FLASHBACK! The Big Apple to Delaware…2007.

We arrived today after a very foggy passage through Hell Gate. The sun cleared, and we enjoyed a breezy 85 degree day here!. We will see a Broadway show tomorrow or Monday, as well as take a city Tour on the busses. We will watch the sun go down atop the Empire State Building, and walk a LOT! After 3 or 4 days, we will head south, and try to escape the colder weather that is approaching!

We walked the sidewalk of one of the priciest residential areas in the world, past the Dakota where John Lennon once lived then crossed the street to Central Park. We were doing a walk across the park to see what is there. We had just passed a little ground level monument called Strawberry Fields when we saw one of the few street, or in this case, park fellows camped out on a bench. There really aren’t many street people around these days. New York City is quite different from the misimpressions many have of the place. The bench dwellers sign was interesting and he did not look all that scary. (See picture in album)We had in our backpack a Mountain Dew bottle with special toasting contents for later that afternoon when we would be on top of the Empire State Building watching the sun set over New Jersey. I don’t like giving money to people on the street but would rather give them a sandwich or something the money should buy. I just got inspired so Rebecca and I did a U-turn. Fred was well spoken and seemed like a nice guy. I asked if he had a cup and he pulled from a bag, an empty can. I told Fred to be careful with what I was giving him. Fred took a sip, “Very tasty” he commented. Have a nice Columbus Day Fred.
There are always a lot of people and couples enjoying Central Park. There is nothing threatening about this place. On the contrary the street musicians help to keep a happy atmosphere. We waked past a large man made pond where you can rent remote control sail boats. What makes for a nice day in the park does not make for a good day of sailing on the pond. There were at least 18 boats ghosting around. Near the east side of the park we turned right and slowed down at the zoo. From outside the short zoo fence we watched 10 minutes of the sea lion show then moved on as it was getting late in the day. Back on the city street by the CBS studios, the third bus we approached finally was the one to take us to the Empire State Building. We already left the stop and Rebecca took a seat behind the driver while I tried to figure out how to pay for our ride. The drivers machine would only take change, no bills. We had a problem. The driver had me empty my pocket of change into the machine. There was not that many coins but it got us the ride. It was a bit crowded on the observation deck of the Empire State Building but all the people with different accents added to the fun. From 80 stories up, it was a beautiful red sunset through only a thin veil of haze on the horizon. We stayed and watched as all the tall and short and wide buildings of the city evolved from monochrome hues to pinpricks of white then reds, blues, greens and all the neon colors which lit up and outlined buildings, streets and bridges and made it seem as day again but with many more colors. When we walked out the front door of the Empire State Building onto 34th street we took a left. Flood, a good looking black teenager, or was he in his early twenties, was there hawking a rap CD. I don’t know why he followed us around the corner to 5th Ave and I don’t know why I started talking to him. Maybe it was that long Mountain Dew toast and quick change in air pressure from 80 stories up. I told him to look at me, why would you think I would be into Rap. Now if you have some good Soul like Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye or Sam and Dave I could be interested. Flood looked at me with a total blank. I don’t think he ever heard of these finer names. Then Flood threw into his sales pitch that he recorded the CD himself, he would let me have it for $5. I thought why not take a chance. At least he is out working and trying to do something productive. Much later when we listened to the CD we were impressed. We could understand the words and they did tell a story.Walking along fortysomething street at seven minutes till eight PM, we were looking for some 1950’s chrome hamburger place we had passed yesterday or the day before. We have put on a lot of miles on the sidewalks of NYC but still have not learned our way back to anything but the tallest landmarks. As we approached another marques overhanging the sidewalk it said John Mayall and Dave Mason. We stopped. I had to ask the doorman standing at the velvet rope, who was playing tonight. He said John Mayall and Dave Mason. What time do they start, In 5 minutes from now. It is amazing how fast one’s plans or lack of plans can change in New York City. Rebecca and I got 2 great seats up front at BB Kings. John Mayall was good but was merely the opening act for Dave Mason who barreled through 2 hours of Traffic songs. Mason did not need Clapton on lead guitar. The guy playing lead was flawless. It was an incredible night of tight music. What a treat.

You cannot go to NYC and not see a play. We saw Mamma Mia. How impressive the skill, the voices, the energy, the ornateness of the theater. Thanks Peter G for suggesting Mamma Mia. And I so ignorantly suggested Abba was dorky music. To help remember the fun time, we went to the music store and bought the CD. We could easily spend another four days in NYC but that would deplete our cruising fund by 6 months. Time to sail on south!

