Early season cruising.
Helacious on the dock in Spanish Wells.
We have another week in Spanish Wells, Eleuthera, after our guests had left. This was not necessarily because we have a particular fondness for Spanish Wells (although we do). It was because the weather was proving problematic yet again. Initially, for ease with our guests, we were on a dock, but while waiting for weather we moved out to the anchorage.
Storms passing through the Bahamas.
We wander around town, exploring the island from tip to toe. The lobster season is over and the traps, simply made from corrugated steel and two-by-fours are stacked on the side of the road. We are boarded by Ted, a solo sailor we first met in the Caribbean a few years ago. He is also heading north, so we exchange weather information.
Finally there is a weather window.The dinghy is put on the deck and we cross from the Bahamas, to Charleston SC. It was a 3.5 day passage and the weather turned out to be just right. We entered the Gulf Stream just off Grand Bahama and rode it the whole way, until we stepped off and slid into Charleston harbor. We sailed mostly, motored a little and motorsailed overnight for a while. While in the Gulf Stream, we had a couple of fishing lines out all day, with not even a nibble. It was surprising, as we expected the warm tropical waters would encourage abundant sea life. As soon as we left the stream, heading toward Charleston harbor entrance, we had a bite and the line zinged out. A good sized King Mackerel was landed and dispatched. We then went to pull in the second line, only to find it, too, had a fish on. A very dead small tuna, a Little Tuny, was brought in and also filleted.
That evening we visited Brent and Kianna in their apartment, and enjoyed fresh sushi.
It took a couple of days to replenish ship’s supplies after 4 months of Bahamian grocery stores. We also picked up and stowed the many packages we had been ordering and sending to Charleston. Thanks Kianna, you are a trooper! A visit with friends Edwin and Karen from Frogs Leap before they head off to Bermuda and Azores, and we were ready to go. The forecast for rounding Hatteras was rather sporty, but at least the wind was behind us. If it got too much we would tuck into Beaufort and wait for more clement conditions.
As it turned out we sailed with the headsail alone, downwind in 27kt. Hatteras. the “graveyard of the Atlantic” was not going to claim us this time. We must have sailed through a train of flying fish, judging by the carnage on the deck the next morning, some quite large. They are meant to be tasty, but we always seem to find them too late, rather desiccated. Arrival into the Chesapeake Bay was celebrated with our new and appropriately named anchor dram.
The lower temperature in Virginia was a bit of shock to the system. The socks came out and the diesel stove went on. We based ourselves in the East River, just south of Matthews. It is a favorite anchorage and convenient for groceries while waiting for weather, and not too far from the entrance, when wanting to move on.
While we waited, we unpacked all the boxes of new or replacement parts and equipment that we had ordered in Charleston. A new radio went in, with remote handset in the cockpit. The window frames were rebedded with epoxy, touched up and repainted. The winches were all cleaned and re-greased.
The biggest job of all, and the most unpleasant, was repainting some of the decks. The KiwiGrip had started to detach and chip off the aluminum base. It was looking shabby. What was more concerning was that under seemingly good paint, we found pockets of corrosion, where sea water had trickled in and reacted with the deck. Brian pulled out the grinder and spent hours on his knees, removing all the old paint (ironically firmly attached in large areas) and then repainting with a new product, Tuff Coat. He did a heroic job and it looks great.
We were following the weather closely, hoping to make the jump north to Newport and Cape Cod. However the train of lows that passed by every two or three days would not give us the break we needed to make the passage. The weather was behaving like early spring instead of the early summer weather patterns we had been hoping for. Finally we saw an opening. Riding the tide out of the Bay we pass under bridge and point our bow north.
Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
Helacious sailing into the sunset.
