US Boat Shows

We are here in Annapolis to attend the US boat shows. First the sailboat show and then the powerboat show. We have some video work for a number of different clients at each of the shows. Of course, we will take advantage of all the great things to do and see.

The Sailboat show


Ed at work
Lots of interesting characters

Laundry Day

Laundry can be an all day event while cruising. Here in Annapolis it is not the most difficult place to do laundry but not the easiest. We are at a marina that does not have laundry facilities so we need to ride our bikes into town to the laundromat. We have a BIG, waterproof duffle bag that we fill with the dirty cloths. It is too big for me to handle on my bike, so we both have go. I bring the soap and coins in my backpack and Ed becomes the pack mule.


We usually keep our bikes in waterproof bags on the bow of the boat partially folded up. Here at the marina we have an area in the parking lot to lock them up. So instead of unpacking and setting up the bikes, it is just a matter of putting our backpacks together and jumping on the bikes for the mile and a half ride, past town, up just two steep hills to the nearest laundromat. Today was a good day, we did not have to wait for open machines. It took us about an hour and a half (actual washing/drying time). Of coarse laundromats don\'t have air conditioning so it was really nice that the weather is cooling off! So today laundry took about three hours.

Around Americas

This 27' sailboat was sailed all the way around North & South America...nonstop! Alone!
We'll soon be following his tracks; NOT!
It's docked at the Annapolis Maritime Museum next door to our new (temporary) home. Beyond comprehension for me.

Up the Deleware Bay

We left Cape May NJ yesterday at 5AM, an hour and a half before sunrise. If you time it right, you can ride the incoming tide all the way up the bay. With that timing, we had a 2+ knot current push us all day. Only issue we fought was when the wind died, the swamps of southern NJ unleashed a blizzard of greenhead flies! We have screens but they still got in. We killed at least 100 flies and broke 2 fly swatters! Talked to friends who did not have an enclosure. She said she was COVERED with flies! Madness!

Near the top of the bay is the Chesapeake & Delaware canal connecting the Delaware to the Chesapeake Bay. Half way down the C & D canal is Chesapeake city with a free town dock. Pictured is Freedom at the town dock with a car carrier going by. That is one ugly ship!
We'll hang here and wait out the scattered rain & thunderstorms till tomorrow. Might visit the canal museum in the morning.
Happy Labor Day!

Good Bye New York

We had a very nice morning sail west on Long Island Sound towards NYC. Once in the river, we motored, I'm not comfortable sailing with the current in a high traffic area. The first stretch was very quiet. Laguardia airport was launching planes away from us and Rykers finest are all inside behaving themselves. As we closed in on Hell Gate the current really started to pick up our speed. There is a blind turn in the river at the Tri-borough bridge and out pops a good size ship. Downbound vessels (us) are supposed to have right of way. We were on the right side of the channel but he wanted the whole thing. He gave us 5 blasts, the danger signal, and I had to turn 90 degrees toward the river bank to get out of his way. Pushy New Yorkers!

Further downstream we had several encounters with ferry boats. But both times I hailed them, they were polite and offered to go around me. New Yorkers are so nice!

It was chilly this morning. First time Chris has worn long pants since November. Fear not, it's supposed to reach 90 tomorrow. But the sea breeze will keep that manageable.

We've been in touch with friends Donna & Dave who are on summer vacation aboard their sailboat. Dave knows Barnegat inlet in NJ and agreed to show us the way in there. We also met some new cruisers Elaine & Lawrence on the Northport town dock on Monday. They were spending the summer in Northport before heading south. And good friend Craig lives in Northport. So we put them all together for cocktails and dinner at a local pub. Great times will be had when sailors gather! We'd also been out sailing the evening prior with Craig & his significant other Jenn. Craig gave me some good pointers on sailing and Jenn is always fun. Lots of good times in Northport!
We made plans for all three boats to cruise together at least to Barnegat. Before leaving, a grocery run in necessary to stock up. The store is up a pretty steep hill and I mentioned I was going to bike up there. Elaine quickly offered the keys to their car! We were able to make 3 stops to stock up well for the next week or two. Thank you Elaine. 
So us three boats made it through NYC and south to Atlantic Highlands to anchor for the night, ready for the open ocean trip to the infamous Barnegat inlet. We temporarily rafted together for cocktails, appetisers and some last minute planning.
Underway at 0600 tomorrow morn.

