GPS Antenna Installation
Now all the electronic instruments are working again. If the good weather forecast holds, we’ll be cruising again on Saturday.
My friend, Sonya Myers, taught me how to add a widget to my web site to allow you to “subscribe.” This means if you sign up with your email address, you will get the latest blog post via email. You won’t have to wonder when I will post a new blog, you’ll automatically receive it in your email. This is the closest I can come to making an email blast without incurring the wrath of the Yahoo Spam god who precluded me from sending it out to all my friends and family at once.
We got a good weekly rate for staying at Bay Point Marina, so we’re “off the water” for a week to catch up on laundry, clean the boat inside and out, re-provision, visit friends, experience cultural sites, eat the local delicacies, swim in a pool, walk on the beach, get an oil change, and clean out the holding tank and touch up the varnish. This list is not in chronological order, nor order of importance, but in some order that my brain imposed.
We had a wonderful weekend visiting our friends Brian and Ginger. Randy and Brian have been friends and finishing each other’s sentences since they were twelve. Randy’s and Brian’s brains each holds a “box of facts” that they use now to crack us up every five minutes, piling on one association after another. It reminds me of all the fun times I had in the creative world of advertising and marketing. Brian and Ginger live and work in Charlottesville and have a decompression beach condo at Virginia Beach. We had a mini-vacation with them this weekend and shored up our humour quotient by doing so. Ginger and I have met via Randy and Brian’s high school reunions and have “clicked together” based on shared values and outlook.
Ginger and I decided we were going to visit the Norfolk Botanical Garden and to our surprise and delight the guys wanted to go too. I recommend this garden highly to all who love beautiful places to stroll. The weather was perfect and the garden had much to display. We rode on a tram that gave us an overview of the 175 acres of garden, then with map in hand we concentrated our energies on a series of contiguous gardens: Japanese, perennial, hydrangea, azaleas, camellias, sculptures of birds, evergreens that took us back to the visitor’s center. Wow!
After a fabulous water-side lunch we headed back to the condo to gather beach gear. We set up a roomy beach cabana and chairs and had a delightful beach siesta, while preserving our skin from the bright sun. Saturday night we feasted at Aldo’s, a well-regarded local Italian ristorante, which offered marvelous ambiance, service, and dishes. I was in heaven, having lump crab meat for both lunch and dinner. Yum!
Brian and Ginger’s kitty who accompanied them to the condo is a sweetheart. Sabrina is a Bengal, a new breed that I don’t know how to spell or to describe properly, but she looks like the cross between a domesticated cat and a leopard, with fur so soft and beautifully marked with stripes and rosettes that she looks wild but acts very gentle. Her eyes and ears are proportionately huge in contrast to her diminutive head giving her a wondrous and ever fascinating look. Sabrina and I had some opportunity to play together in between our outings.
Sunday arrived with clouds and rain, so Ginger suggested we see the Chrysler Museum of Art. I enthusiastically agreed and the guys decided to go with us and give up watching the tennis and golf tournaments on TV. It was a wonderful collection taking us from medieval to contemporary art, beautifully described by plaques by each art work, making them a silent docent. Walter Chrysler, Jr. was the son of the founder of the Chrysler Corporation. Walter and his wife, a native of Norfolk, collected art and bequeathed their collection to this museum, which expanded to accommodate it. What a treasure it is to all who can visit!
Cape May Welcome monuments grace both sides of the bridge where the harbor narrows
Cape May Beach House
A New House in the Old Style
Still in Cape May you ask? Yes, challenging weather kept us here till Wednesday. We were all set to leave, but when I turned on the engine and the instruments, not one of the electronic instruments was functioning: no GPS to run the electronic chart, no depth, no wind direction/speed, no speed over ground, therefore no departure. The authorized Raymarine sales/service dealers were all too busy to see us until next week. Randy walked over to West Marine to buy a volt meter so we could diagnose the problem and a fellow there gave him a card for Scott, a marine electrician at Electronic Marine Concepts. Before we could do the diagnostic checks, Scott came over, diagnosed the problem as a GPS antenna that had shorted out and was depriving the other instruments of their required power. They ordered the antenna and Scott installed it today. Scott is a sailor and was familiar with Peter McNeely, our host, for whom he had installed electronics on McNeelys’ sail boat.
We are grateful that the antenna broke at the dock in a pretty, boat-friendly city and not out on the ocean. We are also grateful that Scott was familiar with Raymarine systems, was available so quickly and was so nice to work with. Unfortunately we lost over favorable weather window and will wait till Saturday to try again. Unfortunately, these delays ate up all our remaining buffer days before our return trip to Florida, so we chose to push out our return trip to July 4, eat the airline penalties, and rebook hotel and rental cars in Maine and Florida. You gotta be nimble.
New Jersey is truly the Garden State. A walk through the neighborhoods, old and new, was a delightful garden tour. Hydrangeas, day lilies, and roses mingle in borders with conifers. Cape May is famous for its Painted Ladies: Victorian B&B’s painted in splendid color combinations.
As a I made my way back from the beach and shopping district I discovered that newer neighborhoods also display beautiful, well maintained landscapes.
