The Sailing Capital

We had a great week! We spent two nights anchored at Bohemia Creek, some relaxing, Roy and I working and cleaning up and polishing up Yumsuch. Wednesday day we left Bohemia Creek to start heading towards Annapolis. We had a late start due to some fog, it turned out to be a nice sailing day. At times we were dodging debris from Irene. It felt like you were in a maze dodging logs for 10 minutes then clear sailing for about an hour before you saw anymore debris. We decided to call it an early sailing day and stop around 6 pm to play it safe from hitting any debris after sunset. We ended up stopping at Tolchester Marina which is located in Eastern Shore of the beautiful Chesapeake Bay in a very small town called Chestertown. Thursday we sailed to Annapolis arrived @ 4pm and found a great marina for a month! Yumsuch's home for the next month is East Port Yacht Center.
We have a busy month a head Roy making sales calls, visiting family and the boat show. We are heading to Rochester tomorrow to visit with Rochelle and her boyfriend Kevin. They just moved into their townhouse. Then we are off to Syracuse to visit our families. Roy will be making sales calls Monday thru Wed. while I visit with my family and catch up with ex-co-workers. Then we are back here for a week before the boat show. Tom and Ashley are coming down for the boat show, and weather permitting, a sail. I have always loved Annapolis but just being here for 1 night, hitting a local pub that the dock master (Ray) recommended, made it feel like home!

Ray helped us( I should say me) dock since we now have poles to tie off to instead of a dock. Which is totally new for me but now I know what I’m doing!(I hope!) There is very little room to maneuver into our slip, but my wonderful Captain Roy can handle anything!

Ray is going to teach me how to catch crabs and make crab cakes. I love it when the locals want to teach you their culture!

Then we are off to see Tara, Mike and grandkids. Roy has to be in the office on The 11th, so he will stay out to make calls for the rest of the week while I get to play with Jacob and Nathaniel! Then we will start planning our journey to Myrtle Beach at the end of the month.

Remember When?

Funny how you sit back now and think, that trip wasn't so bad. During our three months of blogging, you have heard our ups and downs with our attempts to get to the Chesapeake. Since Quebec City, we have been basically passage making. Trying to get from Point A to B. Now that we have achieved our goal, we plan to go back to cruising mode. That is what we prefer.

We actually thought we would enjoy the challenges of getting out the St. Lawrence. The distance didn't seem that long when you have three months to do it. But, 2000 miles later, we are exhausted and so is Yumsuch.

What we enjoyed most about the trip: The whales, seals and dolphins. The grace of gannet birds flying in formation and suddenly diving in rapid procession to catch fish. The fresh seafood. We agree that it is the best we have ever had. Not sure if it is the freshness or the cold water. We will miss that the most. We also met a lot of nice people along the way, but that is common for anyone cruising.

Would we recommend this trip to anyone? No! Unless you have a high speed motorboat, the distance between marinas and anchorages are too great with the inclement weather. It added a hardship that brought us to wits end many days. Locals say it was an unusually bad year. Maybe this is true. But, when you ask them where they normally cruise, most stay right in their port. Many never leave the dock more than 3 times per year.

All that said, we learned a lot about ourselves and our boat. As you go through life together, it is the hardships that either bring you closer or farther away from each other. In our case, it has made us stronger physically, mentally and emotionally. We both understand each other’s limits, strengths and weaknesses. Using this knowledge, we complement each other better than ever.

Some marine components made it and some did not. We have a whole list or replacement components heading our way.

The best all around addition to Yumsuch, was our Simrad DD15 below decks autopilot. This has steered through the worst of what we have seen and no hiccups. Kudos to Simrad.

Worst is of course ASMO. That controller is now in a dumpster. If ASMO Marine is good at anything, it’s making trash filler. Skip has a new term for when Roy gets upset. Roy is going ASMO.

Nexus takes a close second. The wireless wind instrument has been nothing but a headache since it was purchased. It hasn't worked since Quebec City.

We have to give credit to Haarstick. We spent way to many hours with the boom swinging back and forth across the boat and the sail slapping so loud, we can't believe it didn't shred. Looks like their impact flutter test does pick the best fabric.

Stainless Steel. The only stainless that has not developed rust is our Hood Ports. Everything else has rust. Whether it was tube and screws from West Marine, or the cheap SS fittings from Marine Part Depot. They all have rust. We have just spent the last two days shining it all up again. From now on, its buy top quality US made stainless.

Getting to the end of my thought process now. And maybe...........or actually..........well possibly it was a good trip.

Wishing all fair winds and calm seas.

Pictures

During the storm a Little Yellow Bird flew away from Atlantic City to catch a ride on Yumsuch. The minute the skies cleared, of she flew back to Atlantic City to gamble!Yes there is a little birdie in the photo, just look on the seat back. She is very small and cute!

Sunset in Atlantic City!

Senator William V. Roth Bridge. Roth IRA fame.

In The Chesapeake

Another big jump. Our last night in Block Island was spent rocking and rolling with a strong cold front that brought 35 Mph winds and big sea into the mooring field. We had planned to leave Friday anyway, and even contracted Commanders' Weather Service again. We had anchorages and marinas laid out along the southern shore of Long Island and NJ coastline. But, feeling the change of seasons, spurred us to just keep going. We sailed 294 miles in 54 hours. Our best yet. We had tail winds most of the time and was able to sail in a straight line all of the way here. In the 54 hours, we motor sailed a total of 6 hours. We even sailed all the way up the Delaware bay and river to drop sail and motor through the C&D canal. It wound up being perfect timing at the end of high tide. Ebb gave us a 2 knot push through the canal.

