Harwich Port, MA - Claire

Fri May 30.
Update after arriving in Harwich Port, MA on Mon May 27.
Justice had a very warm welcome and we all celebrated Justice coming "home" to where she was built. With the builder present, we reviewed the list of owners in order and toasted her safe return. We relived the return passage after the 1995 Marion to Bermuda race, where Justice was the only boat that did not experience damage in 55 foot breaking waves.

Tuesday through Friday were filled with boat visits, stories of races and journeys on Justice and how she was built, meals with our generous hosts, and car tours of the nearby beautiful towns and amazing sites.

Toured Lieutenant Island which is not reachable by car at high tide. At low and mid tide, the road is clear and passable. Here is just one website with info about it: https://wellfleetconservationtrust.org/tag/lieutenant-island/

Also, on the mainland, a Herring Run:

Herring Run

 

Provincetown Coast Guard Station

beach roses, in many colors

Provincetown - Northern tip of CC, (view of CG Station)

reseeded grass to replace storm damaged area at Nauset Beach

Ready to head out Saturday morning June 1  

Why Does This Keep Happening To Us or Traits of Evil Powerboaters or Who Wants a Soft Warm Bed? - DAVE

Trends and Themes abound in life.  We can learn from the tense moments or, alternately, we can lament and endlessly repeat the phrase "Why Does This Keep Happening to US??"

Saturday dawned bright and clear.  It was to be a beautiful day. That was then.  This is now.  It is Monday, May 27th at 3 pm.  Or 15:00 hours.  Not sure which.   I am trying out the literary tool known as "The Unexpected Shifting of Perspective".  My "How to Write for the 1990's" book says this can be Very Powerful.  Anyway, we are charging across the Bay. The, uh, what bay is this one??  Oh yes we are in the Nantucket Sound.  Our goal is to make it to the entrance of Saquatucket Harbor before either darkness or the looming fog bank (welcome to Cape weather) prevents us from achieving the goal of a restful night. 

We have been kindly and graciously offered the use of the private dock of Mr B.G. Sykes, the second owner of Justice who I would describe as being dynamically enthusiastically effusively and energetically kind, warm, successful at multiple industries and technologies and who is of  excellent character.  I should mention that we have not met him yet.

Roughly three hours remaining in the day's travels as we dodged shoals, ferries, tugboats, and high speed Bay currents.  (How does one "dodge a current" in a sailboat?  Slowly Frances, Very Slowly....)  You may recall that during our overnight sojourn up the coast a commercial fishing boat (or pirate) played dodge boats with us for a while.  We survived.  We spotted a brightly painted red and white fishing boat at our two o'clock position moving from right to left across our path,  Both the radar and my visual assessment indicated that they would pass safely across our track and would not be a hazard.  They did so, but as we approached them they began to veer left and right.  They then turned left to a course that would take them past us in the opposite direction and perhaps 200 feet to our left.  Have you every pulled up to an intersection and can tell that the person in another car is NOT seeing you because they are looking the other way?  Yup, we could see that the guy driving this 28 foot fishing boat was looking AFT at the guy with the fish on his line and NOT where he was going.  Then, suddenly they turned abruptly left and proceeded to head directly at us.  He was clearly bent on broadsiding us like a British Warship!  I started an evasive turn but just like the LAST guy he kept turning as though bent on our mutual destruction!  When they were maybe 50 feet from hitting us I shouted at them to turn away.  The skipper looked in our direction for the very first time, our powerful hull and massive display of sails towered overhead, filling the sky immediately in front of him!  He donned a facial expression that encompassed about a thousand descriptive words, many of them epithetic, and frantically turned away from us at the very last moment.

No Frances, this is not the boat that almost hit us.  You think there is time to snap a carefully and artistically framed shot when DOOM is on the line?  This shot is actually after we passed through Hell Gate on the East River going through New York City.  Wait, I should write something about that!  With a name like HELL GATE SOMETHING dramatic must have happened there!

My heart rate was up a fair bit, even though HAD we collided they would likely have come out the worse for the encounter as we outweighed them by about 30,000 pounds.  Not once did I consider reversing course and running them down.  More like two or three times.  And then it struck me.  They were painted red and white!  The universal colors for warning, or DANGER!  It made me smile and we continued on our way to the safety of a snug harbor and a warm comfortable bed.

