but like many other tourist destinations, is chock full of shops selling schlock that nobody needs. Amazing that we are such an affluent society that we can support stores that sell nothing but useless junk and knick-knacks.
Monday morning we were up bright and early and off to a car rental place, and then on our way to our mail forwarding service office. Along the way we stopped at the Florida equivalent of the DMV and learned what we needed to do in order to get our Florida driver's licenses. Our new anchor and other mail was waiting for us in Green Cove Springs. Nice to put faces with the voices/email addresses of the friendly folks at St Brendan's Isle, our mail forwarders.
Due to a series of mixups, our liferaft wasn't there, however. So we had to go all the way to the Jacksonville airport to the freight company that trucked our liferaft down from Portsmouth, RI. We also managed to stop at 2 different West Marine stores as the first didn't have the charts we needed. We're really getting a taste of the West Marine stores on the east coast! It was a pretty productive day.
And then today we got our driver's licenses and did boat chores this afternoon. The weather is expected to turn windy the next day or two, so we will either try to dash out of here tomorrow and make another 50 miles south or so, or we'll just sit tight and do the 200 miles south to Riviera Beach all at once on Friday and Saturday. We need to be in Riviera Beach by Monday morning, so the watermaker can be installed.
Friday, 10 November 2006
Thursday morning we fueled up and filled our water tank at the City Marina in Charleston, and then headed out Charleston Harbor, past Fort Sumter to the open Atlantic. Once past the breakwater that protects the entrance channel to the Charleston harbor we turned right and stayed on that initial heading just all the way to the mouth of the St. Johns River this morning around 10:30AM. It was a lovely 24-hour motorsail (yes, once again the wind was on the nose, though we did get a little boost from the wind the first 2 and the last 2 or 3 hours). Once we arrived at the St. Johns River we found it was in full flood, that is the tide was coming in, so we got a boost and were traveling at 9 1/2 knots for a while. Jacksonville, FL is about 18 miles upstream and we made it in no time.The best thing about being this far south is it's finally shirt-sleeve weather! And tomorrow is supposed to be in the 80's.
We're tied up at the floating docks that fron the Jacksonville Riverwalk. It's kind of neat to be in the heart of a big city, but still on our boat. There's a live band playing in the plaza, lots of restuarants, and plenty of people out enjoying a warm November evening. People strolling by seem to love to comment on the boat; one old guy said, "now, that's the boat I want!"
We did have one painful experience today, though. The main reason we came to Jacksonville was to visit out mail forwarding service in Green Cove Springs, a small community about 30 miles south of Jacksonville on the St. Johns River. We had both our anchor (30kg/66lbs) and our refurbished liferaft (40lbs) sent there and held for our pickup. After a 45-dollar taxi ride, we find the mail forwarding service was closed in honor of Veteran's Day. That meant it was a 100-dollar and 60 mile round-trip taxi ride just to learn we couldn't pick up our mail and packages. Such is the cruiser's life.
Wednesday, 8 November 2006 Addendum
Two things of note: When we were coming south from Cape Lookout we passed several Navy ships conducting exercises. They would every few minutes broadcast over channel 16 a message to the effect they were involved in launching and recovering aircraft and were restricted in their ability to maneuver and therefore other ships should stand clear.As we came up on an Oliver Hazzard class frigate (slightly smaller than a destroyer), they called us on channel 16 saying they were going to pass ahead of us. We acknowledged them and they passed right in front of us. Immediately after they passed they called us and asked to switch to channel 71. For those unfamiliar with marine VHF radios, channel 16 is used for contacting other ships, and for emergencies, but if you want to carry on a conversation, you switch to another channel, like channel 71. We switched channels and let them know we were now on channel 71. Someone, don't know whether it was the officer of the deck or the captain or who, but someone came back and said, "We just wanted to know what kind of boat you had there." We told them it was a Hylas 46, they said thanks, and we all returned to channel 16. So even the Navy notices a Hylas.
Thing the second: Maryann sends out a periodic email detailing her take on our travels. I think she mentioned that one of our challenges is living with someone 24/7. I heartily agree. I won't mention what triggered this, but suffice to say two anal compulsives on a boat is maybe 2 too many. :-)
Wednesday, 8 November 2006
How 'bout that election, eh? Can't see George playing nice for the next 2 years, but we'll see...That last update was pretty boring, wasn't it? Pretty much a rehash of the previous. We'll try to do better in the future.
We've been hanging out here in the Ashley River, off the Charleston peninsula, for the past several days doing not too much of anything. The weather turned again, with a pretty fair amount of rain yesterday, but with the rain we got warmer temps again. Should be in the low 70's today.
We've decided to skip Savannah and head straight for Jacksonville. The South Carolina and Georgia low country is tricky for a boat that wants at least 7 feet of water. The ICW along this stretch of the east coast is pretty badly shoaled and the Army Corps of Engineers has no budget for dredging. I wonder what all the cuts between rivers and bays and estuaries and all of the dredging has done to the local environment. Somehow I suspect it hasn't been for the best.
At any rate, the forecast looks OK to leave tomorrow, though we'll be fighting a flood tide to get out of the harbor, and the wind's predicted to be on the nose for Friday. We're planning to go directly from Charleston to Jacksonville, which should be around 170 nautical miles, a little bit shorter than our overnight from Morehead City/Beaufort to Charleston. Still, it'll be another over-nighter.
We've made an appointment to have a watermaker installed in Riviera Beach, FL on the 20th. Riviera Beach is just north of Palm Beach, so maybe we'll drop in on the Donald (Trump) at Mar-a-Lago for Thanksgiving.
Finally, a movie recommendation: last night we watched the last 3 hours of a 6-hour Italian mini-series called The Best of Youth. We give it 2 thumbs up and recommend it as something you might not stumble on in your local video store. Joe-Bob says, "check it out".
Saturday, 4 November 2006
This may be a long update, so brace yourselves...Last I wrote we were snugging down at a dock at a Marina in Belhaven, NC. The anticipated winds came along that evening and all the next day. We (I) didn't do a good job at deploying our fenders and the wind was blowing us right into the dock. We ended up doing a pretty nasty number on our rub rail, bending the stainless steel and rubbing off a fair bit of the underlying teak. Looks like we're going to have to get some replacement pieces from Taiwan. Well, we needed to figure out how to order parts from the builder anyway, but it really hurts to do a number on the boat, even if it's just the rub rail.
Belhaven, NC was a small North Carolina town with a long marine tradition. Legend has it that Blackbeard spent time there. Not a whole lot more to be said about Belhaven I guess.
As I mentioned in the last update, we left Belhaven last Sunday. Based on the weather forecast we expected winds diminishing to 10-15 knots, but they ended up blowing 15-25 knots. Combine that with the relatively narrow channel of the ICW and the 65 miles we had to cover to get to Beaufort/Morehead City and it was a pretty stressful day. Actually most of the day was fairly pleasant, with the weather warming; it was the howling wind that was disconcerting, as we were thinking of the difficulty we'd have docking. We made a wrong turn into Morehead City, but recovered quickly, entering the marina just about sunset. We got completely blown about as we were docking, but we had a very long dock and the marina folks got us pulled in despite the wind.
So, after 200 miles on the ICW, I think we're both convinced to follow the advice of another Hylas owner: get that boat out of that muddy ditch and get her off shore where she belongs! We were terribly concerned about the bridge clearances, but as it turned out it was the narrowness of the channel and the ease of going aground that was more nerve wracking. We've definitely had our fill of the ICW!
And given the ICW suffers from bad shoaling (areas where silt and sand and mud have reduced the depth from the nominal 12 feet throughout), the next leg of our trip south was going to have to be offshore, regardless. We rested up in Morehead City, picked up our mail, and did some boat chores. One thing we never anticipated was the endless list of things that need to be done. In some ways this is more work than working! But it's work for us and that makes a huge amount of difference.
