Chesapeake Bay –September 17 to 27

We have slowed down the pace a bit since we arrived in Chesapeake Bay. It’s finally starting to feel like retirement! After spending a few days at Georgetown, and then Swan Creek, we stopped in Annapolis to do some pre Boat Show exploring and stock up on provisions.

The view off our transom in Spa Creek.

Tom had been concerned that since he installed the new motor, a Yanmar 3YM30, the old prop was not producing as much speed as it should. He found Claude at Bay Shore Marine who was very helpful and explained how to do a sea trial that would tell us whether or not we needed a new prop. It turns out that our prop is just fine. Thank you Claude!

Similar to the Clearwater on the Hudson, this restored skipjack, the Stanley Norman, promotes environmental protection issues on Chesapeake Bay.

The Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse.

After Annapolis we hooked up with the Seven Seas Cruising Association (of which we are members)at Rhode River for their annual “Gam” (definition from dictionary.com: A social visit or friendly interchange, especially between whalers or seafarers). When we arrived early Wednesday there were about 20 boats anchored near YMCA Camp Letts. By Thursday morning there were around 45 boats and by Thursday evening, more than 60. I stopped counting after that. The first event we attended was the Thursday afternoon ‘raft up’ which is normally an appetizer pot luck held on dinghies tied together. This time the dinghies were replaced by a small sandy island nearby.

Tom climbed the tallest tree on the island to take this picture.

My contribution to the pot luck was an attempt at re-creating the blue cheese dip that I had purchased at the market in in NYC.

NYC Blue Cheese Dip

Ingredients:

crumbled blue cheese

roasted red peppers from a jar

sun dried tomatoes

garlic

oregano

parsley

sliced black olives

olive oil

Mix the ingredients in whatever quantities suit your taste. I went heavy on the roasted peppers and garlic. The olive oil came from the jar of sun dried tomatoes and I used some liquid from the red pepper jar to get the consistency I liked. I served it with thin slices of rye bread.

The dingy parking lot.

Over the course of the weekend we attended presentations on troubleshooting diesel engines, how to avoid collisions at sea, SSB and HAM radio installations and weather forecasts. Lots of good stuff but I came away with information overload. There was also a presentation on cruising the Chilean Channels and Cape Horn by Beth Leonard who has done it three times. Not a challenge I’m ready for! After being surrounded by so many people who have travelled the world in their own boats I came away feeling rather inadequate and unprepared for our little adventure.

The Seven Seas Cruising Association can be found at www.ssca.org.

We purchased a Single Side Band radio system from one of the vendors and will be back in Annapolis installing it while we wait for the boat show.

Domestic Note: In order to get the sale prices at the larger grocery chains in the US you need to have a membership card. I have collected three so far. Some of the discounts are substantial.

Sandy Hook to Chesapeake Bay

Sandy Hook to Chesapeake Bay - September 8 – 16, 2009

Ryan caught an early subway and made his way to La Guardia for his flight back to Toronto and Tom made a trip to West Marine to do some returns while I took advantage of the free laundry facilities and went looking for an affordable haircut. On Broadway I found the Jean Louis David Salon that took walk-ins. Less than an hour later I walked-out with a wonderful cut for $26.00 plus tip. Even with the exchange I consider that a good deal. Not everything in Manhatten is expensive. In fact, we found most things to be reasonably priced. (Note to Sandra: I bought this Boggle game from Toys ‘R’ Us at Times Square.)



It was time to leave Manhatten behind us.


The weather was turning and we needed to be in a better position to wait for a weather window for going out into the Atlantic Ocean and head for Cape May about 125 miles down the coast. From there we would make our way up Delaware Bay, through the C&D canal and into Chesapeake Bay.
We left the 79th St. Boat Basin at high tide just as the US Navy frigate at anchor across the river sounded its noon bell. Heading out of the mouth of t
he Hudson we passed the stacked driving range on our port side, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.




