Leg 2: Port Washington New York to Worton Creek MD

therapturedesigns
Nov 28, 2018
10 min read

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Friday November 16, 2018

Upon waking up I decided to not leave to travel down the east river for the day due to severe weather and small craft advisory in New York Harbor. Instead I took the day to clean up the boat. Write up a blog post, get my windless working correctly, sort through a bunch of gear that was stuffed in lockers and just generally prepare the boat for the following day. At one point I went and got fuel as well. I’d love to give a shout out to Matt at the Port Washington Water Taxi Service who was of great help to me. While I was staying in Port Washington by giving me a ride to shore, a few stores, and the train station one day!

Saturday November 17, 2018

Waking up at 4:30 I made breakfast and prepared the boat for the long day heading down the East River. I needed to be at the Throgs neck bridge by about 645AM to 730AM in order to have the currents helping me along the river instead of fighting them. They can be as strong as 4 knots in some places. The first half of the day would require motoring and not allow for any sailing due to the large number of ferries and commercial traffic. After making my way down the east river with the current at one point topping out at 10 kn I sailed across towards Staten Island and order to get a better look at the Statue of Liberty before sailing straight out of the New York Harbor under the verranzo bridge towards my final destination of great kill New York. Great kill harbor was one of the more interesting harbors that I have ever been into as it is a publicly owned harbor so there is no private moorings or anything like that so there were a lot of shipwrecks and sunken boats and abandon moorings and stuff like that. It’s kind of a bizarre to see something like that in modern times. Due to the number of mooring balls in shipwrecks in the area this is actually a challenging place to drop anchor for the night. After finally finding a spot in that was shallow enough to drop the anchor I made dinner and went to bed to prepare for the next morning of the long hike down the New Jersey coast.

Sunday November 18 2018

Woke up at 4 AM in order to get the boat ready for five for first light in order to leave before first light to make my way down the coast of New Jersey this is going to be one of the longest legs of the trip at about 58 nautical miles. In order to get it done in time I would have to leave before the sun came up in order to get to the place where I was going as the sun was going down. Even still I barely got into barnegat inlet as the sun was going down at around 6 PM. The day was relatively uneventful and I made many phone calls while I was traveling as it was about 12 hours of just motoring due to the wind direction I could not really sail. Coming into Bartlett entrance and Bay it was interesting as it is well protected but there are many fishing vessels I was able to find a free mooring to tie up to for the night so I didn’t even have to drop the anchor that night. I did maintenance on my engine, checking all the filters, checking the screens for the water intake, tightening bolts, and double checking that everything was holding up well.

November 19, 2018

Monday I departed barnegat inlet fairly early again as the sun was rising roughly around 4 AM for my next leg of the journey hopefully to Cape May. While I got to sail for a good portion of this day the wind, and the waves were working against me and I only averaged about 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 kn which was not nearly enough to get to Cape May in a reasonable amount of time so I pulled into Ocean City which is one bay passed Atlantic City New Jersey. I refueled at one of the local marinas and then dropped the anchor for the night. The Anchorage I was in was very interesting as there was about four or five bridges in view while I was anchored in a very large bay that was very shallow being only about 12 feet where I was had the weather been worse I definitely would not of picked this Anchorage. However, because it was calm I dropped the anchor for the night and was one of the more interesting anchorages I have stayed at thus far in the trip.

November 20, 2018

Tuesday he next morning again bright and early I pulled up the anchor around 4 AM and made my way from Ocean City to Cape May New Jersey I made it to Cape May in record time but this was mainly to out run bad weather that was coming that night. When I got to Cape May I dropped anchor in front of the Coast Guard station for the first night I was there and use the time that I had left in the day while it was raining and very windy to get some projects done around the boat.

Wednesday November 21 2018

I woke on Wednesday to a beautiful sunrise, However knowing that there was bad weather in store for the following two nights and in need of running errands and acquiring some more gear I move the boat over to the South Jersey marina. I got a dock slip for two nights. The first day the Wednesday that I had the slip I used as an opportunity to go and run errands because the following day Thanksgiving most stores and such in the town will be closed. I did food shopping, went and bought a better foul weather jacket, some insulated marine boots, a bunch of random parts and pieces to fix broken things, or improve things on the boat, food, fuel for my stove and heater and a trip to the liquor store to buy a couple bottles of red wine. I also used this day to get some loads of laundry done and took the first hot shower and had in about two weeks.

Thursday, November 22, 2018

Thanksgiving after good night sleep on the boat I woke for Thanksgiving day with little to do, I spent the first part of the morning walking around Cape May New Jersey seeing the town the beaches, and getting to look at the canal that I would be taking the following day. After using the morning to do these things I made phone calls to families on both sides of my family and a talk with people that I have not seen in a few weeks. That evening I decided to go out for the first time on the trip and actually have a meal in a restaurant after trying three different bars and restaurants that were open on Thanksgiving but not serving food I finally found a place called Hemingway‘s down near the beach. Sitting at the bar I ordered a turkey dinner, and had a few beers and chatted with some locals. There were very few people in the bar, and most of the people were much older than I was disappointed at not having more people my own age to chat with I had an early night and walked back to the boat.

