The Hudson Part 1

The compas is reading North, yipee! Before taking off this morning from 79th St, were there was a wake coming from our mooring ball, we went for a pumpout. (Yup, it's as gross as it seems, we pump out our poop). Well the dock is over 10 feet high, the curren, tide and waves were all pushing us towards the dock. It was rough, very rough. Then we had some "issues" getting off again.

Obviously we made it, because we're heading up the Hudson. As soon as you pass NYC you start seeing the mountains. It's spectacular. The river is deeper than the ocean was, a lot deeper. There are 2 train tracks on either side. They come out off tunnels from the sides of the mountains, so picturesque.

The mountains were great until we had to walk to the gas station for oil. My calves were burning by the time we made it to the top. Ok so I haven't exactly gotten into tip top shape yet...but it happening slowly.

We should be home by early next week. I can't wait to see you all.

Roxanne and Josh

Freddy Freddy

While Josh and I were trying to figure out fun names of boats we remembered a funny boat, "Freddy Freddy". We came across Freddy Freddy in Elizabeth city. It's the wierdest boat I've ever seen. The guy built it himself. The hull shape would fine if he hadn't added what looks like a canoe cut in half stuck to each side. I'm convinced that if a large wave struck them from a beam, they'd sink. Add there' s no head (toilet) on board. The wife didn't want one, so instead he built an outhouse on the back deck, complete with a moon cut-out on the door! And I almost forgot to mention the bay window, for a great of the outdoors.

And as if that wasn't enough, the guy speaks with the funniest think accent. I almost peed myself hearing talk on the VHF.

Somehow I found that Freddy Freddy has a video on youtube. Just listen to his voice...too funny. Makes me laugh just thinking about it.

http://www.wdel.com/blog/?postid=1244&PHPSESSID=790dcc0afdb8075c38c8369c3e063d5f

More Pics

Because I know you all like looking at pictures.

Picture 1: Some people are quite creative with the names of there boats. Other funny ones we've seen include, "Knot a Clew" (clew is a part of the sail), "Hairball" on a catamaran (catamarans are double hulled boats nicknamed cats), there were lots more but we're drawing a blank. Sorry.

Picture 2: What is it exactly you ask? It's a tug pushing a barge in NY harbour.

Picture 3: Pretty self explanatory.

Picture 4: Just to show you all that the trip is going well and we still love eachother. AHHHH

New York Part 2

New York Baby!!! Josh and I got up early, not 5am but the more civilized hour of 8am, and took off to 79th Street Boat Basin. It's a mooring field at the end of 79th Street (obviously) and Riverside Parkway in Manhattan. Did I mention it's only 30$ a night, most other marinas along the way charge 3-5$/ft! It's run by the Department of Parks and Recreation, plus it has free laundry, ice, and showers.

But first, we needed to sail through New York Harbour. There's a lot going on in the harbour. Ferries zooming past, tugs racing out to help guide in the big oceanliners, other tugs pushing big barges, there are boats of all sizes anchored and others transitioning. You must keep your eyes on the water at all times. That's much harder than it seems, there's so much to look at.

The city is beautiful from the water. We sailed right passed the Statue of Liberty, who is no where near as large as they make her appear in the movies. It's too bad we came in a foggy day. We passed under the Verrazzano bridge to the basin.

Oh another thing about the New York, there's a crazy current. Which makes the mooring a little less than comfortable. That stupid ball (a mooring os a large floating sphere with ropes attached. the bottom of the floaty thing aka a mooring ball is anchored to the bottom and the you use the ropes to tie the boat to.) banged against the boat when the tide changed. It's a concept I have yet to grasp, the tide and current flowing in opposite directions. Plus you get rocked, BIG time by passing boats.