Tuesday we had a relatively good forecast for the next leg of our journey, which was to be Morehead City to Charleston, SC. That afternoon we headed to Cape Lookout, which is just south of Cape Hatteras. There's an anchorage there which provides a good staging point for the offshore leg to Charleston. We estimated that it would take us 24 to 36 hours to do the 200+ miles to Charleston, based on our speed that ranges from 5 1/2 to 8 knots, so we wanted to leave early morning to arrive Charleston during daylight the next day. We hadn't previously done any overnight sailing, nor had we formally stood watches, so this next segment would be full of firsts.
As it turned out, it was pretty anticlimactic. The sea state wasn't bad, the wind was moderate, and there was very little traffic. We had a good chunk of the moon after dark, at least until it set around 3AM, so that helped a bunch. Wednesday morning around 10AM we sighted the Charleston harbor entrance, and by noon we had dropped the anchor in the Ashley River which forms part of the Charleston peninsula. Didn't do much else on Wednesday, as we were pretty wiped out from the long passage from Cape Lookout. It's going to be interesting for the 2 of us to do something like the Galapagos Islands to Marquesa's passage which is 2800 miles!
Thursday we walked through Charleston. It's a very pleasant city and very walkable. More restaurants here than we've encountered just about anywhere we've been so far. We had ribs, and very good ones, as I think I already mentioned.
We're not quite sure where Friday went. It was a very blustery day with the temps dropping sharply. We had been blessed with near shirt-sleeve weather since Morehead City and we'd both thought we'd finally left the cold behind to the north. No such luck, though. Last night it was near freezing, and this morning the "feels like" temperature was 27! It's supposed to warm up next week, and we're really hoping for a return to shirt sleeve and shorts temps.
Today, Saturday, we played tourist. We walked through the farmer's market, in Citadel Square, near the military college of The Citadel. We took the excursion boat to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, where the first shot was fired in the Civil War. We're back on the boat, finished with dinner, and about to watch a movie. Life's good, albeit a bit chilly. Seems I had a whole lot more to say, but it escapes me right now.
Thursday, 2 November 2006
Just a quick update, will fill in the details later. We spent a couple of days in Belhaven, NC, waiting out the wind. We managed to mangle part of our rub rail, pushing up against a piling where the fender had popped out. We left Belhaven on Sunday, October 29, but somebody forgot to tell Mother Nature the weather forecast. It was supposed to be diminishing winds with nothing more than 15 knots. Yeah, right, more like 25 to 30 knots. Despite the wind and rough and bouncy conditions just north of Beaufort/Morehead City, we managed to tie up in Morehead City late Sunday. We were very happy to be out of the ICW!Monday and Tuesday we did boat chores, picked up our mail, and did some shopping. We ate at the Sanitary Fish Restaurant and Market - a local favorite in Morehead City since the 30's. Yet another instance of the food we cook aboard is almost always better than what we get ashore.
Tuesday afternoon we headed for Cape Lookout and a nice anchorage there called The Bight. It's about 2 hours from Morehead City and gave us a jump on our planned sail from the Beaufort/Morehead City area to Charleston, SC. Depending on what kind of speed we could manage, this segment would take from 24 to 36 hours, and would be our first overnight. We listened carefully to the weather, and everything sounded good for an early Wednesday AM departure.
Yesterday, Wednesday, we left the Bight in the dark at 5:30AM. We then had 30 hours or so of very nice sailing (mostly motor-sailing, yet again) with modest seas and winds. We tried out keeping formal watches and it all worked well. I had 4-8PM, Maryann did 8PM-midnight, then I did midnight to 4AM and she relieved me at 4AM until 8AM. At that point we both were wired and excited to be entering Charleston.
After getting here just about noon we had lunch, put the dinghy in the water, and did some exploring in Charleston. Very nice town. We had dinner at Sticky Fingers ribs & bbq - couldn't resist after seeing a picture in their window of George W outside the restaurant with a couple of take-out bags. Can just see old Dubya sitting on the couch, watching Sunday afternoon football with Condie, snacking on Sticky Fingers' ribs. Seriously, the ribs were very good - well, all but the dry-rub ones (we did a 4-way sampler).
But the big news is the weather seems to have turned. We had shirt-sleeve weather in Belhaven, despite the wind, and Morehead City was in the high 70's both days we were there. We were both fervently hoping for no more longjohns and fleece layers. But guess what? The forecast for Charleston is highs in the low 60's and lows just above freezing for the next fews days. Rats.
We're both way tired this evening, so I'll do as promised and keep it short.
Friday, 27 October 2006
OK, so picture the scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind where Richard Dreyfuss is at a stop sign in his lineman's truck, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, when this incredible thing sets down behind him, with the most amazing lights - so bright he ends up sunburned. For our younger readers, stop reading right now and go out and rent the movie; you won't regret it.Anyway, this morning at about 6AM it was still pitch-black out, when I was awoken by this incredible bright light coming in the aft cabin where we sleep. Looking out the porthole, I could have sworn we were in the movie Close Encounters, as the geometrically-arrayed lights, some high-intensity white, others yellow and green and red, were shining in at us. And it looked like whatever it was was just parked off our starbord stern. It was truly a weird moment. And then I realized I was looking at the front of a tugboat pulling a multi-ton barge behind, coming up the channel, toward where we were anchored. And yes, I admit we were anchored in what technically was the channel.
Couldn't be helped. It was late in the afternoon yesterday after reeling off 50 more miles, and there were just 3 small anchorages in about a mile and a half of the ICW. The first was full; the third had reported bad holding on the bottom due to snags. We chose the second, but it was quite shallow and another boat had already claimed the prime spot within the area. So we dropped our anchor in 9 feet of water, and moved back into 7 feet of water. Remember that we draw 7 feet - we go aground in anything less. And by the time we were done anchoring we were on the channel side of one of the channel markers. Damn! We rationalized it by saying that we had no other choice and the GPS showed us as technically out of the channel. We went to bed and were awoken by the massive presence of the tug and its tow. With another tug following! This one gave us a few blasts of its horn as it passed. And have you ever felt the vibration of a tug's enormous diesels up close? But it gets better - we were just slightly sticking into the channel; at the first anchorage some wise guy sailboat had decided to anchor almost exactly mid-channel! Still not sure how the tugs got by him. Of course the tugs only draw about 3 feet of water, so they can squeeze by without going aground.
We were pretty wide-awake by the time the tugs passed, so just as soon as we had first light at around 7AM, we raised the anchor and headed on down the channel. We did an easy 35 miles today, passing beneath the only 64' foot bridge on the ICW (recall our mast is nominally 64'), without any problems at all. Not even sure our VHF antenna scratched the bottom of the bridge, though Maryann thinks it did. Still it was nothing compared to the tortured, snaky channel where you can be happily in 14' of water and then suddenly see the depth drop below 11'. I was talking to a guy today and we both do the same little dance when the depth gets shallow, sort of a "come on, where's my depth?!!, get it back!" movement, if you can possibly picture it.
We normally listen to the weather as one of the first things we do when getting up in the morning. And today the reports were for gale-force conditions tonight, with rain, high winds, and high waves in Pamlico Sound. Since Pamlico Sound is the other major body of water we need pass before Beaufort/Morehead City, NC (the first being Albemarle Sound which we transited yesterday), we decided that discretion was called for, so we pulled into Belhaven, NC, where there's a very pleasant marina. Well, except for having the manager knock on the cabintop this afternoon and ask us to move to a different location in the marinal because of the unexpected high occupancy due to the storm. And then ask us to stay put after we'd cast off all but 2 of our lines and started the engine.
Still, it's nice to be snug and warm at a marina, despite the nerve-wracking passage of the ICW. The forecast for tonight and tomorrow has wind 35-40 knots, gusting to 50, and with waves up to 17 feet (!!!) off Cape Hatteras. So, staying inside the ICW isn't all bad.