On the move again

Just a brief update, we'll be getting underway around 0600 headed west & south through NYC. The trip north through the city was done on a quiet Sunday morning. This time through will be a weekday late morning. Should be fun! Spot tracker will be on.

Northport

I was overdue for a haircut. This home, converted to offices, has a one chair barber shop. "Oscar" has been cutting hair in Northport for 50 years. Cost for a cut...$3.50! Down the street at the jewelers, I stopped in twice for a new pin for my broken watch band and adding an additional link I found on the boat. Both times, no charge. We can stay all day at the town dock, run to the store, wash the boat & fill the water tanks; no charge. We like Northport!

Even without the extra cost savings, it's a nice town. We also have friends here who buy us dinner! We'll be here till mid week when some friends arrive. We'll buddy boat with them down through NJ. He knows some of the less than perfect inlets that require local knowledge. Meantime, we're getting some maintenance chores done. And the weather is perfect!

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Cuttyhunk redux

We left Martha's Vineyard Tuesday, cutting through Woods Hole again with the tide. Another scary ride as the swirling currents don't always go in the direction you need to go...and the channel has rocks on the edges! But I'm getting used to this stuff, sort of.

Anchored in the outer harbor of Cuttyhunk around 3pm, an easy day. This place is well positioned for a crossing of Buzzards Bay towards Long Island Sound.

Our friend Dan came to visit us from across Buzzards Bay where he keeps his boat in New Bedford. He sails a trimaran, pictured here. They are very fast, he can go 15 knots fairly easy. We struggle to go 7k in similar conditions. But, we have much more space plus our weight makes a much smoother ride in rough seas. Our friend Chuck rode with us from Norfolk north in June with 30k wind & 8' seas. He has a catamaran, and after riding with us in the rough stuff is considering a switch to our type of boat. All boats are tradeoffs.

Dan rafted with us for the night, we had dinner and plenty of discussion topics till midnight. In the morning, we cut him loose as a storm front was approaching. Turned out to be minor wind but a lot of rain.

After the storm, we bid Dan farewell over the VHF and got underway across Buzzards Bay. No wind, so we motored. Shortly after getting underway, I went to check on things below. Smoke coming from the engine room is generally not a good thing! I hollered up to Chris to cut the engine. The alternator was smoking. I've been fighting various issues with the alternator/charging system for a while. While we drifted in sloppy rolling seas, I swapped out for the spare alternator. Other than some mild queeziness, no issues. Fired up the engine and continued on. We'll be buying a new alternator soon!

Arrived in Point Judith in the PM and anchored in the "harbor of refuge", a big area protected by a stone breakwall. Bought some 'cheap' diesel & gas at a marina Thursday morning before heading west to Stonington, Ct. We've been to all three of these places on the way up. It's nice to know the surroundings and what to expect.

We had good sailing conditions heading east in this area but now it's been pretty calm and back to motoring.

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Weathering the weather, by Chris

Not complaining, I understand that a large portion of the US is experiencing drought conditions, but we have had lots of storms. Everyone up here is telling us that this is quite abnormal. This is a good news/bad news scenario. The bad news is the storms and trying to schedule our movements and arrange anchoring in protected areas. The good news, we are learning a lot about what we and Freedom can handle. The rain is a great way to wash all the salt off the boat and I am becoming more comfortable in a thunderstorm and am getting better at reading the radar. Here is a picture that our friend, Dan Kim, took after the storm passed in Cuttyhunk harbor.

Martha's Vineyard

We sailed south from Cotuit last Friday to Vineyard Haven harbor on Martha's Vineyard. Spent Sat/Sun riding out rain & high winds. Monday we hopped the bus to Edgartown to do a bit of sightseeing. Lots of 17th & 18th century ship captains houses. Of course we had to go down to the harbor & check out the boats and accommodations. We may come here next year. We also stopped for lunch...Mad Martha's hand made ice cream!

After countless trinket shops, we hopped the bus for Oak Bluffs. Took a walk on the beach there and then into town. Different sort of architecture on all the cottages from Edgartown. Had dinner at a small open air cafe Coup deville. Lobster rolls, yum. Hopped the bus back to Vineyard Haven, which is actually the town of Tisbury. Hit the Stop n Shop for a few groceries and dingied back to Freedom.

