2024 October: Arrive Solomons MD

 15 October 2024
Depart: Sassafras River anchorage MD 7:40 a.m.
Arrive: Solomons, MD - Mill Creek anchorage 5:30 p.m.
Distance: ~ 80 nm

With temperatures in the low 40s last night we snuggled down under the covers to sleep. We do not have a source of heat on the boat at anchor without running the generator, and we do not do that overnight. Fortunately, we were tucked in nicely and had no noticeable winds. 

Before sunrise, Clark jumped out of bed, turned on the generator and heat, and jumped back into bed where we remained until the state room was cozy warm for dressing. Reluctantly I dragged my body out of bed and made my way to view this morning's sunrise.

I piloted the boat through the Sassafras River and into the Chesapeake Bay. Clark had some things he wanted to take care of and surrendered the helm to me which is somewhat unusual.  Fortunately, today we had winds of about 15 knots - nothing like the 40 knot gusts of yesterday.

Once Clark took over the driving duties, I grabbed some obligatory pictures of the Bay like the Bay Bridge.

We saw little traffic today, but we managed to see / encounter the container ship shown below multiple times. In the picture below, the ship is at anchor. Later he pulled up anchor and followed us on the channel. Then later still , we saw him again at anchor off the Solomons where we turned in to find a place to drop anchor for the night because the channel he needed ahead was closed for his draft.

YM Trust - Container Ship

I grabbed more pictures of other usual sightings on the Bay.

Typical Lighthouse

I really liked the sails on the boat below. Too bad I can't read the message on the sail. We had to make a detour as we appeared to be on a collision course, and boats under sail have the right-of-way. We passed behind him and heard "Thanks Captain!" on the VHF radio. Was he calling us? Probably.

Below is the container ship once again after passing us. Timing was bad as we were crossing the main channel at the time of the encounter. Given that, we had to change our route slightly so as not to be in his path.

From a distance I wondered what the somewhat odd-shaped object was in the waterway ahead. The round top, white color, and the birds made it look less like a buoy than I expected. 

We saw YM Trust for a last time as we turned into the Patuxent River to look for an anchorage. He was at anchor at the entrance to the river.

We heard the captain talking to a pilot boat about navigation. Shortly afterwards, we saw the boat below going into the Patuxent River.

Pilot Boat

I tried very hard to capture a picture of the light breaking through the thick dark clouds. Most pictures did not show the rays clearly.

While searching for a place to drop anchor, we found some tugs docked on the Patuxent River.

As soon as we had the anchor down, Clark had me at work holding up the instrument panel in the pilot house while he explored the NEMA-0183 wire connections. As I held the display at a 45 degree angle while he worked, I saw the sun set. With both arms / hands occupied, I got no picture!

Once Clark finished analyzing wires, he went to the stern for more repair work trying to get carbon buildup out of the reversing motor for the auto pilot. It failed yesterday and again today briefly until he tapped on it. Tonight, he partly opened it and blew out the carbon and sprayed it with contact clear to wash more. He is hoping this will be a more long-term solution after this work tonight.

Dinner was late tonight. I worked on a blog update instead of cooking since Clark was busy working on the boat.

2024 October: Enter Chesapeake Bay

13 October 2024
Depart: Brigantine anchorage, Atlantic City, NJ 7:30 a.m.
Arrive: Cohansey Cove along Delaware River, NJ 4:15 p.m.
Distance: ~ 72 nm

Clark did a lot of analysis to decide which route we would take today. The choices were Atlantic Ocean or Chesapeake Bay. Ocean travel would get us to Norfolk, VA faster by a couple of days. We managed to do that trip last year for the first time ever and loved it. We have been up and down the Chesapeake Bay more times than I can count, and it seems like every anchorage we stay in is called "Mill Creek"!

Unfortunately, the weather proved uncooperative for an ocean voyage this time, so we headed for an anchorage off the Delaware River for the night. Sadly, this not only adds days to our travel, but sends us northwards into colder weather expected over the next few days.

Before pulling up anchor, I watched the sun come up over the anchorage.

This anchorage has an intimidating entrance with a narrow entrance with marshes to one side and a beach to the other. The deeper water is along the edge of the marsh grass. We came in at high tide and saw no less than 4 feet of water below the boat. 

We had a good view of the Atlantic City casinos from our boat this morning.

As the sun came up, it reflected in the windows of some houses by the anchorage.

Since we have been up and down the Jersey shore numerous times, the sites from the boat are familiar. I grabbed only a picture of the Ferris wheel at one of the resort towns along the way.

Having been underway for about 5 hours, we finally arrived at Cape May. We had been traveling all that time heading into the southerly wind and oncoming waves. The motion of the boat was comparable to riding a rocking horse for that amount of time. It might be fun at first but loses its attractiveness as time goes on! When Clark said the winds and waves would pick up in the afternoon, I was mighty glad he had decided on heading for the Chesapeake Bay.