Wednesday, 25 October 2006
We left Norfolk, VA this morning after trying and failing to get diesel. The wind was still blowing hard and it was just too tricky getting onto the fuel dock. I'm always amazed at how a little bit of wind can make docking so very difficult.We did nearly 50 miles of the ICW (Intra-Coastal Waterway) today. It was nerve-racking, as had been reported by another Hylas 46 owner. Because there are so many bridges that open on the half-hour or on the hour, you end up with about 15 boats traveling together in a pod. While waiting for a bridge to open, they all mill about, some trying to hold position, some motoring up current, and some motoring in circles. Makes for a rather confusing time of it.
But the most jaw-dropping aspect of the ICW was the first time we watched as our 64' high mast passed under a 65' bridge. We suspect that because the boat sits deeper in the water than its nominal 6', we actually have more headroom (so to speak) than we thought. Still, you'd swear there was no way the mast was going to clear the bridge. Today we did something like 4 of these 65' fixed bridges. And another half dozen opening bridges.
But what's turned out to be the most nerve-wracking experience has been the narrowness of the dredged channels, and how quickly the depth drops along the sides of the channels. We were in one channel this afternoon that couldn't have been more than 50' wide, shoaling rapidly to 5' depths on either side. And a tugboat had come by this morning and crashed into one of the channel markers, effectively removing it. We heard that up to 5 boats at a time were aground at that point. And we joined them when the depth sounder showed 7' in one direction (we need at least 7'), and we turned to the other side of the channel, ending up in a little more than 5' of water, hard aground. This time we managed to power our way off and get back into the channel. But working our way down the ICW is much like a blind man feeling from side-to-side with his cane - in our case we gently swing left and right, noting when the depth decreases and increases. Very much like feeling your way down the street, blind.
Oh, and it's cold! Tonight it's supposed to dip into the high 30's. We tied up at a marina this afternoon, so we have marina power which means we can run the reverse-cycle A/C, in other words, heat! Going to be lots of fun going out into the cold and wind again tomorrow AM and repeat the shallow-water and wait-for-bridges drill from today.
Still, we're now in North Carolina; Maryann had her first-ever hush puppy at dinner.
Tuesday, 24 October 2006
Greetings from windy Norfolk, VA. It's nearly 2AM local time and I'm sitting in Aurora's saloon (pronounced sa-lawn, believe it or not!) , getting blown back and forth by winds that are running 20-25 knots (multiply by 1.15 to convert from knots to miles/hour). The anchor seems to be holding well, but I'll stay up a bit longer, keeping an eye things.I returned from my foray into western Massachusetts last Thursday evening. We spent one more night in the Petrini marina in Annapolis, then Friday morning we moved to a city-owned mooring. We spent Friday getting ready for a Saturday departure. We would have left on Friday, but they were forecasting winds with gusts up to 35 knots, so we decided to wait out the weather for a day. It was a good call. Sitting on the mooring in Annapolis harbor was scary enough with the winds indeed gusting to 35 knots. It was a wild ride and we never left the mooring.
Saturday morning we left Annapolis just at sunrise. The previous day's winds had blown away all the clouds and it was a beautiful day on Cheasapeake Bay. There was just enough wind left from the day before that we had about 2 hours of a wonderfully quiet sail. It was quite delightful to be beam-reaching along at 8 and a half knots. But then as the weather front finally moved on, the wind came around to be on our nose again, so we fired up the diesel and motor-sailed for the rest of the day. Still, the weather was gorgeous and warm in the protection of the cockpit out of the wind.
We pushed it a bit more than we would have liked, getting across the broad mouth of the Potomac. The Potomac marks the halfway point between Annapolis and Norfolk, and we really wanted to be able to get to Norfolk in 2 days. We headed up the Great Wicomico River, and dropped the hook in a very pleasant sheltered bay just after sunset. We're getting spoiled by how well the Coast Guard has the east coast of the US marked - getting into the anchorage was pretty trivial, even as it was getting dark.
Saturday evening we finally fired up our grill. It's really a nice unit, though living in one of the aft lazarettes means it's looking pretty grungy. We're hoping to use it most of the time once we get to the tropics, as nobody wants to run the galley cooktop or oven in that kind of heat. We did discover one unfortunate characteristic of the grill, though; grease is somehow finding its way through the grill to drip onto the deck. Will have to figure out how and see if we can't stop it.
Sunday morning we once again left just as the sun was rising. The forecast was for cloudy skies, rain, higher waves, and a more wind. And yes, once again the wind was directly ahead, meaning we spent the entire day motor-sailing. Even worse, we were battling a tidal current most of the day, so we were struggling along at 5 knots for a good portion of the day. It's amazing how we can go from driving at 70+ mph on the highway, then find that 8 knots on the water is fast and 5 knots terribly slow.
The lower Chesapeake is really crowded with shipping. There's Navy traffic, container ships, coal carriers, and innumerable pleasure craft. We dodged in and out of them, pushing to make Norfolk, as we passed the last good place to put in before Norfolk proper. We saw the great bridge and tunnel complex at the mouth of Cheasapeake bay, and then passed through a similar bridge/tunnel that connects the south shore of the James River with the north shore, opening up into Hampton Roads.
This is an incredibly historic area. We have the earliest English settlers arriving in 1605 to the doomed settlement on Roanoake Island, then John Smith and company arriving to settle Jamestown in 1607. We have Williamsburg and Richmond and Jamestown up the James River. Then there's Washington, D.C. up the Potomac. Right here, just north of Norfolk is Hampton Roads where the Monitor and Merrimac dueled durin g Civil War. We're really sad to have to rush through this area, but the overnight temps are dropping into the low 40's, headed for the mid-30's later this week. Although we do have heat on the boat, it really isn't designed for freezing weather, so we need to keep heading south.
We entered the Elizabeth River, Norfolk and Portsmouth Harbor late in the afternoon on Sunday. It was truly awesome cruising past the Norfolk Naval Base. We could make out the super carrier Theodore Rooselvelt from several miles out and she kept getting bigger and bigger until we passed just a few hundred yards away on our way up the river. I heard today that this area has over 300,000 naval personnel and dependents, which is some ridiculous huge percentage of the overall population. If the Navy leaves, there won't be much left of the local economy.
Today we ran errands in Norfolk and Portsmouth which is across the Elizabeth River, and then played tourist this afternoon. The Norfolk waterfront has been revitalized as they say. Apparently in the 50's and 60's it was pretty dismal area of docks and warehouses; now it's quite walkable. It looks like this windy weather will be with us tomorrow, so we'll hold off starting down the ICW until Wednesday. If I have a chance, I'll write about the ICW later today or tomorrow; we're very nervous about our 7' of draft and our mast height, which is just at the limit of what is feasible on the ICW due to fixed bridge heights. Don't want to be bumping the top of the mast into a bridge, very bad form indeed.
Thursday, October 19 2006
I didn't leave enough time yesterday morning to make it to the $4 Annapolis City Bus to the Baltimore airport, so ended up taking a taxi for 10 times that. It's difficult breaking habits formed over years and years when convenience trumped cost. Still, it was quite a quicker trip to the airport than by bus. After wending my way through the airport departures and arrivals and the rental car shuttle, I managed to rent a nice little Hyundai Sonata and was on my way to Fairfield, CT. 5+ hours later I arrived at the Lexus dealership. The body shop had sanded out the paint runs and sent the car out for detailing. The work wasn't flawless, but I just didn't have the time to complain. The "pre-owned" folks were sufficiently non-interested that they never even bothered calling me, so the hell with them. Everybody: avoid Lexus of Westport, CT. Their body shop work is shoddy and their detailing service isn't much better, and their used-car manager is a jerk. Wonder what trouble that little sentence will bring me?A friend had written (thanks, Ruby!) about a friend of his in the car business in Greenfield, Massachusetts (north of Springfield and near Amherst, home of one of the UMass campuses). I called John, and he suggested that he either run the car through the weekly Connecticut used-car auction for dealers, or put it on his lot in Greenfield on consignment. I was pretty much at a loss as to what to do at this point, and couldn't very well leave it at the dealer's lot, so around 4:30PM I headed to Amherst, Mass. That put me into 7 different states yesterday: Maryland, Deleware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Still, the drive up the Connecticut River valley was gorgeous, with the fall colors just about at their peak.