Tuesday we sailed up through Woods Hole and west to Cuttyhunk. Woods Hole has the most wicked currents we've seen so far. Swirling eddys that run perpendicular to our route, trying to push you into the rocks!  Keeps me awake.

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Cape Cod visit

We cruised into Cotuit Bay on Cape Cod last Wednesday. Chris sister Ellen and family have a time share house there and we planned on visiting with them for several days.
The channel into the bay is very shallow so we had to time our entrance for high tide. We got good assistance from the local county harbormaster. Plenty of places to anchor and a town dock to gain shore access via the dingy. We can even tie up temporarily, space available, to pick up and drop off passengers.

Family arrived Saturday and we had a short visit and dinner. Sunday night was reported to be stormy/windy so we stayed on the boat. This storm was less than predicted but we've learned to play it safe!

Tuesday I took bro-in-law Pat & son Pat jr out fishing. I managed to find a decent spot & we kept a dozen decent fish. Enough scup, seabass & bluefish to feed all 8 of us! A good day fishing.

Wednesday was sailing day. Took Pat, Rebecca and their children Nellie & Nat out for a daysail. They seemed to like it very much. So we're happy too, you never know with kids! That was a fast 4 days of visiting with the Owens family. We're happy our scheduling worked out. That's not easy with a slow moving boat.

This makes our farthest north & east of the year. We left Cotuit to sail south to Martha's Vineyard. We're now in Vineyard Haven for the night. If the weather cooperates, we'll do some exploring tomorrow.

Wild night

We were anchored in the outer harbor of Hadleys Harbor, the inner harbor was packed. The prediction was winds of 15 to 20 from the north and rain. Our spot was exposed to the north. 2 boats came in after us and anchored upwind of our position. A little after dark, it started blowing hard, well over 20 and up to 30 with plenty of rain. As the wind continued to blow hard, we all seemed to be holding well. For the moment.

Around 10pm I looked up through the driving rain to see one of the boats moving rather quickly towards us. They were dragging, and fast! Luckily, the wind swung us to starboard and they flew by to port by about 20'. I couldn't see anyone on deck either, so I grabbed our horn and sounded a very long blast. They scrambled up on deck and managed to stop the drag just in time. They told us later they read 7' on the depthsounder. The shoreline had to be within 50'...all rocks! They spent at least 30 minutes trying to gain control of the situation and get re-anchored. 

Lots of good luck at play here. If I hadn't seen them in time, they would have surely smashed into the rocks. If the wind had pushed us to port, they would have hit us for sure. And, they could have snagged our anchor and dragged us with them on to the rocks. A lot of things could have gone much worse.

My knuckles are getting sore from knocking on wood!

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Keeping dry

We sailed about 18 miles from Cuttyhunk to Hadley Harbor this morning. There is a very nice inner harbor with free mooring balls courtesy of the Forbes family who have a home here. It was full so we anchored in the outer harbor. Not as protected, but we should be fine anyway, we have a great anchor and we've anchored in much worse spots.

A few hours after arrival it started to rain. And rain. And rain. One of those days you just hang out and get a few things done.

We're headed to Cotuit Bay tomorrow. Chris sister will be arriving in the area on Saturday for a week long vacation. Should be fun!

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Special delivery

We're anchored off Cuttyhunk harbor and the Raw Bar comes by. They deliver oysters, clams, shrimp cocktail direct to your boat. They shuck them right there for you. A great way to suck down a few cold, slimey ones! Mmmmm oysters!

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Cuttyhunk

Our boat is anchored in the outer harbor here at Cuttyhunk. Quirky little island town.

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Buzzards Bay

I tried to post with a short cell phone video a few days ago. That failed! So I'll encompass that up till now.

We had a beautiful downwind sail from Northport, LI NE to an open bay east of Saybrook, Ct. It was open to the sound so we did roll a little at anchor. Good enough for a quick overnight stop. Next day was a short hop to Stonington, Ct. A nice anchorage behind their breakwater. We launched the dink and rode into town. I'd read reports of a great little fish market with the sweatest scallops around. They have a special flash freeze process. Bought scallops, shrimp & haddock. Haddock was excellent.

Next stop Pt. Judith harbor of refuge. It's a big breakwater sticking out into Block Isl Sound. All day was very dark but no rain till dinner time. "Grillin in the rain, just grillin in the rain" .

