While we waited for our heater parts to be shipped out we spent a pleasant five days in NYC, doing what we do best -- being tourists. We've both been to New York before, so we didn't do everything this trip, but we did a creditable job of seeing the sights. Highlights were the Museum of Natural History (including the newly renovated Hayden Planetarium, which has a new show narrated by Tom "I'm not an astronaut but I played one in Apollo 13" Hanks and another one narrated by Jodie "I'm not an astrophysicist but I played one in Contact" Foster. Thus does life imitate art), the Pulaski Day parade put on by the New York Polish community (miles of tiny children doing traditional Polish dances in traditional Polish outfits, interspersed by floats carrying leggy, busty, blonde "Miss Polonia" winners from various suburbs, and the occasional marching polka band), Miss Saigon on Broadway with our friends Richard and Rosemary from Gratitude, who are hauled out in New Rochelle NY, and a different type of ethnic food (all delicious) at every meal. We toured the New York Public Library and the United Nations building, hiked across Central Park one day and down to the Battery another day, and poked our noses into several of the city's more striking buildings.
Big cities are dangerous to the budget, and New York, unsurprisingly, was disastrous. It seemed worse since the stock market was finding new lows daily. At least we had a free home base -- Alex and Laura are friends of cruising friends, who plan to go cruising eventually themselves, and they were kind enough to give us a place to stay. Still, we're going to have to get our spending back under control.
After an unprecedented amount of time away from Windom, we returned to find somewhat depleted batteries but otherwise everything A-OK. It was nice to sleep in our familiar bed again, with quiet anchorage noises instead of the constant traffic roar and the wail of sirens that we'd listened to for the past several nights. After we've been ashore in friends' houses, our boat usually seems awfully small when we come back home, but the mid-town studio condo we'd been given the use of wasn't much larger than Windom (and would cost about the same to buy!). Admittedly, we can't get kung pao chicken or ravioli con funghi delivered aboard, but all things considered, we prefer the boat.
We rose early on a cloudy Thursday to catch the last of the favorable tide through Hell Gate, and motored down the East River past gray Manhattan, pursued by the Viking ship Islendingur. Their big square sail was hoisted, although they must have had their motor on as well because they were gaining on us in a bare 8 knots of wind. We seem to be on similar schedules; they sailed into Portsmouth while we were there, we saw them docked in Boston, they were coming down the Mystic River while we were heading up to Mystic Seaport, and now they were on our tail heading into New York. But they stopped at the South Street Seaport, and we continued on to Great Kills Harbor on Staten Island, where we prepared for our upcoming offshore run.
The forecast was for southwest winds in the morning, shifting to northwest and increasing in the afternoon to more than 20 knots. We left in the early afternoon, still waiting on the wind shift, but wanting to time things so we'd arrive at the mouth of Delaware Bay early the next morning so we'd have lots of daylight to beat up toward the C&D Canal. After a few tedious hours of motoring in the oily swells of the Atlantic, the wind filled in as promised, the sails came up, and we hurtled southward on the wings of the cold Canadian norther.
We'd set our course barely offshore, so we had only small waves and little rolling, although when stronger than usual gusts caught us we would slew this way and that until Bob (the autopilot) caught up with things. One really bad gust overwhelmed Bob entirely, and he just gave up, emitting helpless, plaintive beeps as the boat heeled sharply, rounded up into the wind and started making directly for New Jersey. As Murphy would have it, I was below checking the chart, so I had to dash upstairs, turn Bob off, grab the wheel and wrestle the boat back to our heading, in 28 knots of wind. Britt, off-watch, was woken up by the sudden heel, and came out into the cockpit in time to help me reef the sails. Which of course I should have done much earlier.
We made excellent time, averaging around 7 knots, and rounded Cape May at 7:30 the next morning. What had been perfect wind conditions for the southbound run down the New Jersey coast were the worst possible conditions for the northwest beat up the Delaware Bay. On went the motor, and down came the jib. The waves became huge and choppy as we lost the shelter of the coast, and as we motored into the ick the boat slammed hard down behind each one with a loud wham and a shudder. Things started falling off shelves below, and enough water worked its way around the hatch seals into the forward head compartment (as the bow was constantly either underwater or being sprayed) that everything there got pretty well soaked in brine.