But it's still worth it to be in NYC. Josh and I went to the city to walk around. I of course wore my most comfortable yet fashionable shoes, this comes into play a little later in the day. We walked along Broadway to Times Square. Which was cool to see but was waaaayyy too packed with people. So we went to Rockefeller Plaza. I talk like we ment to go to all these places, the truth is we wandered aimlessly around and fell upon these things. We had a wonderful lunch at the Rockefeller plaza rink. Then we went to central park, then to a pharmacy to band-aids for my blistered feet. Then back to the park, then to a store that sold the cheapest shoes for a pair of smiley faced flip flop that wouldn't hurt my feet so bad. So much for looking fashionable in NYC.

When we were in the park we saw them filming Lipstick Jungle (a TV show). A true New York experience. We stopped to have a little apero and watch the crowds. I think Josh and I both suffered sensory overload, there's just so much going on, I loved it.

We got back to the boat as the sun was setting. In the park that borders the river, there are these large tunnels to walk under the highway. Well that night a trumpet player was practicing in one of them, they must have good acoustics. Either way we had some nice jazz background music. What a beautiful way to end our stay in New York. There's lots more to see, but now it's time to make home.

New York Part 1

I can't believe I got up so early, 5:00 AM!! I so don't do mornings. We were going to Sandy Hook NJ. It's 90 nautical miles, nautical miles are longer then regular miles, by how much I don't know exactly but they're just over 1 statute mile. Did I mention, it's out in the Atlantic Ocean!

When we left Atlantic City the seas were rough, to put it lightly. The tide was coming in and the wind was going the opposite direction like us. That makes for some very large square waves. (For non-boaters, square waves = very bad, very rough) It was so bad, we considered going back. But we went out a little further and the waves were still pretty big (4ft) but at least they had distance between them. The waves stayed behind us the whole way (it means we were surfing, it's tough to steer and keep a straight line). The wind was uncooperative too. The wind was blowing from behind but very shifty. Soooo, we motored ....again.

We finally got to Sandy Hook and the anchorage we were going to stay at, wasn't as protected as it claimed to be. Then we thought we'd stay at the marina, but they closed at 4:30, it was 4:35!

Allow me to let you into our mind set of the moment. We'd sailed for 15 hours, in rough following seas, we ran out of food (Atlantic city has NO grocery stores), we were running on very little sleep, there were biting flies (I don't know about these flies. They look like regular house flies, but don't be fooled by apperances, they bite. I kid you not, I must have killed close to 30 of those FU@##!$^&ERS.) AND we were almost out of fuel. The last thing we wanted to do was run out of fuel in New York Harbour.

I called a marina in Coney Island but they didn't get back to us. We planned to anchor at the next available anchorage. In New York City, you can bet that there aren't too many of them. We decided to take Skipper Bob's advice and anchor behind Coney Island. Well if we thought the approach to Atlantic City was close to the beach, this was 5 times closer. The guy fishing had to wait for us to pass before casting. We dropped the hook with the beach on one side and a huge wreck on the other. We really didn't want to stay there. Thank goodness the guy from the marina called us back.

We pulled up the hook and went to the marina were we filled with fuel and tied to the dock for a good night's sleep. It was by no means the ideal location for a marina, the South Brooklyn Department of Sanitation was on the other side! What are you going to do.

Which reminds me, I wanted to tell you all about our new game. "Guess the debris". There's so much garbage floating around here, it's quite sad. Some of it cans, pieces of wood, random unidentified objects, and lots of plastic bags. While playing the game, we saw weird red jellyfishes.

Oh the things that keep you amused on the boat. You'll see when you come aboard.

Atlantic City

It was a quick little jaunt from Cape May to Atlantic City. Only about 40 miles, which still took us 5 hours! Ok, so the boat isn't the fastest mode of transportation, but it sure is enjoyable...sometimes. This time was not one of them. There was no wind to speak of, so we motored. We've done soooo much motoring this trip, I wonder if we can still be considered a sailboat. The lack of wind isn't what made this journey difficult, it was the thick fog that settled over the boat. We couldn't see the other boats around us. Now we may be a slow moving boat, but those sport fishers fly! I was so glad we had the radar (thanks Aunty Michelle).We could hear the other boats approaching, and then they'd appear only 150 yards away. We almost hit a BIG buoy, it even had a bell on it. If you ever wondered just how loud a fog horn is, well let me tell you that my ears have just stopped ringing.