It was a two night passage to the entrance of New York, or a little longer to Newport. The weather forecast was a little unusual in that the predicted wind was in the mid teens, nice steady sailing conditions, but the gusts were approaching 30kt. Such a huge discrepancy was unsettling. We decided to stick close to shore to begin with, then if we made the choice to head for Newport we would veer off. After a lovely overnight sail to the entrance of Delaware Bay we turned our bow to the northeast. The conditions seemed steady and quite manageable. Maybe the gusts forecast was just a glitch.
Then the squalls started to pop up. The wind did increase to 27kt and more, and then it was gone. We were struggling to keep the sails full in the vacuum following the passing storm cells. We readjusted our course again, turned on the engine and resigned ourselves to a slower trip to Cape Cod. The discrepancy in the predicted wind and gust strength maybe indicated this squall activity.
As it grew light the next morning we peered out into the fog. A thick blanket surrounded us, approaching the Verrazzano-Narrows bridge we saw nothing. We were just outside the shipping channel and heard the loud fog horn from a massive container ship passing just meters away, but could still see nothing. It was surreal.
We only saw the bridge as we passed underneath.
Entering New York harbor, the fog began to lift.
The tide for passing up the East River, past Manhattan needs to be timed carefully. The current can run above 4kt, and the whirlpools and eddies at Hells Gate, where three rivers converge, are notorious. We got lucky. It turned to flood just as we approached and we had a fair tide in our favor all the way past La Guardia airport to the Port Washington anchorage. The fog turned to blue skies as we sped by.
The Long Island Railmen were on strike, so a visit to the city was out. We instead explored the leafy back streets of Port Washington and had a nice lunch. We were surprised at how empty this popular anchorage was. Apparently the season up in New York does not begin until after Memorial Day at the end of May. We were a couple of weeks early. The downside of this is that all the services laid on for the itinerant cruising boat, the shoreside showers, laundry facilities and water taxi, were not yet available.
It only took a couple of hops up Long Island Sound, stopping at Port Jefferson and Fisher Island, with the tide in our favor for long stretches, to arrive in Newport, RI. The harbor was empty, just a few boats on moorings and in the anchorage. Again, the facilities at the Newport maritime center were not yet open, the season had not begun.
Empty moorings in Newport harbor.
The next day we explored Newport. It is a quaint downtown, with a lot of well maintained historic homes. The main drag is Thames Street, filled with restaurants, tourist shops and sailing related wear, some fashionable, some practical.
The large mansions along Bellevue Avenue were impressive in their size and flamboyant architecture, representative of the good times during the Gilded Age in the late nineteenth century. However, it was the trees in the manicured lawns that impressed us more. Unusual species and having space and time to reach truly enormous sizes.
Everything had just leafed out and was in bloom. A perfect time to enjoy them.
A day spent with friends and the delivery of yet more packages, thanks Allison and John, and it was time to move on. We had a lovely sail to Onset Bay where we could wait and time our passage through the Cape Cod canal the following morning. We arrived in Plymouth MA the next afternoon.
Another nearly empty mooring field and dinghy dock with mostly work boats, and of course no facilities. We spent a few days here, checking out Jake’s new HQ, and exploring the town with its historical roots. There was a replica of the Mayflower ship that was made in 1957 and sailed from the south west of England to Plymouth, recreating the original journey of the Pilgrims 400 years ago.
The Mayflower II.
Of course we explored it. It was interesting, especially as just a year ago, we had visited Dartmouth where the Speedwell and Mayflower had departed from, looking for a new life in the New World. The Speedwell was not seaworthy and had to return, leaving the Mayflower to complete the trip alone. Not very large for its load of over 100 passengers (plus crew and animals).
We saw the Plymouth rock, supposedly where they stepped ashore, now safely in its cage. We wandered around town and enjoyed the burial ground high on the hill overlooking the town. Some of the old names were amusing, Jerusha and Lothrop, really?
A quick trip from Plymouth to Provincetown, out at the hook of Cape Cod, and there we wait for the conditions to be suitable for the next passage. We are ready to start our journey east.
Provincetown, MA.