The traffic in New York Harbor was not as crazy as we had anticipated consisting mainly of scheduled ferries and sightseeing tour boats. Most of the large ships were anchored and easy to get around.
Like many who have gone before us, Sandy Hook was our chose waiting spot for a weather window to make our overnight passage to Cape May. The forecast was calling for at least three days of high winds from the east and waves on the Atlantic coast in the range of 11 to 17 feet. Once the wind has calmed down we would still need to wait a day or two for the waves to subside.
We anchored in Horseshoe Cove on Sandy Hook the first night and took the dingy in to shore. We walked to the old military base of Fort Hancock where some of the old buildings are being renovated.

vSandy Hook has the oldest working lighthouse in the country.

The fishing boats here are using the latest technology in sailcloth.


The next four nights were spent on a mooring ball at Atlantic Highlands Yacht Club. A friendly club member invited us to their clubhouse for drinks with the commodore. The club has a launch that picks you up from your mooring and takes you to shore. From there you can explore the town of Atlantic Highlands (We made three trips to the grocery store and took in a movie), take the boardwalk to the next town (We did, then hopped a bus to get back) or take a ferry back to Manhatten (We didn’t). The wind increased each day and on day three reached storm force speeds of 48 to 55 knots with our wind indicator showing a gust of 63 knots. There was also a tornado watch that did not materialize. This was definitely a Dubarry Day for anyone who ventured out of the cockpit.Tom spent most of the day monitoring our mooring lines and those of the nearby boats in case anyone broke free. Everyone stayed in their places.



Sunday morning all was calm and we left with a parade of sail and power boats that had been waiting for the ocean to settle down. Waves were reported at 3 to 5 feet. We were good to go
As we rounded the northern tip of Sandy Hook we met several large ships going in to New York Harbor. They sure are big, bigger than what we are used to seeing on Lake Ontario.
We tried to motor sail as we made our way down the New Jersey coast but there was not enough wind to keep the sails full. Early in the afternoon we sighted a small flock of pelicans flying in a V-formation. I thought only Canada Geese did that! We were even more surprised to come across a pod of about 20 dolphins in the early afternoon. I think it is unusual for them to be that far north.

If you zoom in you might be able to see one or two.
Just as it was getting dark we could see the lights of Atlantic City on the horizon. The closer we got the bigger and brighter the lights got. It really is quite a spectacle. I can’t imagine how many megawatts of electricity that takes!
According to the forecast the winds were to be favorable to continue past Cape May and go up the Delaware with the tide. Wrong! As we rounded Cape May at 2:15 AM it was very dark and the wind shifted. It was on our nose all the way up Delaware Bay with very uncomfortable choppy waves from the wind against the current. No one got much sleep that night with the boat pounding into the waves and dodging freighters in the shipping channel. Just about the time we were ready to give up and look for a place to stop for a rest the sky started turning pink and we could see that the waves were not as big as they had seemed in the dark. At that point it made more sense to just keep going. Ship traffic got very busy in both directions but at least now we could see them coming. We could also see all the crab pots right up to the edge of the marked channel that we hadn’t seen in the dark.



After 36 hours on the water we had entered the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and stopped at the first marina we came to. It was time to catch up on our sleep, do laundry, give the boat a good cleaning and watch the turtles before we continued through the C&D Canal and into The Chesapeake.



Can you find polar Pacer in this picture?


Our first stop in the Chesapeake was Georgetown, Maryland at the head of the Sassafras River. Skipjack Cove Marina was gracious enough to provide showers and garbage drop off as well as the Signals restaurant that served the best crab cakes we’ve ever had. We ordered seconds and late lunch became early dinner.


Domestic Note:
Have I mentioned my favorite pot scrubbers? I have used them for years on everything from French white casserole dishes to barbeque grills. Every galley should have them. The only place I know of to buy them is the kitchen gadget place in Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market.

New York, New York - September 3 to 7, 2009

New York, New York – September 3 to 7, 2009

New York City is BIG and BUSY!! We love it.

The 79^th St. Boat Basin, where Polar Pacer has been docked for the last 6 days, is reasonably peaceful in the midst of it all. The wakes from passing ships, barges, tug boats, ferries, cruise boats and pleasure boats make it a bit rough during the day but when the river traffic stops for the night it is quite pleasant. The original plan was to take a mooring ball but they do not allow catamarans on them so we are at the dock. At $2.75 per foot it’s a little expensive. Showers, ice, laundry, water and pump out are included. Electricity is extra but our three 130 watt solar panels are meeting our daily power needs even on the days that are partly cloudy.