We got into Atlantic City no problem. The approach is interesting, you run right along a beach, maybe 50 feet out. Once settled, we took off to check out the sites. Well to get to the casinos you have to walk through a "not so nice" part of town. We went to Trumps Taj Mahal to win big. Josh and I lost everything...all 20$. We are such big gamblers.

The neatest part of our stay, was the birds. One night there was a concert and the lights were pointing up at the night's sky. The birds flying by got "caught" in the light. Josh thought, ay first, that they were fireworks. But they stayed lit and fluttered...absolutely beautiful.

I love my life. I can't wait to experience this with you all.

Roxanne and Josh

Cape May Again

We aren't happy about it either. The weather this morning wasn't looking very good, too many thundershowers predicted. We have to go out into the Atlantic ocean in order to get to our next destination, Atlantic City. And now we are a little skittish about thunderstorms. I know our probability of getting struck by lightning is very very slim, we have still seen just how powerful mother nature's wrath can be.

So we sit here in Cape May, NJ for yet another day. Josh and I took a beautiful stroll around town. There are tons of cute little (and big) beach houses. The oldest one we saw dated back to 1851. It still had an old metal pole and ring to which you could tie your horse. And because most of the houses are rentals, they're very well kept.

Just in front of our boat is "Hell Yeah" watersports and parasailing. The parasailing boats are called "Chute faced" and the second one is called "Hung over". I love clever names.

The weather isn't looking up for tomorrow, but we'll keep an eye out for it. I originally really liked this marina. Once we docked, they handed us a goody bag, with soap, biscottis, and a bottle of wine (I think it's a late-night bottle, you know the ones you drink when you can't taste it anymore and you spill half). Apparently it's a first night thing only...booo.

We'll keep you all posted.

Cape May

It's an exciting day in the life of Josh and Roxanne, a day of new. New body of water, the Delaware Bay and the Atlantic ocean, new chartbook to accompany the waters, new state. What does that mean to all of you? It's means we're closer to home!!! A week and a half out about. YEAH!!!

Last night we stayed in Delaware city. We were both convinced that the canal to get in was too narrow and too shallow. It wasn't, but it was awfully close, we on had 0.5 feet under the keel. (That means there was only 6 inches of water keeping the boat afloat, not a hack of a lot.) There tides are 6 feet here, but of course we arrived and left at low tide!

The marina let us borrow their golf cart to take in town. They said to drive it like a car!!! Luckily it was a sleepy little town with not much traffic. We decided to go for an apero on a terrasse somewhere by the water. (I don't know why I feel the need to sit and look at the water having spent the last few weeks doing just that. I mean I live on a boat, I see water all the time!) Anyways we went to Crabby Dicks (usually a sign of an STD but apparently also a restaurant). They did have a sense of humour about the name. They had Crabby's balls with Seamen sauce!! And if you really liked the seamen sauce you could buy some to take home with you.

How to seamlessly segway from seamen to another completely unrelated paragraph.... with a sentence like this one!!! This morning we took off around 9am, a late start but we wanted to catch the tide going out to "flush" us out of the Delaware bay. The bay was filled with oceanliner and big tugs pushsing barges, you definitely want to avoid them. Besides that the journey down the bay was uneventful, a good thing on a boat.

The mouth of the bay had a little more going on. The marina we had orginally booked into lay along the Cape May canal and in between 2 bridges. Well we had just assumed that we'd take that canal and avoid during a big detour in the open ocean. Well upon further examination we realized that we couldn't quite make it under those bridges. Well maybe with a low tide, which we had, but then we'd run the risk hitting the bottom. So out we went.