The sun was out but it was cool as we sailed down the Hudson River past the long tall skyline of NYC. The cold, we needed to get south where we don’t have to wear sweatshirts and layers to be comfortable. We sailed on by a statue of a tall lady waving goodbye to us. Someone told me long ago “the best time to leave a place is when you are having fun. The memories will always be good and you will always want to return.” Already, we are looking forward to that big green lady to be waving hello to us in a few years!

Dodging huge ferry boats, anchored barges and fast moving tug boats (this is not a harbor for a sailor who does not know the rules of the road, and at times willing to press the issue) we made our way seaward under the huge Varrezano Narrows Bridge. Several hours later we sailed into a harbor at Sandy Hook. After a nights rest, this would be our jumping off spot into the Atlantic Ocean. The harbor we first pulled into was formed by a manmade breakwater. It was as crowded as a charter boat anchorage in the Caribbean. With the wind shift and high winds anticipated later that night, it looked like the making for a Caribbean style anchoring fiasco. We took our chances and sailed two miles across to an area near the point of Sandy Hook and dropped the anchor in a nice little cove surrounded by a tree lined but rocky shore. The wind was now blowing strong but we were well protected in the calm nook. That would change after midnight with the wind shift exposing us to a full fetch and much larger waves. We have a 65 pound anchor and all chain rode. This will be a good test. After we were settled in for the rough night ahead, a 40′ sailboat from Canada, named Falcons Nest, with only one person on board, dropped their hook not to far from us.

After midnight the wind did shift to the west with gusts up to 35 knots. The wind generator on the back of our boat sounded like the unbalanced engine of a Cessna 150. The vibrating prop was well above head height but still seemed dangerously close. It was mounted there years ago by a previous owner but still we had to wonder what if it came flying loose, what a mess it would make. The Cessna was pumping out 14 amps and topping off our large bank of batteries.

All night we left the Raymarine chart plotter on and set it in tracking mode. The tracks showed us swinging in an arch, back and forth, with the wind shifts. Rebecca also set up a drift distance alarm and a depth sounder alarm and an alarm on the RADAR. Yes, Rebecca is a bit of an alarmist but we only started this trip 14 days ago. I slept at the chart table, occasionally raising my head to keep an eye on all the electronics and to poke my head out the cockpit. Rebecca slept in the bunk. Rebecca’s hearing is so good she could hear the electronic alarms if she were standing on shore. One neat thing Rebecca did do was take the wireless Tacktick instruments to bed with her. She had her wind and depth information on her pillow. With daylight the wind was still blowing strong and would do so all day. Looking outside I saw the Canadian boat had a little billow of sail which had come loose from his roller furling jib. It wasn’t much and the single hander was working on the little problem. A half hour later, Rebecca woke me and told me the Canadian was in trouble. As often happens, that little billow unfurled half his jib sail. It would not last long snapping around in 30 knots of wind. And it didn’t. It was being flogged into long panels. The extra windage was too much for his 25′ of anchor chain and 100’of nylon rode. He drifted past us within yelling distance. I offered to help but he did not feel comfortable dropping his dinghy from his davits to come get me. In the wind it would be impossible to launch our dinghy from our deck. Already he had called the Coast Guard, but he was quickly drifting towards a very rocky shore and the Coast Guard was nowhere in sight. I scrambled to float to him our 100′ of spare nylon anchor line in hopes our ground tackle would hold him and us. It took me too long and his boat was well past when the anchor line, buoyed by fenders, streamed straight behind us. Rebecca and I were both scared to death for the guy. We had seen the boat at the same marina in NYC a few days before. We assumed he was just beginning a voyage as we were and we did not want to witness his terrible end. We jumped to our Lofrans, Tigress windlass and let the chain fly. We already had 100′ out and tore through 135′ more. We had to keep the last 65′ of chain in the locker as a cushion and tightened up the brake on the windlass. The strong wind threw our bow around and we drifted quickly but still our rate of drift only matched his. As the jerk of our anchor pulled our bow back into the wind, the white fender with the nylon line attached was still 100′ in front of him. There was nothing more we could do. It was a terrible feeling to stand in our cockpit watching a disaster happen and unable to help. The Canadian had drifted from 14 feet of water and now was in 8 and the tide was going out. It appeared though, the shallow water enabled his anchor to catch as he was making little if any more drift towards the rocks. Like the Calvary, a small Coast Guard boat appeared on scene just in time. From deeper water they tossed a heaving line and passed a towing line to the Canadian. There would be no attempt to save the anchor. The Canadian had to cut the anchor free for the Coast Guard to tow him to safety. That evening we were able to talk to Canadian, Phil, on the VHF radio as he was tied safely to a dock. Of course the jib is destroyed and he lost his anchor. A jib sheet fell over the side and had wrapped around the propeller. His repairs are easy. It was a learning experience, and like for us, preparation for the more difficult anchoring in the coral environment of the Bahamas. Somewhere in the Bahamas the paths of Brick House and Falcons Nest will cross again. For the rest of the storm and till the following morning, Brick House sat to a 65 pound plow anchor and 235 feet of chain. It would take a lot more than 35 knots to budge us. I didn’t bother looking at the electronic drift alarms again.