We traversed the Cape May Canal to Delaware Bay and into the Delaware River. At 1:30, we entered Delaware Bay with calm seas and all looked good. Clark selected "Cohansey Cove" on the New Jersey side of the river as tonight's anchorage. Unfortunately, when we arrived there, we found it to be a mine field of crab pots. 

Everywhere we looked in every direction, we found pot after pot. By the time we arrived, the wind had picked up. The associated wave action made the crab pots bob up and down giving us a hard time surveying the area for a place to drop anchor, so I went out on the bow for better visibility. We finally found a place big enough to drop anchor and have swing room as the tide changed. The spot was not ideal but seemed to be our only option.

As the evening wore on, we discovered that we had chosen one of our worst anchorage spots ever. The tide forced the boat sideways to the waves. Some rocking was so severe we were pretty sure it came from wakes of boat traffic on top of the waves formed by the wind. (We are only stabilized when underway!) 

Walking in the boat was difficult as we rocked heavily from side-to-side. Cooking dinner was an interesting challenge. Hunting down and securing items swinging, banging, and falling in the boat helped pass the time.  Clark yelled out, "Sundown", so I could grab a picture. I told him I was busy chasing pots around the kitchen, and he could take one. It did not happen!

We hoped it would calm down as the night progressed and the wind abated. However, at midnight, I was still being thrown from side to side in bed holding on to the side of the bed to stay mostly in one place. Clark suggested that the winds would calm down around 2:00 a.m. and it did but at 3:00 I was still awake! Needless to say, it was not a pleasant night and not conducive to sleeping.

14 October 2024
Depart: Cohansey Cove anchorage 7:35 a.m.
Arrive: Sassafras River, Money Creek, Anchorage, Maryland 1:50 p.m.
Distance: ~52 nm

Motion sickness is not something I generally need to deal with, but with so little sleep last night, and many hours since I ate dinner, I felt "peculiar" this morning. Clark said we needed to get going as early as possible today to catch the current going up the river. Given that breakfast would need to wait. I grabbed a handful of almonds and a glass of water and hoped for the best. (I did eventually feel myself after eating a full breakfast.)

As I waited for Clark to get the engines up and running, I took a couple of sunrise pictures. That was the best part of dragging my body out of bed this morning.

We got underway and continued our way up the Delaware River towards the C&D Canal. We had light winds and little traffic.  Our last view of New Jersey is the Salem Nuclear Power Plant. Today it was brightly lit by the sun as we approached.

On the Delaware River, we passed the "Green Warrior" from Monrovia. I liked the "Pi-like" symbol on the ship. We were traveling outside the channel, so he had plenty of room.

Then, later, we saw a barge being pushed by a tug. These are a common sight in this area.

Entering the C&D Canal, we saw the usual sights. A few folks were using the trails along the canal - biking or running. Passing by Chesapeake City, we checked out the sailboats lined up at the town dock. It looked like they had a full house.

On the opposite shore, we spied the marina at Schaefer's Canal House with a pilot boat docked nearby.

Fall colors have just started to appear on the C&D Canal.

When we had entered the C&D Canal, Clark radioed a tug named "Rock Hall" for his plans so that we could navigate such that we did not get in his way. We followed him the length of the canal. 

As we made our way along the waterway, we heard someone with a very loud mouth haling a vessel. Until he passed us, we did not know he was calling us. Our vessel name is clearly displayed. He did not use it. As it turned out, some sailing vessel replied to him in our stead. As he flew by us, I said, "Oh, he was calling us!"

Later, as that same loud mouth, approached "Rock Hall", he called on the radio "tug, we're passing on your starboard". He got no response. He tried again. Eventually, "Rock Hall" answered and said, "Are you haling 'Rock Hall'?" He then proceeded to give the haling boater a harsh lecture on boating etiquette and told him to use a boat's name when calling. The loud mouth gave a "yeah, sure" kind of reply - not polite and not quite totally rude. Clark said, "That guy is a jerk!" Harsh words from Captain Clark! To me it sounded like he thought he owned the waterways.

The wind has not been our friend thus far on the trip. Just before entering the C&D Canal, the winds suddenly jumped from 12 knots to gusts of up to 40 knots. The weatherman had said to expect a sudden change in wind speed, and he was correct.

As we departed the Elk River at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, we had 4 foot waves with a very short period causing water to splash over the top of our boat that stands almost 20 feet tall. At lunchtime I ate down below where the wave action was not so noticeable. I had a nice break from wind and waves.