This trip, like all, was not without hardship. Saturday night, the skies turned black and gave us rain and high winds. 30-35 knots out of the NE. The seas were so large, heading into the Delaware Bay, we regularly surfed to 10-11 knots, under double reefed main. All in the black of night. The whole boat was deluged by saltwater and Yumsuch shook it off and kept surging through it all. Great boat at times like this.

We finished with a close hauled sail and motor through the canal to our fist anchorage in Bohemia River. Nice, quiet, and very thin water. Always heard stories of the thin water they sail in here, but there is only 6" under my keel at low tide. Very unnerving for a Lake Ontario boater.

We have some pictures coming. just wanted to let you know where we ended up after another weekend.

Block Island

It's so nice to wake up every morning to sunshine and the scenery of moored sailboats while sipping your coffee and enjoying your breakfast. Last night was absolutely beautiful, we had the sun setting on one side and a red moon rising on the other side while enjoying a peaceful dinner.
Since we have been back in the states the time is flying by way too quickly. We are waiting for a good weather window to get further south, hopefully Friday am or Saturday am.
Roy and I went into town, had dinner at the National Tap & Grill, recommended by Roy's boss Ernie. Great recommendation Ernie! Thank you

Arrived in Block Island RI

We left Salem, MA around 7am on Sunday with our new friends sending us off! We can't begin to tell you how much we love sailing back in the states! Sailing was absolutely incredible. It was so wonderful we sailed right to Block Island! We arrived around 5:00pm this evening. Our goal was Cape Cod Canal but we got to the canal at 10:30pm, high tide was 10:45pm. Bob suggested that it was best to catch the tide at night to go thru the canal. This way you can avoid the nasty SW wind versus tidal current. It was a sleigh ride of speeds up to 9 knots coming down the canal. The south wind, at the start, turned to a 15 knot SW, but it was manageable enough to tack down the "fairway" buoys and out into Buzzard's Bay. Usually, this is not the case in the afternoon. The "doctor" whips up a steep chop. I fell asleep in the cockpit around midnight and slept until 7am. Roy just sailing away and loving every minute! We sailed 34 hours and 175 miles (should have been 119)! It was all upwind, but when the weather and sea are so perfect, you don't mind. The sailing was so smooth, that Roy even worked most of the day in the cabin. No swell. Must be the US waters. So, Roy could get his work done, he taught the finer points of sail trim and navigating. I learned more today than I have the whole trip. He had the confidence to let me tack and wind our way out of Buzzard Bay and into the Block Island Sound. This is our second time to Block Island, we visited 4 years ago for our anniversary. And guess what? Our 9th anniversary is Wednesday, so we will celebrate here on Block Island. Four years ago, at the Oar drinking pain killers, we said someday we will sail in here and moor for the weekend. Here we are. Never thought it would be this quick. As we were getting things put away and organized we saw a few dinghies going out to the beach to watch the sunset. We look forward to doing that ourselves and riding bikes around the islands. We plan to stay the week, so Roy can work. Then it's off to who knows where. Throw away the watch when you’re a sailor (favorite line). A day sail may turn into a mile maker.

We had a very busy week! Salem is a very unique town! All the love potions, spells, unique shops and great food. I had to clean the boat from top to bottom due to the fact we were getting mold issues from all the sweating the boat did. So every inch of the cabin got a wipe down of vinegar. Since Roy was out of town I reorganized everything!  So we are under way as I blog to Cape Cod Canal. We should arrive around 8pm. From Salem to Cape Cod is about a 50 Mile sail. We had an awesome time in Salem! We meant some wonderful sailors, Bob, Gretchen, Alex, Elaine and Stephen! Thank you! We hope to see them all in Annapolis.

Our Atlantic Trip.

Our guide for 12 hours! I guess he wanted to sail back to the States! he flew in and landed on our bimini without us noticing. When I kicked him off of that, he found the bow seat for the night. The next night, another came and tried repeatedly to land on our solar panels. I guess when you are that far out, they can't fly all the way to land, and don't want to sleep in the water. Not sure if a cormorant is good or bad luck, but we had our best sailing day after he slept there.

One of two 165' yachts that came into Halifax to ride out Irene. This is the one they kicked us off of the town dock for.

Just to recap our trip, we had a 5 day weather window provided by Commanders’ Weather Service. They were pretty accurate, but everything they were right on, we also found through our own research. They did not pick up the fact that we were going to have a nasty SE swell for all 4 days. They have responded to that that it may be Katia causing it. Even here in Salem, they were all bitching about the swell. What they gave us was piece of mind that we were not going to get slammed with a storm or real high winds. We were more comfortable each sunset knowing this.

Our first day out brought winds on the nose for the first 12 hours (predicted). We sailed 48 miles and only made 23 miles of progress. This did not look good, but at 1:00 AM, the wind switched to the NE (as predicted) and we started sailing in a straight line. This wind stayed with us for 36 hours. It was our first downwind sail in a long time. It gave us 95 miles for the first day and 120 miles for day 2. On our third day, Friday, the NE wind quit early at 3pm. This left us windless, until midnight, with a big swell. Lots of rocking and rolling.

At midnight, Saturday, the SW wind came in strong with 10-15 knots and we had to sail the rest of our trip upwind. It ended up being very lumpy with the SE swell combining with the SW wind driven waves. At one point, the wind had increased to 20-25 knots for about 6 hours.

Not sure if we discussed this before or not. Even though, the Nonsuch has balsa coring below the water line, we still sweat. During the past 4 days, the water went from 65F to 47F and back to 67F here. During the sunny days, the water is condensing on the inside of the hull. Being salt air, it is condensing salt water.

This is a beautiful town and very unique with its witch theme. We will enjoy it here. We spent this afternoon walking the town and had a great dinner at the Witches Brew.

Back in the U.S.A.

We made it to Salem, MA, east of Boston. Will update tomorrow, we need rest!