Patrick

We spent a couple of nights in Sandy Hook, NJ. We arrived with one boat up on the beach, and took that as a warning! The one other boat arrived after us, making the total count in that anchorage 3…one on the beach, and 2 in the water including us. The winds wipped up for 48 hours, at about 30-35 knots, and we were fairly exposed, as the wind came around, to waves. I fell in love with my Tacktick instruments those couple of nights. Instead of getting up to see if the wind had increased , or our depth had decreased, or if our speed over ground was increasing….I SLEPT with a wireless display in my hands! If I awoke for a minute scared things were getting worse, I could look at the instrument clenched in my fist and see that all was OK. Of course we wtill had the anchor alarm on the Raymarine Chartplotter set so if I fell asleep and didnt look at my instruments at hand, we would know we were dragging anchor. But I must say it was WONDERFUL to have the wireless Tacktick instruments in BED with me! We had good luck, the guy next to us had bad luck, and lots of it. First his headsail unfurled, and got tangled miserably out of control. That windage then caused him to drag anchor. We spoke to him on the radio and told him to be careful of the lines he had over the side. He acknowledged but wasnt able to do anything with the lines for whatever reason. He then lost the engine, and could not motor against the dragging ( line tangled in his prop). He told us the coast guard was on the way for him. We could not launch our dinghy in that kind of wind and waves, and he was too afraid to launch his from his davits to come get Patrick who offered to go over there and help him. Patrick suggested he find a metal bar to help roll up the roller furling unit, but it was not well recieved. Patrick floated all of our spare anchor rode out to him with our fenders to try to get it over to him to hold him so we could hold him off the rocks if possible. We let out all of our anchor chain to try to float further back to him. There was just too much distance by this time, and we could not reach him. He was in water that on the chart said 3 feet, with big rocks and crashing waves behind him. Luckily, I guess, it was high tide so he wouldn’t go aground until he was on the rocks. Maybe low tide would have been better- at least then he would just be beached in the sand. But the coast guard arrived in the nick of time, and had him cut his anchor rode, and then towed him away to a nearby marina. It was so awful watching a boat that was similar to ours with a man onboard with similar plans to ours, being helplessless pulled towards the rocks, without being able to give him any help. If that guy did one thing MAJORLY wrong in MY opinion, it was not coming to get Patrick- Patrick would have made that boat stop dragging..but of course that guy doesnt know that about Patrick! ( I hope you read this soon- Patrick will read it and make me take it off !! :))
ON a happier note, the weather improved, our anchor stayed fast ( we had about a 15:1 scope of chain out!) , and we sailed out from there a day or so ago in glorious sunny weather.
We had a nice sail, a beam reach most of the way, past Atlantic City all lit up at night, about a 90 mile run down the coast. We arrived in the Delaware Bay this morning at about 10am to take a snooze..just because we can. Its nice to not be on a delivery type schedule! We will head back out in the next hour or two, to go another 110 miles down to Norfolk VA. The wind is from the west/northwest at about 15 knots, so it should be another nice sail down the coast. Both of us have done lots of offshore passages, lots of overnight sailing, lots of shorthanded overnight sailing, but its never been just the 2 of us offshore at night. We worked well together. I made dinner, then went to bed. I woke up at 12, and stayed on til 445am. Then he took over til I came up and we went in to port. Very easy and natural, no schedule, just both of us staying on as long as we could til having to pass it on to the next person. Well, time to batten down the hatches, and get ready for another cold but beautiful night! Its actually 70 degrees here right now, but it will be in the high 40s/low 50s sailing tonight. It was chilly last night! Thank god for our electronics that help one stay below a little longer, and in the cockpit for a little shorter. What music will I blast on my personal CD player tonight?
last night it was ABBA for me (Mamma Mia Broadway play CD). From listening to Patrick singing last night, I think he was listening to some serious RAP!