Sailing Encore

We moved the boat to Port Washington anchorage to position for a break in the weather and stage to move south.

Some weather moved through from the last bands of hurricane activity in the Atlantic. The inner Long Island sound wasn’t too bad. It was the Eastern coast from NY down that continued to have 6-10 swells that we would have had to sail right into. So for 5 days we played around Port Washington. On the first trip in the dinghy to the dock as I was climbing out, I lost my iphone into the water. It is a fairly new phone with reportedly 5 minutes of wet time survival so I dove in. It was about 10 feet there with a foot of brown mucky silt on the bottom. I dove about 15 times searching blind in the muck. What a sight I must have been in my skirt and blouse. Vernon did not take a picture with his phone but sat with a bemused look on his face as his phone is secured to his waistband and I can’t count the times he said I should do something similar. But “I told you so” did not cross his lips. So after a shower to get the muck off, we walked to the nearest Verizon and I got a new phone. And immediately created a hook system.

We took the Long Island railroad back into NY city to visit Greenwich village and came upon this. Anyone guess whose apartment this is?

We walked thru Washington Square park and around the Hudson river area and enjoyed the quieter parts of the city.

Amazing how many people live here in the brownstones and high rises. When I think of living in NY the rows of brownstones come to mind. But honestly, you would have to pay me a lot to live here.

Then the weather changed and it was time to go. A high pressure system had moved in and the coastal waves subsided. So we retraced our trip through NY city Past the Bronx, along the East River, past Manhattan, the United Nations, the Empire State building, the business district and new World Trade Center building. And out into the bay to the Lady of the Harbor. From there we crossed to the New Jersey shore and Sandy Hook to anchor for the night. The anchorage was shallow, and during the night as wave sets came in, we would bump off the sandy bottom. Thud dunk, thud dunk, thud dunk. Since you can’t sleep through that, we went up top and Vernon pulled in about 10 feet of anchor line so we were in 2 feet deeper water and the rest of the night was cozy in bed.

We wanted to take advantage of the high pressure weather while we could, so the next morning we upped anchor early and set sail down to Atlantic City. We passed a breaching humpback whale and a couple pods of dolphin.

Staying with the good weather, we continued south the next day and had a beautiful sail down the coast. I took this footage with my GoPro on a headband.

We anchored in Henlopen Bay at the opening of the Delaware Bay.  This anchorage has one small area deep enough for our boat and luckily no one else was in it.

We awoke before sunrise to head up the Delaware Bay. We put up the sails and left the anchorage when an alarm sounded. The fan belt on the engine broke. Vernon spent the next 40 minutes putting a new belt on as I held course and watched the sun climb off the horizon.

The sail up the bay was nice. We caught glimpses of mossy turtles surfacing for air. And would pass the channel marker buoys with abandoned Osprey nests. All flown off to South America for the winter. At the top of the bay we turned left to travel back through the C & D canal to the Chesapeake. Such beautiful coastline as we head south down this huge bay. Vernon found us a charming anchorage and we dodged fish traps to get to a quiet spot, reminiscent of Maine sailing trip 4 years back.

The next morning we navigate south down the Chesapeake to Baltimore. Back to the Anchorage Marina where we visited on our trip north.

For several months now we have been debating what our next part to this adventure would be. You know those long days we spend sailing or motoring along- well the discussion is solely around what to do next. Our desire had been to head south to the US Virgin islands where we have traveled many times and love the life style of good sailing, beautiful anchorages, wonderful snorkeling and warm weather.

But the areas we wanted to travel have been devastated by Irma and Maria.

We contacted people we know living there and they said do not come. Only if you are in the rebuilding industry are you wanted. The Coast Guard issued a travel advisory for cruisers to avoid the hurricane affected areas. And when we look at pictures, we know there is so much rebuilding to do before that area will welcome travelers to share their shores. We could go south of there, down the Caribbean island chain to Antigua, but that isn’t what we want. And as you know we have traveled those seas before. We could go south to Florida keys and up the eastern side of Florida or over to the Texas coast. But we have done all that when we lived in those places. So after hours and hours of discussion, we have decided to get the boat back to the West Coast and sail around there for a while. And the reason we have retraced our path south to Baltimore and on to Annapolis is to check into trucking the boat from this area back to Southern California.

We rent a car and drive down to Annapolis. We stop in at the boat yard where Encore could be lifted out and put on a truck. We join the crowds at “America’s Boat Show” there in Annapolis. Hundreds of brand new sailboats and lots of merchandise line the waterfront. All these people climbing on and off their dream boats, wishing they could quit their jobs and head south. Hmmm.

At the boat show we find the rigger who would be in charge of taking the mast out of the boat and more. Suddenly we are setting up a date for the haul out and it is this week! And in looking at the calendar Vernon realizes that it is the 40 year anniversary of when we first met in Long Beach. It was a blind date but hold the jokes please. 40 years folks! What an amazing journey we have shared.

So we start prepping the boat as the last of hurricane Nate passes the area with some rain and wind. And will move over to the boat yard tomorrow.

It’s time Friends

(that is the hint on the NYC apartment….)