At a corner house, an attractive fence came all the way to the sidewalk. To my surprise a white standard poodle came up to the fence and put her front paws up to greet me and another family walking from the opposite direction stopped to pet her. Gracie is a also a Painted Lady: her toenails are painted pink to match her necklace!
Gracie of Cape May
Thanks to a map, I found a memorial park on the harbor dedicated to fishermen lost at sea. It is located in what appears to be a new neighborhood of houses made in the traditional style.
We completed a 28-hour ocean passage last night, arriving in Cape May at 1810 hours (6:10 PM) from Norfolk, VA. Woohoo and Whew! We decided not to go up the Chesapeake and down the Delaware because it was expected to be near 100 degrees F. with thunderstorms.
Thanks to our friends Peter and Val, we have a slip in front of their beautiful condo and are plugged in to AC power which means, closing up the ports, running the air conditioning and staying cool and dry in the thunder shower that came through as forecast last night. We sailed with Peter and Val on their boat up to Maine last summer and look forward to seeing them up there in August.
The neighbors on both sides were on their power yachts when we arrived. The welcome we got was not to help us with dock lines but to grill us about who we were and did we really know the owners of the slip. I guess we gave them the right answers because before long one guy was giving us restaurant recommendations, before he returned to his cell call. If we hadn’t lived in New York we would have been put off by this behavior, but we just rolled with it.
We celebrated our safe arrival by making guacamole and eating way too many tortilla chips, which turned out to be our supper and not just an appetizer.
People have asked us what we do while making an off-shore passage–without cell phone, TV and internet to amuse us. Options are largely limited by the weather and boat traffic.
If the seas and breezes are calm to light and there is no traffic, then we motor and run the auto-helm, “Oscar.” One of us is on watch and the other is free to do other things. Randy is usually on watch from 2200 to 0300 hours and I am on watch from 0300 to 0800 hours, giving each of us a chance to sleep.
Besides sleeping, other things include making and serving food and beverages; cleaning: dishes, the boat, ones self, clothes; dealing with invading insects (more time than you might imagine); reading, making photos: taking, uploading, reviewing, selecting, naming, cropping, and sizing for the blog; planning the upcoming legs of the journey: considering weather, ports, distances and speed of boat, tidal currents, moon, boat traffic, hazards, safe havens en route, depth of water, availability of aids to navigation, shoaling, amount of desire to see certain ports and more and building a route to transfer to the chart plotter, “Ray” when its not in use.
Being on watch includes keeping on course, watching for traffic (by sight and with RADAR), adjusting course as needed to avoid collisions with boats, land and other obstructions, monitoring systems and conditions (e.g., over heating, alternator and regulator, fuel, radio), log position periodically (in case Ray quits), trimming sails, recharging the frig, and more. At night I listen to an audio-book on iPod to help stay alert.
During the last overnight, off-shore passage, we were both up between 0230 and 0400 because there were several ships, that were crossing our path. The captain of one ship radio’ed us to ask us to move “several degrees to port” and we acknowledged and dropped 10 degrees to port to avoid a collision then altered course again to avoid a reef.
If the seas and breezes are “challenging” then we are both on duty and may be actively steering, reducing sail, changing course, and moving very cautiously, hanging on to avoid being slammed around. This is when I put on a anti-seasickness patch, foul weather gear, harness, and life jacket and go below as little as possible.
With the current weather forecast, we will be in Cape May until Monday evening, to avoid “challenging” conditions. Then we’ll head out on a two-night, off-shore passage up the coast of New Jersey, Long Island, NY and over to Rhode Island (Block Island and/or Newport). Below are photos of a few ships we have encountered along the journey.
The Navy SEALs have a huge base at Little Creek, the same inlet as the marina where we stayed. This photo was taken aboard Gryphon to show how close we were docked from this huge ship, which departed the same day as we did.
We plan to depart Thursday for Cape May, NJ. If the weather outlook is good we will head outside and sail up the coast of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware past Chincoteague, Ocean City and the mouth of the Delaware Bay. If it looks like there might be storms, we will either wait here for clear weather or else head up the Chesapeake Bay to some other anchorage or marina. Going the former route takes a day and a half of continuous sailing, the latter would take 5 or 6 days. I am hoping we can go outside.
The heat has followed us from down south. It is going to be over 90 here in Norfolk today and tomorrow. This weekend is supposed to be very warm and rainy, which is why we would like to get out on Thursday. We shall see how it goes.
Thursday we departed the dock at 6:20 AM heading north on the ICW. It started out cool and clear and stayed clear even though a hot breeze piped up.
At 7:05 PM we were docked in Bay Point Marina in Norfolk,VA off Little Creek, across from the Navy SEALs. This is a milestone in the journey because it is the beginning/end of the ICW. We celebrated with a meal prepared aboard, with the luxuries of air conditioning to cool the boat after heating up the stove, and calmness so the stove wasn’t gimbling back and forth to keep it horizontal.
Going north we still have choices to make about going “inside” or “outside” on the Atlantic Ocean. It will depend on the weather, timing, and desire to take six days to get somewhere versus an overnighter.