On our way out we saw lots of dolphins. It seems like every time we have a bit of tricky maneuvering we see dolphins, a sign of good luck. Josh and I also saw what we had first thought was another dolphin but was actually a SHARK. It happened so fast that we barely believed our eyes. However upon further discussion we have reached our unanimous decision, it was indeed a shark.

Now that we're in Cape May, a very pretty little place but I'd stay off the beaches here there are sharks, we have to wait to see what the weather is doing. Our following stops are Atlantic City (maybe we could win some money!), Sandy Hook (in the mouth of New York city harbour), 79th boat basin in Manhattan, from there we go up the Hudson and into the Champlain canal to the lake. We are about a week and a half from home!

Once we get to the Hudson, we'll know exactly when we'll be home...so you can start booking your weekends!!

I've got to go, the fireworks are starting.

Miss you tons

Roxanne and Josh

Annapolis

You read correctly, we've left Solomons Island. We took off yesterday, Canada Day (we didn't even find any Canadians to celebrate with) to our next destination, Annapolis. For those who are dying to know, Annapolis is the sailing capitol of the US. As we left Solomons, there was no wind to speak of. It was so still that you could see the schools of minnows fluttering along the surface. We also saw a couple of skates (stingrays).

As we got into the bay, the wind picked up but it was directly on our nose. (Non-sailors, you cannot sail directly into the direction of the wind. It needs to fill the sails and if the same amount of wind comes of both sides of the sail, which is what happens when you put the nose or bow of the boat into the wind, your sails will flutter) All that to say.....we motored. We did have some feelings of guilt about motoring when we could have sailed. But that would have meant we would not have made to Annapolis, which translates into it would take us longer to get home. Not an option at this time. We are more than anxious to get to the lake.

As we entered the mouth of the Severn River (Annapolis is located up the Severn), I had my head down playing with the charts. Josh says to me surprisingly calmly, "Could you please look up?". As I glance up all I see is 6 BIG Navy boats during drills right where we need to go. Oh did I mention, one was heading straight for us!!! We got out of it's way quickly.

Normally, there are certain rules of the road that apply. For example, if you are under sail you have ROW (right of way) over a boat under power. The boat being overtaken has ROW. There are many more, but I won't bore you with them. However, there is one major one....do not under any circumstances come within 200yrads of a Navy vessel and they always have ROW.

Well they were across the route we needed to go....so we just waited for someone else to go before us and followed them in. That was a big mistake, we followed in a dork. We headed up the river to Weems Creek, where there was to be free mooring balls (floating balls to tie up to). Apparently the Dork was heading that way too. As we neared the creek, Josh and I headed into it. The dork passed the opening, then decided to round a buoy (on the wrong side), then head into the creek...all the while waving frantically. It turns out he sees an available mooring ball and wants us to back off. Being polite, even though we had every right to cut in front of him, we let him go....and grab the very last mooring!!!

Well it's now near 6:45pm, and our alternate anchorage involves us going under a bascule bridge, which of course doesn't open during rush hour. And we aren't even certain there will be room on the other side. Josh and I aren't exactly fully comfortable with anchoring in close quarters yet. I have no problem setting the anchor (see storm blog!) but I have a hard time visualizing exactly how much we will swing should the wind change. Because you have to keep in mind that everyone else swings too. It's a tough calculation, so normally (the 4 other times we anchored!) we hang on the outskirts a bit.

All that to say, we anchored on the outside of the Naval Academy (Annapolis is has a very large Naval base, with very buff rowers that go by...often!). Skipper Bob , an old time cruiser who wrote numerous books, claims that perticular anchorage was for "brave souls". Well I guess we're brave. Granted, we would have never stopped here had the wind been from a different direction. And the wakes (the waves the boats put off) from passing boats was quite annoying, especially while cooking dinner. But it did it's job.

We can't wait to get home to you all. We miss you tons

Josh and Roxanne