After a couple of days in Huntington, visiting Vida and doing a bunch of laundry at her place, running a bunch of errands with her car and enjoying some nice meals with her family and friends on Saturday morning we set off again. We left Huntington and headed for New York City. Again Dave had timed the currents perfectly and we made really good time, getting through Hell's Gate (the narrows in the East River) doing 9 knots over the bottom. Our speed actually increased after that and we stormed past Manhattan with barely enough time to enjoy the view between steering in the big currents and avoiding all of the boat traffic - ferries, tugs, pleasure boats etc. I guess this is Saturday in New York City! We had decided to do a night passage along the New Jersey coast as the winds looked like they would be light and the forecast for the next day was for heavier south which would be right in our face.
Conditions were pretty benign, but as always on the boat that doesn't mean things can't go wrong. Earlier in the day Dave had solved a couple of mysteries when he found some pork chops in his computer back pack. That explained a) why the forward cabin had started smelling (I thought it was the dirty laundry but couldn't figure it out after I washed it all) and b) why we thought we had bought pork chops but couldn't find them in our freezer. We were airing the pack out in the cockpit and had opened the forward hatch to air out the cabin. Calm day, no problem. As we were motoring along beside the shipping channel getting ready to cross over towards Sandy Hook a large container ship went past us. The wake from the ship looked pretty big, so Dave turned the boat into the waves to take them more easily. The waves were HUGE and we took a couple over the bow and right into the forward cabin through the open hatch that both of us had forgotten about! There ensued much rushing around as I navigated across the shipping channel and around the shallows while Dave mopped up water in a bucket and brought the wet cushions up to dry as much as possible in the sun. One of them was so wet that we took the cover off and I washed it in fresh water and hung it on the rail. There is always an adventure to be had at sea!
We started down the Jersey coast and had our supper then put up the main with a single reef and the staysail before it got dark. We didn't think there would be enough wind to sail, but at least the sails would steady us in any seas and help give us a bit more speed. We took two hour watches and it was a LONG night. Most of the time it was so foggy we couldn't see the lights on shore three miles away. We didn't even see Atlantic City as we went past, and last time we could see it from about 20 miles off. I was very happy to have radar and AIS and I had a couple of conversations with a tug and barge going past us and a dredge we passed that was stationery, which made me feel more confident that I was reading the radar correctly. I was certainly delighted when Dave woke me at 6 a.m. and said he could see the stars! By 9 o'clock we were safely anchored in Cape May at the southern tip of New Jersey and after a breakfast of eggs and toast we caught up on some sleep.
We took the dinghy in and walked in to Cape May later on that day to stretch our legs and have a look around but we went to bed early as we still hadn't really caught up on our sleep and we were planning another big day on Monday. We had deliberated and discussed the forecast a bunch as it seemed like the winds were going to be strong, but since they were going to be behind us we thought it would be okay. The big thing was the next few days afterwards were forecasting winds with N in them which would not be good for going up the Delaware Bay. We decided we would plan to go but check the weather in the morning before heading off.
The morning forecast looked like slightly less wind so we left, heading through the Cape May canal (which we decided we wouldn't want to do at low tide since we saw 10 feet in a few places with 4 feet of tide, which would have left us uncomfortably close to the six feet we draw). In less than an hour we were in the Delaware Bay and screaming north with wind and current in our favour. We had a good sail with just the jib and made it to the top of the bay in 6 hours. For the last hour or so the VHF radio alarm was going off and weather alerts were being broadcast with severe thunderstorm and tornado watches where they advised us, if we saw a tornado, to "seek shelter in a sturdy building" which was somewhat problematic as we were in a 39 foot sailboat out on the water! We saw some ominous black clouds in the distance and the wind got stronger, but we furled the jib a bit and kept going until we got to the entrance to the C & D canal. This 15 mile canal connects the Delaware Bay to the Chesapeake Bay and runs east to west.
We had just furled the jib and started the engine and turned in towards the canal when the wind picked up a lot and the waves got really choppy. It was a scarey few minutes before we got in behind the protection of the canal wall and the waves calmed down. As we headed west it started to rain. Luckily the wind had died down and was mostly on our nose, so we were able to huddle behind the dodger and stay dry most of the time, popping our heads up to look every once in a while when the cascades of rain running down the dodger windows made it difficult to see. The preferred attire for this activity was boots, pants, t-shirt, fleece, raincoat and Tilley hat. Three hours later we were pretty much through the canal and the rain had stopped. We were bagged and headed into the Bohemia River to try to tuck in behind a point of land and get out of the waves a bit to anchor. We had averaged 7 knots over the ground doing 73 miles in just over 10 hours, so it was a good day, but tiring.
The next morning we woke up relieved that we didn't 'have' to rush off to another long day. We only planned to travel about 15 Nm, to Havre de Grace, on the NW corner of the Chesapeake Bay, where the Susquehanna River enters the bay. Friends Woody and Gina, who who met in the Bahamas on our last trip south in 2002/2003 live near here and we had plans to visit with them. When we turned on the instruments to get ready to leave, the depth sounder read 5.5 feet. Unfortunately Romana needs 6 feet of water to float, so we deduced that we were aground, but on soft bottom (since we weren't 'bumping'. We got the anchor up and ploughed through the mud for about a mile before we got to deeper water. We were very puzzled about what was going on since the charts showed 6 feet and according to the tide tables when we came in the day before we should have been at low tide and we had 7-8 feet all the way in. Later, when we got to Havre de Grace, we were talking with another boater in a marina who had been trying to get out on high tide at noon but it wasn't high enough so now he was waiting for midnight. He said that the north winds push the water down the bay and make the tides lower than they would normally be in the north, so perhaps that is what we saw. Bottom line is that we were lucky enough to get out of the Bohemia River and over to Havre de Grace.
We visited with Woody for a while yesterday and then went out for supper with Gina and today we went for a big walk around Havre de Grace, whose big claim to fame seems to be that they were defeated by the British in the war of 1812 and the town was burnt but they rebuilt. They also have a Decoy Museum, full of interesting information about waterfowl decoys and hunting and how the decoys were and are made, how they work and lots and lots of decoys. We thought it was really well done and very informative. The upstairs gallery is a great room full of decoys grouped by different decoy makers and stained glass windows with different kinds of ducks and geese, overlooking the water. It was well worth the price of admission.
Tonight we will have supper with Woody, where I hope to use his wifi to send this blog and upload some photos, and then tomorrow we will head to Annapolis, to the boat show. After that, we'll slow down and take it day by day for a few weeks.