John and Karen Loeb were my friend's camp counselor in 1969 when my friend was 12 years old. I had heard about them from my friend (this was summer camp about 60 miles from Woodstock the summer of the Woodstock music festival), but had never met them, nor ever spoken with them before yesterday afternoon. Yet John volunteered to handle the sale of my car, and invited me to dinner and to spend spend the night with them. These are truly wonderful people and I can't say enough about their kindness and generosity. John's wife Karen is a great cook, and I thoroughly enjoyed visiting them in their lovely home in Amherst.
This morning Karen drove me to the Springfield, MA train station where I caught a train to Baltimore. I'm sitting on the train in the Trenton, NJ station as I write this. Should be a little less than 2 more hours to BWI airport where I can catch a shuttle to Annapolis. Meanwhile, Maryann has been busily industrious on the boat, getting our inventory database started, charts purchased, cleaning collected, and a number of things that have slipped my mind.
Wednesday, October 18 2006
Just a quick update this morning, as I'm on my way to a Hertz outlet at Baltimore International. Will be driving to Connecticut to pick up the car. The body shop has fixed their mistakes (I hope), but the "pre-owned" folks still don't want to pay anything reasonable. A friend of a friend gave us the lowdown on what the wholesale value should be, and the dealers are all trying to shave $2-3K off the wholesale value! Jerks.So, I'm on my to Connecticut. Leaving the boat at Petrini's Boatyard here in Annapolis (since 1947, and it looks like it - though the boatyard next door, Sarles, has been here since 1907 and is neat as a pin) with Maryann. Don't know how long I'll be gone, but will absolutely find somewhere to sell this car today.
Annapolis is very nice. We moved out of the Naval Anchorage a couple of days ago to a slip in Petrini's Boatyard. The slip is very inexpensive, though you tend to get what you pay for. This morning there was no vanity in the single unisex shower/restroom. Apparently a section of the tile floor needed replacing.
Saturday night was crazy here in Annapolis. What with the boat show and the Navy - Rugers football game in town, there wasn't much room to move about. Sunday we toured the Naval Academy. A lot of history and a lot of tradition all mixed together. If it weren't for my near sightedness, I might well have seriously considered the academy when I graduated from high school. Would have been a weird place to be in the late 60's and early 70's and being a wannabe hippie in Berkeley was pretty much the opposite end of world in many ways
Latest toll in stuff breaking on the boat: one more battery replaced yesterday, though this time obtained through Steven's Battery Warehouse with a boat-show discount, so quite a bit less expensive than Newport Shipyard! That makes all 4 house batteries replaced in the past year, so let's hope they last a while. Still have the engine/generator start battery to replace (or not - it might have already been replaced), but its usage is different, so hopefully it'll hang in there a while longer.
Oh, and totally forgot the excitement of last Saturday! We were running the generator as we were eating breakfast when all of a sudden we both smelled that familiar burning-electronics smell. Opened the engine compartment and water was pouring down over the generator and engine! After some anxious moments we found that the pressure-switch on the fresh-water pump had melted down. Literally! And it failed in such as way as to command the pump to pump continuously, causing the pressure-relief valve on the water heater to pop, which is where all the water came from. Luckily we have 2 parallel fresh-water pumps, so we just disabled the bad one.
We also changed engine oil and transmission fluid for the first time on Saturday. What a comedy of errors. Hopefully next time around it'll all go a bit easier (actually the engine oil was easy; it was the transmission fluid which was a pain as the old fluid has be be sucked out of the dipstick hole).
OK, need to run if I'm going to catch my bus.
Friday, October 13 2006
Still here in Annapolis. Nice place and given that we're anchored and are getting free wireless internet, it's a real winner. Of course it's supposed to be in the low 40's tonight, maybe high 30's. Three people died in Buffalo where they got the most snow ever for an October the other night. It's cold in the morning.Last night we headed to Weems Creek, about a mile north of the naval academy. Nice and quiet and not at all bouncy like it is in the naval anchorage (only place there's room here what with the boat show going on), but no wireless. We think that's one of the hardest things to get used to, no instant-on internet access.
We're going to try to get a bunch of boat chores done here over the next couple of days while we're waiting for our mail and packages to catch up with us. Looks like we've got yet another failing/failed battery, but this time we're going to get the new battery from the folks at Battery Warehouse - gotta be cheaper than Newport, RI. We got our regulator back for the big alternator on the main engine. Installed it and it works for 5-10 minutes, then stops charging. Turn it off and on again, and it's charging again. Very odd.
We've found a number of filters that need periodic cleaning, like the main galley sink filter and the filters for the shower sumps in both heads. Looks like they've been neglected over the past 4 years. Sure makes a difference in how the pumps do their thing when the filters are clean!
br> We continue to discover things about the boat. Today I traced down a fresh-water and salt-water washdown hose connections in the forward lazarette (locker). We really need a good salt-water washdown for the anchor as everywhere we've anchored to date has had black muck/mud bottoms the anchor and anchor chain are coated with it after a night at anchor. Of course now we need a hose and spray nozzle and the local marine store only has 25' hoses and I figure it'd be nice to have a 50' hose since the boat is 46' feet long. So that means we now need to make a trip to West Marine, which means a taxi ride, as there isn't one within walking distance. And who knows if they'll have it; if not, it'll end up on our ever-growing to-do/to-get lists.
We're going to count today as successful. We got laundry done and got the replacement regulator installed, and kind of working. And we found the salt-water washdown. Dinner at Buddy's Ribs and Crabs whose clientele amused us to no end. And now a quick dash under that wonderful down comforter we brought with us - we knew it was going to be fall weather, but who would have thought near-freezing?
Wednesday, October 11 2006
We've been moving since we last updated. But first, an update on the car. Last Saturday we picked it up at the Fairfield CT Lexus dealer and immediately took it to the user car facility. They said they'd be willing to kick up their offer by $500 (after a $1500 repair!), if it weren't for the paint slump on the body shop work! Ohmighod, they're right - the body shop totally botched the repair. Not only did they get runs in the paint work, but there's sanding dust everywhere and bare metal on some of the repair they did. The folks in the body shop are very apologetic, but that doesn't much help the situation.On the off chance we can sell it with the shoddy repair, we head off for a tour of Lexus dealers in southern Connecticut and New York state just over the border. The best we can manage it $500 over the offer by the folks in Fairfield. Need to ponder on this one.
Saturday I post a listing of the CD titles I have on the New York craigslist. By the time we get back from our tour of Lexus dealers I have 3 or 4 emails from folks that want them. The first to reply sends his cousin up from New Jersey to buy them! Not a whole lot of money for them, but nice to have someone take them off our hands and give us cash in exchange.
Meanwhile, the weather forecast is excellent for Sunday through Tuesday and I'm itching to go. The folks at the body shop say they'll pick up the car from the marina parking lot and make it right, so bright and early Sunday morning we fill our diesel tanks, and set out for Manhattan. We had a nice motor sail down the south
Connecticut coast, and on into where Long Island Sound meets the East River at a lovely spot called Hell Gate. We timed it right and had a 3-4 knot tidal rush running which made for a 12-knot dash down the East River, along the Manhattan Island skyline. Neat. Then into lower New York Harbor with the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (and Newark!) and then out under the Verrazano-Narrows bridge and a quick dash across to Sandy Hook, NJ. We dropped the hook just off the Coast Guard station; nice not to have to pay for an overnight stay.
Next morning we motored from Sandy Hook to Atlantic City, coming into the Atlantic City harbor just after sunset. Again we anchored, ate, and went to bed, obliviousl of the charms (?) of Atlantic City. Next morning we were up at 4AM for a 5AM departure. It was a very long day, but we made it up the Delaware Bay close to the eastern end of the Cheasapeake and Delaware Canal. It was tough slogging against the ebb tide running down Delaware Bay, but our efficient 75HP diesel propelled us at a stately 6 knots up the bay. We again anchored just north of the Salem nuclear power plant. Wonder if we're glowing yet?