Clark later told me about a sailboat that he had seen so far keeled over in the river that its rail was in, or practically in, the water. He said it looked "scary".  He took a picture of the boat, but it was not keeled over at the time.

At 12:45 Clark asked me what I wanted to do - exit the Bay and enter the Sassafras River to look for an anchorage or continue on the Bay. Visibility had become somewhat poor, so I suggested we bail out and try for better weather tomorrow.

Even on the Sassafras River conditions were not ideal, and I prayed that Clark would find an anchorage that would allow me to sleep tonight. He said there looked to be a good place about a mile up river. We were on lookout for traps bobbing in waves as we entered the river in search of the anchorage.

As we traveled along, we collected a number of seagulls who must have thought we were a returning fishing boat.

We poked ourselves into an anchorage tucked around a corner in the river. We could still see white caps on the water but only baby ones. 

Since we dropped anchor so early in the day, I got to do the bulk of the blog update early! Yay!

Today's travels ... New Jersey to Maryland.

Evening sky at the anchorage ...

2024: October means we are heading south

Summer 2024

Our summer flew by in a blur of house and boat expenses - some planned and others not-so-much! The house needed some TLC this summer. When we departed last October, I left myself a note that the washing machine was in desperate need of replacement. The wallpaper in both the kitchen and the laundry room had been up so long it was falling off the walls. I had it held in place last summer with scotch tape and thumb tacks. 

Right after we started working on those projects, we discovered we had a serious problem with the sewer line. Clark identified the problem by hearing the sump pump in the basement run repeatedly for no apparent reason. We have a dry basement, and it should only run if we use the basement sink. Uh oh! Unfortunately, Clark did not realize the size of our problem until he took a shower, and the shower water poured through the ceiling of our finished basement! Not pretty!

Clark said we had a blockage somewhere and called a plumber to come investigate. He was smart enough to realize that this job was more than he could handle and told us to call the township to see if it was street-side. They came quickly and after some preliminary evaluation, gave us the contact information for the plumbers they use. They too appeared quickly and found we had tree roots on our property blocking the sewer water from escaping our house. 

I will omit all the sordid details of the digging up of our front yard as well as tearing out the steps to one of our doors to the house and tearing down part of a wall in the basement we just had rebuilt last summer. It was all rather overwhelming to say the least. As we tried to get this under control, we identified a separate issue of a leaking hot water pipe coming from our downstairs bathroom. This too was making puddles in the basement. 

As we tried to identify what problems we had and where they originated, Clark gave me instructions on where I could do what. It started with, "Do not use the upstairs toilets." "Shower on the boat." Once we identified the hot water pipe leak, it became all of the above, plus "Wash hands in the kitchen sink." At one point I was so confused on where I could do what I just asked Clark, "Where do I go?" How confusing it was just to take care of simple bodily functions!

Meanwhile, we still had the kitchen and laundry room torn apart as we tried to prep the walls to be painted. Clark did the spackling. The day he did the bulk of the spackling, I shut myself in my bedroom to escape the chaos. After a day of hiding from it all, I got down to business and painted both rooms. Eventually, we got it all under control. The rooms spackled and painted. The new washing machine installed. The broken and clogged sewer pipes taken care of. The basement wall and ceiling repaired.
The back steps rebuilt. The nightmare had finally passed.

However, we still had a list of items lined up for the boat. On a regular basis the boat has to be hauled out of the water at a marina to have bottom work done. This year was one of those years. So, we had to get that scheduled and underway. Just about the time we got the house together, the boat was hauled and required daily trips to the marina with long lists of items to be tackled while "on the hard". To say we had a relaxing spring and early summer would be a huge misstatement. 

The boat was out of the water for about six weeks as both Clark and the marina staff labored to get her into prime operating condition. We came away quite a bit poorer in the pocket but with various problems fixed and some updated electronics on board. 

After the house drama and boat work, the fun started. We had visits with all our grandchildren. Two are in Connecticut and three in Idaho. We had all five together at the beginning of August and what fun that was. I worked for several weeks before they all came putting together craft kits, and every morning we did crafts together. I have 4 granddaughters and 1 grandson ages 10 years to 4 years old. It was challenging to find crafts we could all do together. Afternoons were reserved for boating and outdoor activities. 

In the spring, my son and daughter-in-law in Idaho bought a new-to-them house built in 1920s. They invited us to visit them in early September. I had fun with the granddaughters while Clark worked with our son to investigate and address a variety of electrical issues with the house including, among other things, installing a new breaker and 4-prong outlet for their electric dryer. I certainly got the better end of that deal. When we left, the house was in much better condition than when we arrived. 

Since the kids were in school, we walked with them to their bus stop. In doing so, we met many of the "bus stop parents". Twenty minutes after the kids and bus were gone, we were still talking to the parents. One of them decided to throw and end-of-summer pool party, and we got to attend. Such fun! All too soon, the Idaho trip concluded, and it was time to return home and start prepping the boat for our departure south.