We're currently underway for Cuttyhunk Isl at the southwest end of the Cape Cod area. We're looking forward to exploring an old Cape Cod sea town. Reports to follow, stay tuned!

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Liberty welcomes Freedom, part 2

We cruised right up to the lower tip of Manhattan, The Battery, and around the bend past the quiet ferry terminal into the East River. First bridge, the Brooklyn bridge, is undergoing a facelift. There are many more fantastic old bridges with beautiful iron work all the way up the East River.

This is where the tidal flow begins to pick up. We throttled back to high idle to save fuel and enjoy the ride and still did 6 knots. We passed the UN and the upper east side with lots of great old buildings. The Empire State & Chrysler buildings looked fantastic.

Half way up Manhattan, the East River turns 90 degrees right toward Long Island Sound. This is the infamous Hell Gate. The current is very fast here and there are huge rock outcroppings deep below that cause numerous whirlpools. We were doing 10 knots through here without much effort. It's a blind corner so I called ahead on the bridge to bridge VHF channel 13 that the large commercial ships use announcing our position & course. As expected, no response. "As expected"? I have a great ap on my Droid called Marine Traffic. It gives me real time AIS reporting that all commercial ships are required to use. It shows position, speed, direction, size and pictures of the ship. A fantastic tool!

So our trip through NY harbor, with proper planning (back slap), was uneventful. I spent most of my time shooting video (to be released soon on youtube) while Chris did most of the piloting. Maybe next time through we'll stop for a brief visit. But viewing from the water was pretty satisfying.

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Liberty welcomes Freedom! Part 1

I missed a post! I forgot to write about our NY cruise!

A few posts back I noted that we anchored behind Coney Island, staged for a run through NY harbor. The tidal flow is strong, so timing is important. The currents were in our favor for Sunday morning as was the weather. We got underway around 8am, first landmark is the Verazanno Narrows bridge. It acts like a giant gateway to NYC. We rounded the point and made the approach to the city.

The Staten Isl ferries are notorious for being fast & numerous. But there were only 2 of them running this Sunday morning, making this a piece of cake. We crossed the main ship channel to run up close to the Statue of Liberty and then directly toward lower Manhattan. The new World Trade Center was topped off a few months ago but its upper floors are still getting their glass skin.



Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

Now that's low!

Our stop after running through NY harbor was Northport on Long Island. A good stop on two counts. One, good friends Craig & Jen are in the area. Two, the town dock is free to tie up to during the day. That means we don't need to load laundry or groceries in the dink for a mile long ride.

We tied to the dock around 1pm. The dockmaster asked our specs and then had us come around the back side of the dock out of the wind. We made a trip up to town to the laundromat on our bikes. 2 hours later we went back up to the grocery store. Well we tried. It was a STEEP hill. Only one of us made it! Got the groceries put away and took quick showers just in time to join Craig & Jen for dinner.

We were supposed to be off the dock by around 8pm. We came back to the boat around 8:30 to get underway. Not so fast! We were sitting on the bottom. Not a lot but definitely aground. We draw about 5'6" and that's what the depthsounder was reading. The tide range here is over 7'! Our boat was even with the dock when we left but now it was a very long climb down to the deck. This was after dark, sorry no picture. The pic here is in the morning. I talked to the evening dockmaster, she said no problem. Stick around till morning to get underway. So we had a few beers and spent the night.

Low tide is every 12 hours, so around 9am would be the same condition. We got up early and cast off by 6am with several feet to spare. This was our first encounter with big tides. Florida & the Chesapeake are only 1 or 2 feet. Up in Maine they have 20' tides! We'll save that for next year.

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom

North to New York

We rode out rain & hi winds off Sandy Hook for 2 days. Today we stopped at Atlantic Highlands for fuel before heading to NY harbor. They had the cheapest fuel we'll see in New England. They also had crappy NJ attitudes!

We sailed across choppy waters to outer NY harbor, anchoring behind Coney Island in the shadow of the Verazanno Narrows bridge. We stopped here to time the tides right Sunday morning. We'll be going up the inner harbor, past Liberty & Manhattan into the East River. Half way up the East River is the aptly named Hell Gate. The current runs 4 knots there. You must not hit the ebb when running to Long Island Sound. Lots of whirlpools and other nasty stuff that can ruin your day!

Should be a fantastic morning, can't wait. A good day to follow our spot track, departing around 9am...

Posted by Ed aboard S/V Freedom