This morning we left around 7:30AM and motored through the C&D Canal into Cheasapeake Bay. Once again we were fighting the tidal currents, so it took most of 3 hours to do the 11 miles through the canal. Some really lovely waterfront homes on the Maryland side of the canal, but it was otherwise un-noteworthy.
This evening, after another 6-7 hours of motor-sailing (detect a theme here?) we crossed under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and entered Annapolis Harbor. We dropped the anchor off the US Naval Academy, ate some dinner, and enjoyed the free wireless Internet that Annapolis offers. Probably going to be an early night. We might stay here for a few days, getting packages and doing boat chores. Then it'll be off down the coast and hopefully into warmer climes. The past 3 days were quite lovely, weather-wise, but today we got a major soaking in a rainstorm, and tomorrow it's supposed to be substantially cooler, like overnight in the low 40's. Can't wait for the those warmer climes so I can start complaining about the heat....
Friday, October 6 2006
Friday evening in Stamford finds hordes of commuters arriving from NYC, home for the weekend. Nice to not be part of that rat race, though I do believe we are working harder than when we "worked" for a living. Maryann spent a lot of time cleaning the boat the past couple of days while I fought to understand several things that need to be done or installed. Not much progress, but a whole lot of thought!We've been sitting here at the marina, waiting for the body shop to finish repairing the dent and torn-up bumper on the Lexus. We're going to try a third and maybe a fourth dealer tomorrow to see if we can't get a reasonable price for it. Hopefully with no body dings we'll be able to at least better what we'd been offered in Newport (Warwick) RI.
The timing would work well, as there's a cold front passing through that should be clear of the area by the end of tomorrow. Sunday through Tuesday are forecast to be low wind, low seas all the way down the Jersey coast. And apparently the Jersey coast can be nasty, as can Delware Bay. So if all works out well (yeah, right) we'll be well on our way down the Jersey coast by early next week.
Probably going to have to skip staying over in Manhattan, and content ourselves with a sail/motor down the East River. But given the low 40's temps last night and this morning, I'm more than willing to hurry on south.
Not much else to report. We did finally manage to complete importing all of our CD's into iTunes. With Apple's lossless compression it came to just shy of 100GB. Now we need to back it up and get rid of the CD's. Anybody want a library or nearly 400 CD's - classical, a little rock, some jazz, show tunes, and a lot of Christmas music. OK, so I like Christmas carols... Going to maybe try eBay, though it's not clear how successful that'll be.
Tuesday, October 2 2006
Friday we left Jamestown, RI and Narragansett Bay for Long Island Sound. We only made it as far as New London, CT, but we did get to sail a bit before the wind came around and made motoring preferable to tacking back and forth (for those not up on sailing - with a sailboat you can't sail if you're pointing 45 degrees or less to either side of where the wind is coming from. If that's the case, then you sail as close to the course as you can, and you periodically change course by 90 degrees or so; this is called tacking into the wind). Friday night we grabbed a mooring in New London Harbor (and for the geeks out there, we saw a big nuclear sub leaving the sub base just as we were entering).Saturday we got a late start and the wind was on the nose, so only made it as far as New Haven motoring, where we anchored for the first time in Aurora (and from what I understand, the first time this boat has ever been anchored!). Sunday was fairly stormy, with the wind gusting near 30 knots (a pretty good blow!), so we sat tight in New Haven. The anchor remained well set, despite the wind changing direction 360 degrees. Still I'd rather a 50% heavier anchor and a little more peace-of-mind, so we'll get our 66 lb Rocna anchor in the next week or two.
We didn't get a chance to go ashore at New Haven. I did want to visit Yale to see what kind of institution would graduate someone like George W. Perhaps some other time!
Monday we were off bright and early and arrived at Stamford Harbor a little past noon. We had a chance to sail for a bit and even had our staysail out. For most of the way the wind was about 30 degrees off the nose, so we ended up motor-sailing: motoring with the sails up; makes for a faster and more comfortable ride usually. We're beginning to think that for a sailboat, Aurora is a pretty good motorboat.
One very cool thing was seeing the Manhattan skyline at the end of Long Island Sound. Sailing down the East River and possibly up the Hudson for a bit next week will be very, very cool. How often do you get to sail your boat past the Statue of Liberty and the entire Manhattan skyline? Well, it's special for us Californians.
We did have a somewhat exciting moment when the engine quit on us. Luckily Long Island Sound was fairly calm with little to no chop, so diagnosing the problem was easy. We'd managed to run one of our diesel tanks dry (we have 4 and it's a manual process to switch between them). After switching to a full tank the engine started again with no problem. This complicated boat is a constant learning experience.
No moorings available in Stamford, so we are in a slip at Brewer Yacht Haven Marina. It's actually kind of nice being able to walk right on shore; it's also nice having shore power and not having to run the generator to recharge the batteries every other day.
After we arrived in Stamford, we walked to the train station where caught an Amtrack train to Kingston, RI. And in Kingston we caught a bus to Newport where we caught a taxi to Portsmouth where we had left the SUV. By the time we had dinner and drove back to Stamford it was close to 1AM, making it a nearly a 10 hour transportation outing.
Today we researched the options for selling the SUV. Looks like the local dealer is out; they just can't offer enough so we'll going to have to get the dent repaired, have it detailed, and try to sell it on newyork.craigslist.com. Looks like the body work won't be done until the weekend, so hopefully we can sell it Saturday or Sunday, and be out of here. Meanwhile, we'll stay busy with boat projects. There's always plenty of them!
Thursday, September 28 2006
The best laid plans and all that... The work on the arch wasn't completed yesterday, so we had to hang around until today. They completed the work this morning and we headed over to the Lexus dealer to sell the car, but when we arrived, they started saying that their estimate on Tuesday was probably too low. So I invited them to take a flying leap and we left. By the time we got back to the marina in Portsmouth, it was too late to head into Long Island Sound, so we motored back down to Jamestown where the mooring buoys are substantially less expensive than the slip in Portsmouth. And here's where we'll spend the night.Here's a picture of the new arch; it's very strong!
Removing the halyard used to hoist the arch into position:
The old aircraft carriers Saratoga and Forrestal, moth-balled in Newport, RI
I'm really annoyed with the Lexus folks. They wasted our time on Tuesday and wasted our time yet again today. Now we're going to have to head for someplace like Stamford, CT, which has a good craigslist clientelle. Then we're going to have to get the car detailed and perhaps have the dent in the rear quarter-panel removed. And then find someone to buy it. Will probably get quite a bit more than the dealer was offering, but it's going to cost us in time.
Meanwhile it's getting later into fall. It's been quite lovely the past week, but tonight and tomorrow it's supposed to rain. And at some point it's going to get just too cold and stormy to be this far north.
Tuesday, 26 September 2006
Early Monday morning we motored up Naragannsett Bay to East Passage Shipyard/New England Boatworks and picked up a slip in the marina here. Well, the docking job was pretty sad as there was quite a tidal current running and I totally misjudged it. Nearly ran into the boat next to us, but with enough folks on the docks fending us off and getting us situated we finally got ourselves squared away.This is a very nice marina and it's quite a luxury being able to walk directly ashore and to have shore power without having to worry about the battery charge and running the engine or the generator. This was a training base for PT boats during WWII and it's a kick thinking of all those young navy folks running their fast 80' boats up and down the coast. JFK trained here, as did a number of other famous folks. The navy presence in Newport is much diminished these days from its heyday, but is still strong.
Later Monday our stainless steel welder/installation expert showed up with our new arch. He and his helper assembled it and started the fitting process. By the end of Tuesday they had most of the cutting and fitting completed and welding was well underway.
Tuesday Maryann and I ran down to Waterford, CT, not quite 2 hours by car, to a large boating retail store where we purchased our dinghy. We finally gave up waiting for the dinghy we really wanted as the current estimate is no production until November, so we settled for the next best. We also ended up buying a whole bunch of other stuff that we just absolutely needed...