Moral of the story?  Pick two;

1. Always keep a wary eye out for danger
2. Power-boaters are inherently evildoers and bent on all manner of malfeasance
3. Fish can cause a form of insanity and, like the mermaids of old, can cause you to come to an ignominious end on the rocks of life.
4. Don't get so hung up on the allure of a restful place to arrive that it keeps you from turning and running down the aforementioned EPBs (Evil Powerboaters).
5. Dave should have had his warning air horn up in the cockpit where he could have used it to get the EPB's attention instead of safely tucked away below-decks at the Navigation Station.

Smile.
Dave

NY, RI, MA - Claire ( 2019 )

Let’s catch up.

Sat May 25, after motoring through NY, we anchored in Port Jefferson, NY

Sun May 26, Sailed to Block Island, RI. Anchored.

Mon May 27 sailing to Chatham, MA, our goal, with the help of current, motorsailing to get as close as possible to anchor before dark.

Through the Big Apple - Claire

Leaving New Jersey
The NJ Atlantic Highlands anchorage was pleasant, private and pretty. The wind cycled from super windy to light breeze and back.  I laid out the wet spinnaker to dry during a light wind window.

Using PredictWind and weather forecasts, we planned to go "on the outside" via the open ocean path to Cape Cod for 2 continuous days starting Sat. morning, but just as we were about to turn the corner to the ocean, we received a text from the first Justice owner, an experienced mariner who knows that area well. He suggested we take the New York City Harbor to Long Island Sound route instead. We quickly did tide and timing calculations for going through the famous "Hell Gate" which CAN have current as strong as 5 knots, best to be traveled with the current. As it ultimately turned out we were in a good window and it was an uneventful and picturesque. We have no exciting stories about that. Dave was disappointed that there were no death-defying moments. I was glad.

I have a childhood memory of a failed attempt to pass through Hell Gate or nearby at a not so well planned time in a 26' powerboat.  As a result I was well warned and prepared to spend another full day waiting for the right timing if we had to.  Dave had been to NY on Justice previously and I mistakenly thought he had "done" the Hell Gate before, but found out that this was his first time as well.

Entering New York waters
It WAS exciting to see the city from the river, as our friends had told us it would be! We saw:

• Great variety of architecture 
• Highways and bike trails
• Power stations and colleges
• Ferries, barges and helicopters
• Planes landing at La Guadia airport
• Prisons and parks
• Military vessels guarded by CG
• Skyscrapers and apartments
• Park art and logos

Just a few photos. More on other cameras to be retrieved later.

   

 

 

Current position update - use different site - Claire

VesselFinder.com is not posting our current position. Try MarineTraffic.com, which is showing us correctly  in mid-eastern Long Island Sound on Sun. May 26 10 am. MMSI is 367492040.

I will try to get the widget in the footer to follow us.

May 27 9:45 am update: MarineTraffic is also not keeping up with us, poss not without buying a subscription.

Overnight to Sandy Hook - Part 2 - Claire

The winds were mostly steady and from the same direction the whole trip overnight, as predicted. Therefore we didn't have to trim the sails much. We still watched for wind shifts and boats without AIS, by finding them on the radar and looking for their lights.

There are reasons people take few photos at night. I had my share of excuses, plus I was not going to go down below to plug in my phone or ask Dave to do anything while he was resting. So I missed taking a photo of the beautiful almost full orange moon rising. My regular camera has a disc formatting issue that we'll deal with when we have time.

Overnight highlights:

1. Wind was astern so we surfed down waves, our speed well matched with them. I could hear the waves breaking nearby. My hood masked much of the noise and I took it off from time to time not wanting to miss that or notice a change in the sea.
2. It was not very cold, and I was comfortable with my long johns, pants and snow-pants with legwarmers. 2 shirts, 2 jackets and a hat with ear covers and jacket hood. I'm glad there are not photos of that.  
3. Not much traffic came in an out of Atlantic City at our passing time, but we couldn't miss the city lights. Quiet VHF. The lights of a cruise ship in the distance had every color in the palette including blue which looked like marine police.
4. Two to 4 in the morning, I dreamed we were in a busy shipping channel with ships right next to us and that the weather got worse (prob because the motion of the boat was more obvious below, but had never changed). I asked Dave if he needed help a couple of times, but he did not and insisted I get some sleep before my watch. 
5. We motor-sailed when the winds were light, so we'd not take forever getting to Sandy Hook and risk losing our nice weather window.
6. My morning watch displayed a "Red sky at morning" sunrise. (You know the rest... Sailors take warning". The saying doesn't tell "when" to look out!). Clouds hovered over our destination to the west and I kept an eye on the visibility of the lights on shore, waiting for them to be extinguished by rain. When I thought the rain was getting close, I woke Dave so we could put up the rain enclosure and don foul weather gear if we wanted.
7. During Dave's morning watch, he managed to steer around a thunderstorm! (I said "just like you do when flying". He said "I can get closer to these."
8. We anchored at Atlantic Highlands 11:50 am Thurs 5/23.