We’ve been mostly motoring the ICW through North Carolina this week, so I haven’t stepped off the boat since Sunday and most of the time we’ve had no cell or internet service. The water looks like tea from all the tannins and white boats get stained. The scenery is varied. Some of the rivers and sounds are so wide the land disappears and through creeks and canals it’s so narrow just a few feet out of the channel risks ripping the hull on a tree stump or getting hopelessly embedded in the mud. Fortunately we have avoided such outcomes to date. Tonight we are staying at the infamous Conjock Marina, unofficial gateway between Virginia and the wilds of the Carolinas, whose restaurant is best known for its hushpuppies.
Window Box
Charleston is a fun city to visit: historic events took place in buildings that still exist; art galleries, shops, and antique stores; restaurants with inventive menus; historic architecture with beautiful gardens and window boxes; ocean breezes, a lively maritime scene, friendly sales and service people; a nice in-town grocery store; vistas of the Ashley and Cooper rivers; and so compact that it is a great place to walk.
Thomas Bee House
Rainbow Colors
0 Tradd Street
We stayed an extra day so that we could see Margie and Jeff Graham. Margie is Don’s daughter, so she is our niece by marriage. Margie and Jeff are retired and living on their sail boat. We all docked at the City Marina, caught the marina’s shuttle service to the market place and spent a pleasant afternoon ducking into interesting galleries to enjoy the air conditioning and shop a bit. We had drinks and cheese platter aboard their boat, Far Niente then had a deliciously rich dinner at a tiny French Bistro called La Fourchette. Margie and Jeff are enthusiastic “foodies” who love adventurous cooking and eating and it was great fun to seem them.
On Friday Margie and Jeff decided to stay “inside” on the ICW and we decided to sail “outside” on the ocean to land in Wrightville Beach, NC for Memorial Day weekend. The wind was 15 -20 knots with higher gusts. The waves were 3 – 5 feet on and “abaft” of the beam so it was a challenging ride without much sleep. We talked to Margie when we came back inside and they had calmer waters, but the Memorial Day weekend revelers were out in force causing much mayhem. All of the mayhem we faced was nature’s doing. There were no other boats on the ocean during our passage to the inlet at the Cape Fear River. In fact, we have seen very few boats traveling north, or south for that matter, this year. Far fewer than in past years. We wonder if we are early, late, or if the economy has forced many folks to “dock” their boats. We do see a lot of fisherman in boats of all sizes both inside on the waterways and out on the open sea, especially around the many inlets up and down the coast. The economy may be down, but it seems that people still want to get out there and catch the big one.
Leaving Cumberland Island in South Georgia, we traveled up the ICW, came out the inlet between Jekyll and St. Simon’s Islands and cruised along the Georgia coast all the way to Beaufort, South Carolina where we headed in and wound our way along the ICW avoiding the shoals to an anchorage in the South Edisto River.
On the 23rd we motored 35 miles in the ICW following bouys, the electronic and paper charts, consulting waterway guides and following ranges again to avoid the deceptive shallows and arrived in Charleston at 1400 hours (2 PM). We fueled up at the MEGA dock and got assigned a slip. The walk to the showers and laundry seemed like a mile away in the Charleston afternoon heat.
On the 24th we did a gallery crawl along Broad Street and walked South of Broad into the neighborhoods. We paused for lunch at Blossom, a terrific restaurant as it turned out. Randy had a duck confit grinder (imagine a BLT on toasted french bread stuffed with shredded duck confit) with rosemary french fries ($9). It was superb. Suzanne had grilled tuna in a port wine reduction accompanied by coconut flavored sticky rice and seasonal veggies ($13). It was perhaps even better. 
After lunch we did some more gallery hopping where we met some very interesting artist/owners, including Victoria Platt Ellis who does some very imaginative abstract work using collage, oils, and stories as inspiration. She focuses on shapes and color making her work boldly captivating.
By 3:00 it was time to get back to the marina and get cleaned up for dinner. This was Suzanne’s birthday dinner and for it we went to FIG. This is an award winning restaurant on Meeting Street and it was worth every penny, and trust me there were lots of pennies spent. Suzanne started with a terrine of coddled egg and cream with stone crab and morel mushrooms, while Randy had the Wagyu beef tartare with walnuts, parsley and asiago cheese. The main courses were pan seared grouper for Suzanne and pork confit, with creamed potatoes, roasted onion and beets for Randy. Notice a theme here? It was divine, as was the sorghum cake with ice cream we shared for dessert.
Today we are provisioning the boat. A courtesy van heads out at 11:00 am for Harris Teeter and West Marine. Tonight we are headed over to Jeff and Margie Graham’s boat berthed two docks away for drinks, then out to dinner with them at La Fourchette, a French bistro recommended to us by one of the gallery owners we met yesterday. Margie is the daughter by a previous marriage of Randy’s brother-in-law Don. I suppose that would make her our step niece. She and Jeff are headed north on their sailboat to spend the summer on the Chesapeake after having spent last winter in the Keys.
Well, the grocery van leaves in 45 minutes, so we had better start getting ready. More later.