We also stopped by a Lexus dealer on the way back from Connecticut, and arranged to sell them the GX470. We won't get quite what we'd have liked from selling it, but the convenience is well worth it. This way we don't have to stop somewhere long enough to get it detailed, place ads, and get it sold. All we need do is show up tomorrow and drop it off with the keys and they give us a check.
We're hoping that tomorrow we can finish the work on the arch and that we can leave here on Thursday morning. It's a pity we couldn't have been sailing for the past 2 days and tomorrow, as the weather has been clear with moderate wind and temps in the high 60's and low 70's. Rain's back in the forecast for later in the week.
By the way, we decided not to wait around the Newport area for the liferaft service people to finish their work on our liferaft. We're hoping to get the liferaft vaccum-packed, which should lengthen the required service intervals from 1 year to 3 years. Given the manufacturer and 2 service centers, one here in Portsmouth and one in Seattle are the only 3 officially recognized service centers, it helps a lot only having to have it serviced every 3 years.
Sunday, September 24 2006
We finally have internet connectivity on the boat. I've also taken the time to fix up some broken links and otherwise clean up the web site. That includes the missing links for boat projects and what's broken - might make those permanent features of the website. Maryann promises me we'll shortly have the spiffy new website in place, and just about anything is going to be an improvement on this.Forgot to mention this past week on Monday that we took delivery of our 2 new sails. We got a new staysail which we rolled up on its new furler, and an asymmetric spinnaker which is currently in a very large sail bag sitting on deck. Need to compress it rather substantially to fit it in the forward sail locker! Can't wait to be flying this huge new downwind sail!
This past week was bit frustrating, but instructive. Tuesday, while Maryann was taking the bus and train to Salem to retrieve our SUV I was at Newport Shipyards, trying to find out why our electrical system was busted. We did manage to identify and replace one bad battery, and their electrician claimed that the regulator that controls how our big alternator charges the batteries was also dead. Well, it wasn't just a claim; it really was dead. But it was the second one that had died inside of a few weeks, so I was suspcious there was some other cause for the failure. But we couldn't find anything, so we ordered a new one (at a pretty outrageous markup - we could have had it for about 30% less if we hadn't ordered through the shipyard, but live and learn).
We returned the boat to our mooring off the Ida Lewis Yacht Club in the south part of Newport Harbor. Quite posh surroundings - the Ida Lewis was the sponsor for the America's Cup races for many years. And just down the road a bit is the New York Yacht Club, situated in quite an impressive old mansion. The downside is the mooring is quite pricey and all we get is launch service and use of their showers. Friday we moved across the bay to Conanicut Marina in Jamestown, RI. Lots cheaper and Jamestown is a cute place.
On Wednesday we drove up to the place that's doing our liferaft service so we could see our liferaft inflated. We didn't get a chance to see it automatically inflate, as that shortens the life of the raft, but they did inflate it manually so we got to see what it looks like, what it contains, and it's like getting in and out. Al I can say is I hope we never ever again need to see it inflated!
Thursday we received an external wireless antenna. I replaced the regulator, and it ran just fine for about 10 minutes, at which point it stopped commanding the alternator to charge the batteries. I called the manufacturer and they're going to replace it, but we still have the underlying problem, which is almost certainly a bad alternator. And that's a mere $1250 item. Sigh.
Friday we moved to Conincut Marina in Jamestown for a pretty serious reduction in mooring price. We need to start anchoring, but I don't trust the anchor that came with the boat. It's a 45lb CQR; we're waiting for the next production run of a Rocna anchor that weighs 66lbs. Think I'll feel more secure with it.
But the big news Friday was the receipt of an external wifi antenna made for marine use. Hooked it up and it worked flawlessly out of the box. We now have the setup I wanted from day one: an external marine-grade wifi antenna connected to a Mac Mini server. The Mac Mini has all of our music and charts and other shared data, with a beautiful 20-inch LCD Cinema Display. It also has built-in wireless which serves up internet access to our 2 laptops. Other than a somewhat outrageous electrical current draw, it's a sweet setup. But then Friday evening the wireless in my laptop died.
Saturday we bought a new wireless card for my laptop, so that's back in business. We then played tourist in Fall River, Mass, visiting the battleship Massachusetts which is permanently moored there, as well as some other old naval ships. Torn between admiration for the incredible engineering that went into all those tons of steel and sadness for the world that caused us to expend such resources building those engines of war.
Today, Sunday, we're expecting gale-force winds in the harbor. The wind's already started to build and the boat's rocking and rolling. Looks to be a fairly uncomfortable day. We might head in later and avoid the worst. Tomorrow we're heading to Portsmouth, about 6 miles up the bay, to start work on the new aft arch.T
Tuesday, September 19 2006
Sitting here at one of perhaps the most expensive boat yards in the country, Newport Shipyards at Newport, Rhode Island. We really need to figure what's wrong with our batteries and main engine battery charger. So far it looks as if we have one bad battery (at $718 per!) and one bad regulator (after having the previous owner replace the regulator just over a month ago!). Ah, the joys of cruising.Did the big Newport boat show over the weekend, including a dinner thrown by the Hylas folks. We had a very nice time, and dropped some more serious bucks at the show. We're getting our life raft serviced, we're getting a water make installed, and we're getting our stainless steel stern arch installled here. We're hoping to be out of here by the end of next week, but who knows? These things always take way longer than expected.
Anybody heard of a "boat buck"? Apparently most repairs and maintenance and spare parts are denominated in "boat bucks", i.e., $1000. We're trying to get used to the saying, "oh, it's just a couple of boat bucks!".
By the time we leave Newport we should have just about everything we need, at least to a first order approximation. Maybe then we can concentrate on more of the fun stuff.
Saturday, September 16 2006
Aground! Plenty of time to write as we're sitting here with our keel buried a foot or so into the sand and mud of Pocasset Harbor. Low tide is in about an hour, though it shouldn't drop us more than a few inches more than we already are. And the rising tide should float us off around 2-3PM this afternoon. We hope.But I'm getting ahead of myself. We spent most of the week in Machester-by-the-Sea at Crocker's Boatyard. They installed our SSB antenna on the backstay, added a roller-furler for the staysail, and added a downwind pole. If you're masochistic enough, click here to see what all that means.
Speaking of boat projects, there's more stuff broken or in need of attention. See here for the latest list and an update on the water tank (short version: it appears to be sound and we're just using way more water than we'd thought we'd be)
The yard finished the work on Thursday, and the weather forecast was favorable for us to move the boat from Manchester to Newport, Rhode Island, for the big Newport boat show. We still have the SUV, so we parked it at Hawthorne Cove Marina and caught the commuter train back to Manchester. We'll retrieve it sometime next week.
Yesterday morning we were up bright and early and at the fuel dock by 7AM. Filled our tanks and were on our way by 7:30AM. Once we cleared the islands and rocks and had a clear route to the Cape Cod canal we let out the mainsail and the jib, and we were sailing! He had a few pleasant hours as the seas were down and the wind just forward of the beam and we made excellent time. But then it started drizzling and raining intermittently for the rest of the afternoon, and for our passage through the Cape Code canal. Pretty amazing sea-level canal the Army Corps of Engineers dug through there!
Once out of the canal and into Buzzard's Bay we needed a place to stop for the night. So we picked the first marina we passed out of the canal. It was kind of tricky getting in, as the water depth was only 9 feet in places (and out boat needs almost 7 feet before the keel touches the bottom). But we negotiated the channel successfully and tied up at a mooring buoy.
First thing this morning we charged the batteries and were on our way. For about 5 minutes. The channel wasn't obvious and the depth less than last night due to a lower tide. And then we touched bottom. Managed to get past that, but just a minute or two later and we were hard aground. Tried backing and then going forward and that didn't work. Our dinghy is deflated and on-deck, so we couldn't try taking an anchor out to the side, connecting it to a halyard, and getting the boat tilted so the keel would come out of the bottom.