Beach of Sandy Hook on port

NY City starboard

Atlantic Highlands anchorage

Fri, Dave made adjustments to the connector

The cockpit sides he made kept us dry. He made the cockpit dodger, bimini and cushion covers too.

Enlarging Photos: You can click on any photo in this blog to view it bigger.

- Claire

BOT or WOT: You Decide - David

Good morning everyone!  Claire has been doing most of the writing so it is my turn. Hang on.   As the famous singer once told the audience, “I have suffered for my music for many years; Now it is YOUR turn!!”

I absolutely cannot write without waxing a bit philosophic, but I am told that in a blog you will lose the audience if you go on and on…   Oh great….  I am doomed from the start!

Suffice to say that starting out on a trip like this involves apperception… going from the known to the unknown in steps.  We don’t like being surprised at the BOT (Best of Times), and when you are on the ocean at night it is NOT in the “BOT” category.  (Dark foreshadowing, you know something terrifying is coming).  

We started down the Delaware Bay on the 20^th, headed for the Cohansey River, a very familiar place.   The next morning, we proceeded for Lewes DE located at the mouth of the bay but half way there decided to end up at Cape May NJ, demonstrating flexibility.  Mission accomplished.  No injuries or major embarrassments.  Prettiest boat in the anchorage.  Ask anyone!   Day three dawned sunny and hopeful.  We headed out of the Cape May inlet northbound up the Atlantic coastline past throngs of persons taking pictures of the prettiest boat.  The daytime sailing was perfect, with Moderate winds propelling us along over Moderate waves punctuated by Moderate gusts enjoyed by a Moderate crew enjoying Moderate temperatures.  Dolphins jumped from the water to a Moderate height in order to get a good look at the pretty boat.  You get the idea.  The sunset brought with it a Moderate elevation in our level of care and preparation.  We were ready for ANYTHING.  Almost.  (Second foreshadowing).

The biggest risk in coastal ocean sailing is not getting lost, or big waves, or pirates…. It is all the OTHER VESSELS out there who want to use YOUR exact location in which to accomplish their floating!  Our Garmin navigation suite (yes, Frances, we DO have a “suite”) includes AIS (Automatic Identification System which plots the location, name, speed, direction, vessel size, and such on your navigation screen) combined with Doppler Radar which looks out for anyone heading in your direction and issues a warning.  Getting a warning generated from a fast-moving vessel at night might be considered a possible WOT event!  (Worst of Times).  It was 11 pm and time for Claire to take the watch and for me to get some rest in anticipation of taking over the watch at 2 AM.  Suddenly the chart plotter screen erupted in an explosion of warnings, all accompanied by the color red!  A suspicious looking (don’t most things look more suspicious at night?) commercial fishing vessel was headed right for us at high speed, and would be upon us in minutes!  With a voice tinged with fear, I said to Claire, “what do you think we should do”?  She suggested a turn.  We turned Left.  The phantom boat turned towards us.  We turned right.  The other vessel turned to intercept the new heading!  We turned further right 120 degrees to completely alter our path.  Once again, they turned directly towards us!!  Minds rushing, we considered the possibility of Pirates, Bermuda Triangle Phantom Ships, or the Coast Guard finally catching up with us!  BOT or WOT?  What to do!!??  We realized that since we were under sail so would have the right of way over a powered vessel.  We returned to our original course.  The fishing vessel passed behind us giving us plenty of room.  I remained fully awake for the next two hours thinking about how the Fishing Vessel Captain must have wondered if we were crazy.  Or Pirates.

The lessons learned?  Well, following the navigation rules comes to mind.  It is easier to respond correctly to any situation when you are calm and happy versus worried and fearful.   How to mitigate threats?  Perhaps keep a reasonable perspective and don’t have one set of expectations in the daylight and another in the dark, in spite of how much easier it is to worry in the dark.  Don’t create a threat in your mind that does not exist in the world around you.  BOT or WOT?   You get to decide.