79th St Boat Basin

Ryan joined us on Friday and we have been exploring New York City together. It is easy and inexpensive to use the subway system ($27.00 for 7 days of unlimited use) so we have been able to cover a lot of ground in a short time and had some unexpected entertainment too.

Subway Entertainment

We have been to Central Park three times (Where we rode in the same pedi-cab that Brittney Spears and her children used four days earlier. Our guide had pictures on his iPhone to prove it.), Times Square, Grand Central Station, the top of the Rockafeller Center,

Central Park from the top of the Rockefeller Center

the Waldorf Astoria, MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), did lunch with the NYPD at the 25^th annual Brazil day,

pulled a boat out of the mud during low tide at the Boat Basin and walked a million miles just being tourists and admiring the architecture.

The Clearwater joined us at the docks for most of the weekend. We learned that Pete Seeger, who celebrated his 90^th birthday this year, built this replica of a Hudson River Sloop forty years ago out of concern for the environment and the then toxic state of the Hudson River. The non-profit organization that he developed around the Clearwater has played a major role in cleaning up the Hudson. For more information you can go to www.clearwater.org.

The Clearwater

We will be sorry to leave New York but must move on. We will head for Sandy Hook tomorrow and will be watching for the weather window to go farther south.

Catskill to New York City – August 31 to September 2, 2009

The Hudson River Valley is every bit as scenic as the guide books tell you. The river is wide with high banks that are mostly tree covered. The amount of residential and industrial development increased as we approached New York City with a range of old to new, cottages to mansions, small commercial marinas to nuclear power stations. There is a lot of history in the valley.

The crew at Hop-O-Nose Marina (I wonder where that name came from?) were very efficient and within an hour the mast was back up on Polar Pacer. We were put ahead of the other boat as it had a lot of prep work to do before the mast would be ready. Our rigging was done and the oil changed and they were still not ready to go. We left Catskill Creek around noon in order to time our passage down the next section of the Hudson with the outgoing tide.

Hop-O-Nose Marina from the water. Note the creative use of shrink wrap.

Grounded!

The channel is well marked making navigation of the Hudson River relatively easy so we were a little surprised to see a 40ft. Beneteau aground in an area where the chart showed the water depth at 1-3 feet! They had tried to go on the wrong side of the Esopus Light. What were they thinking? With only 30hp we would not have been able to pull them out so did not stop to assist.

Esopus Light

After four hours on the water we decided to call it a day and stopped at the Poughkeepsie Yacht Club. Docking in the strong current and into the wind was not an easy task even with the steerable drive leg. PYC is a self help club much like LSYC but in a more rural setting. They are not actually located in Poughkeepsie as the name would suggest but are at Hyde Park which is a few miles north. We were advised by one of the members that they were forced to relocate from Poughkeepsie some 40 years ago when the city decided to embark on an urban renewal project on their waterfront.

We have not been able to identify the impressive building in the background that is across the river from the yacht club.

We found these interesting looking seed pods on the docks at PYC. We think they might be from the water chestnut plants along the marshy banks.

There was still relatively little traffic on the river. We saw a few power boats looking like they needed to be somewhere else fast, a couple of sailboats tacking back and forth across the river but not really going anywhere and some humongous barges being pushed by little tugboats. We passed Pete Seeger’s sailboat the Clearwater at a dock near Piermont.

West Point was quite awesome. As we passed they were practicing parachute jumps. The helicopter took off from a dock just in front of us with a load of jumpers.

The marina at West Point

Bannerman's Island

We anchored one night on the river in a protected bay on the south side of Croton Point. There was a light north wind predicted overnight and this was a good place to be. From the anchorage we had a good view of the Amtrak trains on the shoreline running every 15 minutes in each direction, the Tappan Zee Bridge and Sing Sing Prison. The Tappan Zee Bridge was an important landmark for us. This is the point on the trip where our insurance company wanted more money. We called to let them know our location just before we passed underneath it. The bill will be in the mail.

Sing Sing

Tappan Zee Bridge

Jim, this one is for you - a solution when you are short on space.

The Pallisades cliff formation made an impressive gateway to the metropolis just before we reached Yonkers.

Yonkers