I hadn't gotten any sleep during the previous night's sail, as is usual for me at the beginning of a passage. At 8:00 a.m. I was so tired that despite the boat lurching this way and that, the whams and crashes, and the loud drone of the engine, I sacked out on one of the settees for three delicious hours. In my dreams I repeatedly grounded the boat I was sailing yet somehow never came to a stop, then got in a jeep and drove up and down over endless mountain trails and sand dunes.
I woke to find that we'd barely made progress up the bay. Britt had given up on trying to motor the direct course, which cut our speed down under two knots, and was "power-tacking" back and forth instead. We worried we wouldn't reach an anchorage by dark, but after passing Cross Ledge the waves abated somewhat (from "hellish" to merely "miserable") and we made much better time. We anchored behind Reedy Island in the shadow of the huge stacks of the Salem nuclear power plant, near the entrance to the C&D canal. What a joy it was to plop my totally worn out and exhausted body blissfully into a pile of pillows and quilts that wasn't bumping and jumping and rolling and tilting sideways. Just as hunger is the best spice, passages are excellent sedatives.
The wind was still more or less in our faces during the next day's trip through the canal, but we kept the main up to help our speed as we motored through. We had a favorable current, and by noon we were past Turkey Point and into the Chesapeake proper, where I turned the boat downwind and south, unrolled the headsail, and cut the motor. The wind was being ornery, switching direction every so often and alternating between over fifteen and under five knots, and it kept me busy in the chilly cockpit. We anchored in Fairlee Creek, a true "welcome back" to the Chesapeake: less than 12 feet of water the last mile of approach, a tricky entrance involving a run parallel and scarily close to the beach, and for the first time since we'd left Cape May on our way north, an anchorage in less than 10 feet (8.6, to be exact). Our CQR sank happily and firmly into the Chesapeake Bay mud, which may be a pain to clean from ground tackle but is also one of the most secure bottoms we've attached ourselves to. (Also true to Chesapeake form, we bumped bottom briefly on the way out. As they say on the bay, there are three types of Chesapeake Bay sailors: those who have gone aground, those who are going to go aground, and those who are aground. Others maintain there are only two types: those who have gone aground, and liars.)
It took one more frigid downwind day to get to Herrington Harbour in Deale, MD. I was bundled up in long johns, my fleece pants and jacket, a down vest, and foul weather gear as a windbreak layer on the very top, and I wore the same fleece hat and mittens that I used to wear for skiing back in Colorado. I was more or less singlehanding that day, as I had the day before, since Britt had caught a cold in New York which had gotten steadily worse during the passage. He laid low in the cabin, which if not exactly warm was at least not windy, while I kept myself from freezing by constantly adjusting the sail trim, reefing, unreefing, tightening, loosening, and so on, none of which had much effect on our speed as far as I could tell. With 16-28 knots of wind between 120 and 150 apparent, we zoomed down the bay like a rocketship no matter what I did. I did figure out that Bob copes much better with big gusts when the sails are reefed (when going downwind we have generally neglected to reef as soon as we should), and that the jib fairlead ought to be set further forward when the jib is partially furled. None of which is news to those of you who sail, I'm sure.
There was a small craft advisory, but a number of other sailboats were zooming around like rocketships despite the chilly temperatures. We were just about to Herring Bay when I heard a boat calling the Coast Guard. They reported a sailboat with nobody apparently on board, "drifting" downwind with mainsail up, companionway boards in. The reporting boat had almost collided with the unmanned boat, and when they gave their location I realized it was not very far from us. They mentioned that they were worried about the other sailboat because it was in the path of a northbound tanker; I could see the tanker from our cockpit, although I couldn't make out the sailboats. Another boat called in as well and gave more information to the Coast Guard, who issued a "Pan-Pan" (code word for an emergency situation that isn't as serious as a Mayday). A little while later, the local SeaTow boat reported in to the Coast Guard, saying they'd overtaken the "drifting" boat (probably hoping for a lucrative salvage opportunity!) and, after a few horn blasts, discovered what we had surmised all along (and what you, perceptive reader, have no doubt also figured out by now): the couple aboard the sailboat had set the sails, turned on the autopilot, and went below.