We had to wait until close to 8AM when the folks at the marina were stirring. They came out and tried to get us off, but finally gave up and advised that we wait for the tide to float us off. Well, we aren't going anywhere, so that's what we're doing. It'd be nice not to have to wait, but sometimes that's all you can do.
Update: Sunday September 17: around noon I tried backing us off the sand bar again and only succeeded in spinning the boat about on its axis (propellers running in reverse tend to move the rear end of the boat, a phenomenon known as "prop walk"). After eating some lunch, the depth had come up to just inches less than necessary, so we tried again, this time in forward since by now we were pointing to deep water, and we managed to get her free. We breathed the proverbial sigh of relief after negotiating the tight and twisty channel out into open water. After that it was a fairly uneventful motorsail to Newport, RI, except for a very brief instant of sheer terror that I won't describe here due to the extreme stupidity involved.
Nearing Newport we started calling to find a mooring for the night. Maryann and I haven't yet practiced our anchoring and I'd really like to have a couple of practice tries before we do it for real. After calling every single company that manages moorings in Newport Harbor we got a "maybe" from the Ida Lewis Yacht Club. Luckily they called us about an hour later and we tied up the to mooring last night around 6:45PM.
We both managed to shower on the way in to the harbor, and were dressed and ready to go to dinner moments after we grabbed the mooring. We caught a launch to the dock and a taxi into town, and made it to the Hylas Owner's dinner only a few minutes late. We got to meet some other Hylas owners and chat a bit with Dick and Kyle Jachney, the father-son team that runs Hylas yachts here in the U.S. (I haven't put anything into the boat section yet so you might now know that Hylas yachts are built in Taiwan by the Queen Long Shipbuilding Company and are imported by Hylas USA). It was a nice dinner, though it certainly seems these boatowners drink an awful lot.
Today, Sunday, we toured the boat show, acquiring the things that we knew would have boat show discounts. Our plans for this week are to get our new radar arch installed, a water maker installed, and to get some of the busted stuff fixed.
Monday, September 11 2006
Yesterday we moved the boat from Salem Harbor to Machester-by-the-Sea. This is an extremely pretty little New England town, right on the water (obviously). It's got a classic white-spired church, city hall, town green, and a lovely library where I'm enjoying free internet wireless access. The library also has a good book collection, CD's and DVD's. And a very enjoyable reading room. The town has a couple of boatyards (we're at Crocker's Boatyard, next to Manchester Marine), a well-stocked grocery, a very well-stocked hardware store, and a handful of other stores.The boatyard started on our rigging work this morning. We had an interesting experience this morning at low tide. The inner harbor is so silty here, there's less than 7 feet depth where we're moored at low tide. So this morning around 7AM we actually were sitting in the mud and it lasted until close to 9AM. Pretty odd to be sitting with the keel in the mud. But with the rising tide, we floated again.
And we're starting to learn why they say cruising is the art of fixing things in exotic locales. We're not yet in exotic locales, but things are starting to break. A couple of days ago we noticed the big alternator on the main engine was no longer charging our batteries when the engine was running. We don't know if it's the regulator or the alternator itself, or even perhaps a bad connection. Will have to troubleshoot it later today. And then yesterday we found ourselves with no fresh water. It was odd in that we didn't think we should be running out quite so soon. At any rate, we took on a full tank of water (130 gallons or so), but by this morning we had gone through nearly 50 gallons of it! We've got a leak somewhere and we sincerely hope it's not in the stainless steel water tank itself. And then there's foot-operated pump for fresh water at the galley sink which is leaking every time the fresh water pump charges the air pressure (which is what pushes the water through the water lines). So every time the fresh water pump cycles, we get s splash of water in the galley sink. Either the fresh water pump is set too high or the foot pump is leaky. There's other stuff that needs attention as well, but you get the idea.
We need to leave this comfy library and grab a bite to eat. Then it's off to ship a package and see if we've got mail waiting for us at the Hawthorne Cove Marina in Salem.
Saturday, September 9 2006
Wow, time really flies when you're having fun. :-) I kept thinking we'd just updated a day or two ago and here it is next Saturday already. Sitting in our neighborhood internet cafe here in the middle of historic Salem. We haven't really had much of a chance to play tourist, other than 2 weeks ago when Julia and Morgan visited us. Salem was founded in 1626, just 6 years after the Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock. For a while it was capital of Massachusetts, and in the late 1700's and early 1800's was a phenomenally successful trading port. But its heyday faded and now it's just a quiet little tourist town, with way too much kitsch aimed at the Salem witch trials. Lots of new-age paraphernalia stores, witch and pirate "museums", etc.We spent the last week running to & fro, acquiring more and more stuff. Our days are pretty similar. We're generally up early and eat breakfast on the boat. Around 9 we head in to the marina dock for their showers. It's a lot more comfortable taking showers on shore than in the very small shower stalls on the boat. Then it's off to the internet cafe for 2-3 hours of research/email/buying on the internet. Then we'll typically head out to make runs to the local mall(s), West Marine, Home Depot, Costco, and any number of other fine establishments. Back to the boat by 5PM or so, cook dinner, do more research or watch a movie, and in bed by 10PM. Repeat.
Yesterday we did go for a brief sail. Finally. Just went out for an hour or so, as we had a bunch of errands to do ashore, but we were actually sailing. Not a whole lot of wind, so it was pretty uneventful, but it was nice to actually see the boat moving under sail.
This past week we finally managed to get a photo id for Maryann, to replace her California driver's license lost when her backpack was stolen from the car. Our personal banker at First Republic Bank (and we can't sing their praises too loudly!) got us a copy of our bank statements with our Salem mailing address at the marina. Once we had that all we needed were 3 other items of ID and Massachusetts gave her a photo ID card. And with that she could apply for a replacement passport. What a hassle that's been!
On the down side, it appears that the engine-mounted alternator which is used to recharge our batteries has given up the ghost. Either that, or the regulator that controls how the batteries are being charged. Given the regulator was just replaced right before we took possession, I'm inclined to believe there might be something wrong with the alternator itself. We shouldn't be blowing up regulators. We have the option of charging the batteries either by running the main engine or by running the generator, so losing the main engine alternator shouldn't be a big issue. But the generator needs its oil changed badly, and that means figuring it all out. Not a big deal, and it needs to be done on a regular basis, but it'll probably take 2-3 hours to do it. Most boat projects, even the very simple ones, seem to take much longer than the equivalent task ashore.
Besides fixing the alternator problem, and changing the oil in the generator, today's big task is cleaning. The boat gets dirty, inside and out, and needs to be cleaned. We haven't made it a priority yet, and it really should be done at least once a week, so we're something like 3 weeks behind.
Tomorrow we head over to Crocker's Boatyard in Manchester so they can start the rigging work on Monday. We're can't go in and out of the channel to Manchester within an hour or two of low tide, as there's not enough water for our draft, so we're limited as to when we can enter and leave. Once we complete the work we'll head for Newport for the big boat show that starts on the 14th. We might have to end up driving if the rigging work isn't done by this coming Friday, as there's a Hylas owner's rendezvous dinner a week from today. Oh well, we'll adjust as necessary. That's what cruising is all about, anyway.
P.S. Maryann has the front page of the new web site designed and tells me she should shortly (I hope) have the rest of it ready to go. Should be a massive improvement for this poor site!
Saturday, September 2 2006
Tonight we have some time. Anybody heard of Hurricane Ernesto? It's kind of dropped off the radar of the national news, but we're getting the remnants through New England today. No rain yet, but last night the winds started kicking up the chop in Salem harbor, blowing 15-20 knots and building. Things were rocking and rolling all night as Salem harbor faces the east, and the winds were coming directly from the east. This morning we had an appointment to pick up our new dinghy outboard engine in New Hampshire (no sales tax in New Hampshire, plus we got a particularly good deal on it), so we called the marina launch to come get us around 8AM. Didn't want to take the dinghy in the half mile or so to the dock, as the chop was getting nasty. The launch picked us up, but said they were suspending operation for the rest of the day due to expected deteriorating conditions. So we both took a big gulp of air, and left our new boat on her mooring in the middle of Salem harbor with the winds howling and the waves building. It shouldn't be too bad, as she's securely moored, but this is the longest we've been off her in the 2 weeks we've owned her.Yesterday's big news was the name change on the boat's transom. She is now "Aurora", as she'll appear on the official coast guard documentation. Oh, and her hail port (the place name usually put right below the name of the boat on the transom) is "Palo Alto, CA". It can be pretty much anywhere in the U.S., so why not our most recent residence?