-        Dave

Cape May to Sandy Hook, NJ: Part 1 - Claire

 Harbor of Refuge Light at mouth of DE Bay

Delayed post since spotty wi-fi, only 30 miles off NJ during my planned writing window.

Goal 1: The Ocean

Tuesday was my introduction to ocean waves. The 8-10 knot winds and 3 foot waves were rolling down the bay and gradually mixed with the ocean swells coming in. We took turns hand steering, which was a chore to keep the boat on course and not broaching. Keeping Harbor of Refuge light on our right, we bravely wove through the shallow lumps and current to take the shortcut close to the cape. We did not take the canal because our mast is too high (52' plus antennas).

this chart of Cape May 

is this view:

Wednesday morning in Cape May, the winds were light, but we each took two Sturgeron to hopefully avoid any seasickness. 

Cape May inlet marker

The planning of route on Wednesday

After breakfast and going through another checklist before ocean sailing, no matter the weather, we checked PredictWind. It said at that time mid-day, in area east of NJ to Long Island, all the wind models and combined models agreed that the next 24 hrs will have these same light winds then after that they will clock around to the northeast and go up to 25-30 knots from the stern on Thurs. We could handle that fine, but since we don't HAVE to, so we will stop in Sandy Hook, NJ, south shore of NY harbor. This leg will take 24 hours. If we wait there a day, the weather models (at that time) say we'll have ideal light winds again to get to Cape Cod Friday. Goal ETA is Sat.

Dave programmed a guideline route in Garmin and I took out the paper charts to follow along. Claire will make the next route. Outside the Cape May inlet, we discussed putting up the spinnaker and were glad we did. The wind was astern for 40 miles, then from the after quarter, so we pulled out the staysail in addition to the main. Nice efficient combo at the moment.

 

One fridge down but it's ok.

Dave ran the generator for an hour or so to charge up the batteries. We have very little battery usage since we don’t have the old refrigerator compressor cycling on and off. The fridge died 3 days before our trip, so there was no time to install the replacement we already have. We have a small college fridge and we’ll put ice in the boat fridge and freezer. We planned for this, so we are fine with it.

We took turns doing things below while keeping watch for boats and route watching. Our "third man" the Simrad autopilot does a great job. Dave made dinner again (while I did other things)! 

Just 20 more hours to go. 

We'll take down the spinnaker before dark and the rest can stay the same since the wind should remain the same.

-          Claire

To Cape May, NJ - Claire

From Cohansey River, NJ, south on the shaaaaaaallow  treacherous Delaware Bay..
to Cape May, NJ. Dave made dinner again.

Cape May public anchorage

 - Claire

To the Cohansey River, NJ - Claire

Monday May 20. This long anticipated day has come. After farewells to neighbors and dockmates, we found our life jackets on Justice
Dockmate Chef Bones kindly offered to take our springline. He owns TenderBones Rib Shack near Lums Pond in Delaware. We'll have to visit

  https://www.facebook.com/TenderBonesRibShack/  when we get back. His boat is aptly named TenderBones

One last look "We are REALLY doing this!"

Departing at 1:40 pm, with 2 knot tide going with us and a 15 knot wind making our highest speed 10.2 knots. Here's a shot of our 8.1 knots GPS speed over the bottom. It took a little over 3 hrs to get to the river on a beam reach.

Anchored on the rocky bottom,we had beautiful weather all day and through dinner (made by Dave) in the cockpit, until the short rain patch arrived, interrupting my net installation on the aft lifelines.

 - Claire

Weekend Before The Trip - Claire

As you can imagine, Dave and I had a lot to do this weekend. We put the self-leveling table back in the salon. It weighs a ton.

I organized the 2 stern lazerettes (storage lockers). These are 2 hatches joined below as one deep area where we keep the dock lines, spinnaker, 2nd anchor and rode, drogues, mast ladder, scrub brushes, extra spreader wire, hoses, tarps, extra pumps, and more.
This pile:

Became this:

We:

1. Got fuel at the Delaware City Marina Dock. 
2. Went food shopping for the perishables. Last weekend we food shopped for the canned and non-perishables. We are so glad we did it in 2 trips this way. The 2nd trip list built on the first list and we probably bought less knowing what we already had and figured the combinations we can make.

We made several trips from the house, which is thankfully only a 3 minute walk away/short car-load away.

It was hot in the sun, so we turned on the air conditioning, which tested the condenser water pump. 

We finished the day celebrating with Claire's brother and sister in law, with the champagne they brought for us all!

- Claire