The Coast Guard radio operator, in measured and official tones, requested the SeaTow guy remind the people aboard of their responsibility to keep a "sharp lookout" (the phrase the Coast Guard always uses on the radio when relaying a distress call or request for assistance), and broadcast a cancellation to the Pan-Pan call. I expect that after he released the mike key, he muttered something to the other Coasties on duty, in considerably less official and more colorful language.
Not that we haven't been tempted to stay below in this icy October weather. Offshore, it's perfectly reasonable to lounge on the settee while on watch, and during our run down from New York that's what we did, poking a head out the companionway every 10 or 15 minutes, or keeping an eye on the radar. (Theoretically, we could just drive by the radar, but in the back of our minds is the lurking fear that we will run into Stealth Boat, so even when the radar's on we still do an eyeball check every so often.) But the bay is a confined area, and there are lots of recreational and commercial craft out there. The big ships stay in the channels, in the places where there are channels, but tugs and barges generally don't, and neither do the fishermen, sailors, or powerboaters. I left the cockpit only when our immediate surroundings were totally clear, and took only brief breaks. If the weather had been truly miserable, I'd probably have stayed below most of the time, but be glued to the radar (and doing eyeball checks). These idiots apparently didn't have (or weren't using) radar (or VHF, since they didn't immediately respond apologetically to the Coast Guard saying something like, "hey, I'm ok, I had to go below for a minute and take a leak"); it sounded as though they were just blithely hoping that everyone else would look out for and avoid them.
So here we are back at Herrington Harbour, where we are frantically preparing to leave the boat for a few weeks while we go back to Colorado. Britt has all the heater bits and pieces out of their boxes and spread across the floor of the main cabin, and is feverishly making diagrams and notes and plans. The installation manual, like the manual for just about everything we've installed on the boat other than the watermaker, is more confusing than enlightening. Despite the long consultation with the product rep in New York and the long phone call back to the distributor in Seattle, which produced a carefully thought out list of everything Britt figured we really need, we ended up being sent (and charged for) everything the distributor feels we really need. This includes all the little items which Webasto charges outrageous markups on, and that we were going to just get from West Marine or the hardware store. Rubber mounting feet at $9 each, switches for $18, stuff like that. So we didn't accomplish anything by stopping in New York for the heater, as we got zero discount, had to buy all the little stuff we didn't want, and in addition got slapped with 8.5% New York sales tax, which on an over four grand purchase is not a trivial amount.
While we're throwing money around like birdseed, we decided to have the yard here wash and wax the hull as well as do our bottom paint while we are hauled out. We just don't have the time to do it all ourselves, and it isn't a fun job. (Not that this helps us get our budget back under control!) We are scheduled to be re-launched the day after Britt returns on November 1, which gives us a day to inspect the through-hulls and most especially our prop.
Then, we have a host of other tasks to accomplish, in addition to the heater installation. Some we can do along the way south, but a few will be made much easier by being on a dock with access to water and electricity. We really want to take the anchor platform off and refinish it, for example. (Any boat with a beautifully varnished anchor platform is clearly not a cruiser. The daily grind of chain across teak has made modern art out of our anchor platform's finish.) We need to come up with a better system of securing a number of things before we go offshore again. We have to install the new membrane and do some other tasks before the watermaker will be ready for use again. We want to buy and install a Pactor IIe SSB modem, so we can do email over our HF radio. The pressure water accumulator is misbehaving, we really ought to rebuild the heads, the stainless steel rails are looking terrible, some of the interior teak needs a coat of varnish, and we have to figure out a way to fly our courtesy flags and burgees so they don't slap against things and make lots of annoying noise. Sometimes I think we won't get out of here before February. So we'd better get that heater installed pronto -- so at least we'll be warm.