This past week as seen us order about 90% of the things that are on our list of things we think we're going to need. We based the list on discussions with other cruisers, and a couple of cruiser's encyclopaedias, as well as a 2-day seminar we took with John Neal and Amanda Swan Neal. The folks at United Mileage Plus Visa were so concerned that I got a call from their fraud department. But we assured them the charges were ours and they're continuing to allow us to charge.
One of the big ticket items we needed was a new dinghy and outboard engine to drive it. There's a particular brand of inflatable RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat - a boat with inflatable tubes, but a rigid bottom which improves its performance considerably over a pure inflatable) that we want to buy, a Genesis 320FTHL from Walker Bay. But they're back-ordered through some time in October or maybe November and we need a dinghy now. We've been borrowing the previous owner's dinghy (thanks, Preston!), but we need our own. So I've been scouring craigslist.com for a local (Boston area) sale of a dinghy that we can purchase for not a whole lot of money, use for a couple of months, and then sell once we have our cool new Walker Bay Genesis. Finally found one this past week, and yesterday I drove to Duxbury (about 40 minutes south of Boston) to pick it up. It's about 17 years old, a very ugly blue with a yellow stripe, but it was cheap and should serve us well until we can get what we want.
We accepted a bid yesterday for the rigging work we need done. It's going to be done in Manchester, MA, about 5 miles up the coast from Salem harbor. It's a really tight anchorage, and the channel is so shallow we won't be able to get in and out an hour or two before and after low tide. Parts need to be ordered so they can be fabricated. We're hoping they'll all come together and be available in a timely manner.
And finally, a word on the New Hampshire state fair. Since we couldn't get back to our boat today (the forecast is for lessened wind tomorrow), we decided we'd take a tour of New Hampshire after buying our new dinghy engine. And when we stopped at the official New Hampshire tourist office after passing the state line from Massachusetts we find that the state fair is in Hopkinton this weekend, only about an hour away from where we are to pick up the dinghy.
So it's off to the state fair. It's supposed to be somewhere off a country road in rural New Hampshire (well, actually in the town of Conhooken, or is it Hopkinton?). We drive up and there's sure a lot of cars around. Pay our $3 and park in the girl scout parking lot and head across the street where most folks seem to be headed. What a line to get in! We wait for maybe 20 minutes, pay our $9 each, and enter. It's actually pretty cool to see an old-fashioned state fair. The animals were well-groomed, the food booths numerous, the carnival rides as expected. But the people were truly amazing. Maryann suspects in-breeding. Not everybody of course, but enough to really make you wonder about our rural cousins. And what's with all the middle-aged folks riding these 3-wheel motorized chairs? I can see the old geezers that can barely get along riding them, but damn, there were people younger than us in them. Oh well, another mystery of life to ponder here in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. Good-night from the Ashworth By the Sea...
Thursday, August 31 2006
Time really flies when you're busy! We've been super busy again this past week, but we're getting more comfortable living aboard the boat. Mostly we've been trying to deal with Maryann's loss of all her ID. We are waiting for our bank to send us a statement here in Salem, so that we can prove our Massachusetts residency to the local Registry of Motor Vehicles which will enable her to get a Massachusetts picture ID which in turn will allow her to get her passport replaced. By the way, kudos to First Republic Bank and their personal banking assistants - all of the advertising is true; they really are quite wonderful.We've been on a mad orgy of accumulation of things we think we need for extended cruising. I'm concerned our United Mileage Plus Visa card is going to melt from overuse. So far this week we've ordered 2 new sails, put out a request for quote on some rigging work to support the new sails, placed a huge order with West Marine (the local store here in Danvers has been really great - 10% new boat owner's discount, and a willingness to meet any advertised price!), and ordered from about a dozen internet retailers. Hopefully everything we've ordered will arrive quickly and the rigging work will be done quickly so we can be on our way to Newport around September 12.
Yesterday we took the boat out so we could get an estimate on the rigging work from a boatyard in Manchester. Manchester is only a little over 5 miles away across Salem Harbor and up the Cape Ann penninsula towards Gloucester. Not only close, but we motored all the way, both ways. What can I say? We were in a hurry and didn't want to mess with sails when we were under a deadline. Still it was nice to get out and the weather turned nice again yesterday after several days of what felt like a rainy California February.
Last night we broiled a couple of nice steaks in our oven and ate them with a salad and some fresh green beans and drank a very nice California cab, sitting at our saloon table (boat saloons aren't the same as the wild west kind and some people spell it salon which is how it's pronounced). Anyway, it was very nice indeed, and hopefully we'll have some more time like that and less frantic rushing about in the next few weeks.
Thursday, August 24 2006
Updates have been slow and far between because we're finding there's just so much to be done. If we were only moving from California to Massachusetts, and setting up housekeeping on a boat, we'd be pretty busy, but having to replace Maryann's identity, credit cards, computer, glasses, etc. makes for too much to do with not enough time to do it!We finally got everything we brought with us from California unpacked and put away on the boat (or tossed - we did indeed bring way too much stuff!). And then this afternoon our shipment of 17 boxes arrived. Well, that's for tomorrow.
Today we're trying to put the final touches on the things we need for cruising. The list is long and is going to probably net out around 20% of the price of the boat, just as expected. We are going to have one massive order from WestMarine! Luckily we get a 10% discount on most items for being new boat owners.
And finally, we're having our first guests tonight. Maryann's daughter Julia and her finance Morgan are driving out from Ithaca, NY tonight, arriving late here at the marina. We've borrowed the previous owner's dinghy until we can get our own (it wasn't part of the boat deal), so we can pick Julia and Morgan up from the dock when they arrive this evening.
Sunday, August 20 2006
We took delivery on Windbeam, soon to be Aurora today! Hopefully more details as we have time to write them.Saturday, August 19
Welcome to Massachusetts! We arrived in Salem this evening, and checked into a motel. Went to a very nice dinner at Legal Seafoods in the Northshore Mall in Peabody, MA. After dinner we found someone had broken the passenger-side window in the SUV, stealing Maryann's backpack with her computer, driver's license, credit cards, ATM card, glasses, cash, cell phone, etc. We've got all the accounts canceled and passwords changed (as we remember them), but what a pain!
Monday, August 14 2006
I'm writing this on Monday, around 3PM local time, on Interstate 90 just over the state line from Wyoming. We managed to get out of the house this past Saturday, though not without some strain. I'd hoped to get underway sometime on Friday, but it didn't happen. First we had to deal with cats. Then we had to deal with stuff that we wanted to keep or that we couldn't or didn't sell. And on Saturday, around 11AM, we finally were on the road.Saturday we drove from Palo Alto to Elko, Nevada. Sunday, we drove from Elko to Cody, Wyoming, stopping for an incredibly brief time in Yellowstone National Park along the way. This morning (Monday) we left Cody and drove over the Bighorn Mountains on into South Dakota, where we are now.
Update: we arrived in Ithaca, NY on Wednesday evening, after a mad dash across South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and a good chunk of New York state. Maryann's daughter Julia and her fiance Morgan are here, Morgan just starting his second year of a PhD program in Materials Science at Cornell. Not much to report on the trip east. We had no time to stop, other than for a few minutes to see Devil's Tower in Wyoming (for all you Close Encounters of the Third Kind fans), and a few more minutes at Wall Drug in Wall, SD.
Yesterday we visited the Corning Glass Museum in Corning, NY and we hiked along the Watkins Glen State Park. Both are highly recommended, the glass museum in particular is spectacular.