Generally, we depart from home to start our way south as early in October as feasible with the goal of waiting for the east to be free of hurricanes. This year we had more than hurricanes to bring into consideration for our travel plans. Our neighborhood decided to hold their "First Annual Block Party" for our street. 

We have lived in our neighborhood for over 30 years. In that time folks that we knew departed, and many new families moved in. With a desire to meet more of our neighbors, we decided to wait until after that event to depart. We could make the planned date, but if bad weather got in the way, we would not make the rain date. Fortunately, we had marvelous weather for the event and got to meet many of our neighbors whom we had not met before. 

The young ones on the street designed a stained-glass "W" for "Wardell Avenue" out of painter's tape and sidewalk chalk. I was very impressed with the end result.

 11 October 2024

Depart: Home (Rumson, NJ) 5:10 p.m.

Arrive: Atlantic Highlands, NJ anchorage 6:20 p.m.

Distance: ~ 8.5 nm

Immediately following the block party on the 5th, I knew that departure would be imminent. I just hoped Clark would give me more than 24 hours notice on when we would pull in our lines and get underway. Watching the weather and taking care of last-minute purchases and boat work, Clark said we would be leaving on October 12th. 

Over those several days, I made more trips carrying things to the boat than I could count.  I dislike dragging things off the boat in the spring and toting them all back in the fall, but it has to be done. I had just gotten down to the last bags of items and was ready to sit down to relax when Clark said, "How about we leave tonight to get a head start on the trip tomorrow?" 

I had hoped to avoid a "fire-drill" scenario, but I know with Clark that it is always a possibility. He made the suggestion we leave at about 3:30 in the afternoon. Just after 5:00 we were underway. It works out well that we are both good with spontaneity. 

We need the Sea Bright bridge open for vertical clearance. It has been under construction for ages. For part of October, it was closed to boat traffic.

Later construction reports indicated that during a portion of October, only one span of the bridge would be opening. With the width of our boat, I was glad Clark was driving and not me. However, as we approached both spans went up. Yippie! Turns out that today after 5:00 p.m. was the first day both spans would open. How was that for timing!

We made it to our anchorage one minute before sunset! 

After anchoring, we had a view of the NYC skyline albeit through somewhat hazy skies.

12 October 2024
Depart: Atlantic Highlands, NJ anchorage 7:35 a.m.
Arrive: Atlantic City, NJ anchorage 5:45 p.m.
Distance: ~ 83 nm

Folks who know us well, know that we are night owls and sleep in late in the morning unless it is time to travel on the boat. Today we were up before the sun. Granted it was only by 5 minutes before, but still impressive for us.

Typically, we get underway as quickly as possible and then eat breakfast as we travel. As per usual, Clark was stationed at the anchor with me at the helm until underway. Once he took over the helm, I went to make breakfast. No sooner did I step into the salon than I shot right back up top. "Clark! The dinghy cover is flying off the back of the boat like a giant flag waving in the wind."

He had been working in the dinghy and forgot to redo the tie downs. We are lucky it did not break free completely.  As I took over the helm, he subdued the flapping canvas and buckled it back into place. Once that was taken care of, I was back in the galley prepping food. 

I snuck out and captured a picture of NYC as we approached the main channel into the Atlantic Ocean.

We had a pleasant, uneventful trip down the coast. As we passed Little Egg / Great Bay Inlet, we found a dredging operation underway. 

I found it humorous that the birds turned the piping into their new fishing hangout.

Shortly after we passed the Great Bay Inlet, I could see a water spout appearing periodically ahead of us. We had heard a report on the VHF radio of someone spotting a Right Whale earlier in the day. I wondered if this spout could be another whale. Eventually, we determined it was a whale. I got a great view of it as it passed close by our port side. Sadly, once I had the camera ready, the whale never made another appearance. 

I did get to see the full length of the whale and its markings. I believe it was a humpback whale which according to Google is the most common whale seen off the Jersey coast. A while later, nearer to Atlantic City, we saw more water spouts, but they were smaller and coming from a pod of dolphins. 

Approaching Atlantic City, we were heading into the sun. I took the picture below knowing it would be dark, but I liked the silhouette of the skyline.

Once we got the sun out of our eyes, we had a clearer view of the city.

Making our approach on Atlantic City, we decided to head for the Brigantine anchorage we have used in the past. It is always interesting going in there due to "skinny" water levels.  We saw nothing less than 4 feet of water below the keel, but we came in at high tide. Hopefully, we will have good water when we leave in the morning.

I forgot to look for a sunset picture as I dove into making dinner as soon as the anchor was down.