Friday, November 23, 2018

Since I was allowed to stay in the dock slip until the late afternoon I used this day as a chance to do more errands around town including going and buying more fresh fruit and vegetables refilling the water tanks on my boat. Having the holding tank pumped out, refueling and doing a final load of laundry as well as taking a final hot shower. After checking out of the marina I motored through the Cape May canal to an Anchorage on the ocean side of the Cape May. Since we had a very calm whether I was able to stay at that Anchorage I chose which is basically along the beach looking out on the ocean had there been any waves or wind of this would not of been a suitable place to stop for the night. However the wind speeds were less than 5 miles an hour and Seas less than 1ft.

I want to bed extremely early as I wanted to be up and as far down the Delaware river the next morning is possible.

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Waking up at 3 AM I had the boat prepped and ready to leave by 4:30 and departed in the dark. This particular end of the Delaware river where I was is quite wide with very little to hit so despite it being dark I was confident that starting this early in the morning would benefit me and it did I wrote the currents the entire way down the river all the way up to the C&D Canal I motor sailed for much of the trip however at certain points I was able to shut the engine off and travel just under sail and one point topping out at about 7 knots using just sail power.

Originally I was planning not to transition down the C&D Canal as I was not expecting to have enough daylight to make it to Chesapeake city however after looking at the place known as Reedy Island which was the only Anchorage in the area I decided against staying there as it was totally exposed to the bad weather and wind that we are supposed to have that night. I also bottomed out coming into Reedy Island for the first time of the trip

Being that it was only 1130 in the morning by the time I made it to the C&D Canal I still had a four hour weather window to make it to Chesapeake city and the current was just shifting over so that I would be traveling with the current down the C&D Canal instead of fighting it. This prompted me to abandon my original plan of staying at Reedy island and to simply transition the canal today. The canal is relatively narrow being only about 400 feet wide. However it is about 50 to 60 feet deep in the middle there many bridges that you must pass underneath however my boat is small enough that none of these would’ve been a problem. The only bridge that would’ve needed to move with the railroad bridge and this is permanently in the up position unless there’s a train coming. I made excellent time to Chesapeake city and just as I was pulling in to the harbor it began to rain quite hard. Chesapeake city has a free public dock that anyone can tie up to there were already three other boats there. However, there was just enough room at the end for me to tie up as well after getting the boat all tied off I retreated inside out of the rain, set my heater up full blast and ran it for a couple of hours to dry all my gear off, dry myself off, and to simply warm up. I was recommended a couple of restaurants in the area however, I was too cold and tired to go outside instead cooked a large meal on the boat and made phone calls to friends and family.

Sunday, November 25, 2018

After not setting an alarm at Chesapeake city I woke in around 8 AM and decided to continue moving due to having good weather. After cooking a small breakfast I fired up the engine and continued further down the C&D Canal. While it was a beautiful day out and there was some wind I spent the entire day pointed directly into the wind and narrow areas that would not allow me to sail. So I motored all the way down to Worton Creek where I pulled in expecting only to stay for a day in this particular anchorage. So far this is one of the more secluded anchorages that I have ever been to as it is on the edge of a nature preserve with only a few marinas and no town in the area. I enjoyed a beautiful sunset and went to bed planning to move the following day.

Monday, November 26, 2018

I woke at about 7 AM to very calm weather after checking the weather reports it appeared that today would be extremely rainy and potentially very windy. The area I was in was protected enough from the the wind that it seemed as though it was a fairly calm day and I probably could have traveled had I gotten up earlier. However I am glad i did not as late in the afternoon the rain was brutal. At certain points making it almost impossible to see and in the afternoon heavy fog rolled in.

Instead I use this day to continue knocking projects that are we’re mostly completed but not completely done of the list of things to be done inside of the boat. Including getting the sink completely squared away, as it was having problems that I later discovered was water at the screen for the pump being clogged. Taking time to do a full maintenance schedule on the engine, checking every nut and bolt that it was torqued correctly, checking belts, oil levels, fluids and generally just inspecting for any issues. I also took the time to realign the engine to the prop shaft as I had replaced the motor mounts over the winter time and I did now been run for about 125 hours since being in the water and was most likely out of alignment I later confirmed that it was in fact out of alignment not by much. However with some easy adjustments I realigned the engine to the prop shaft. Lastly I spent the rest of the day pulling gear out of almost every locker on the boat sorting through it re-organizing and re-distributing weight to help balance the boat a little bit better as it been listing to starboard a little bit. Checking the weather forecast throughout the day we’re not looking good for both Tuesday and Wednesday indicating that the wind speeds will be in the upper 30 to 40 mile an hour ranges on the Chesapeake giving into the fact that I might end up staying for a couple more days I cleaned up the inside of the boat made a light dinner and climbed into bed to type up this blog post continuing to monitor the weather and hopes that it would be downgraded and or blow bye.

Tuesday November 27 2018

I awoke to confirm that the weather would almost certainly hit the Chesapeake and spent the day doing more stuff around the boat cleaning organizing making new dock lines, and reading.

Wednesday November 28 2018

High wind speeds, and freezing temperatures kept me wrapped in my sleeping bag and blankets planning the next two weeks, reviewing charts and places to stop and completing this blog post. Tomorrow is looking good top travel, so I will most likely be in bed early tonight to rise early as I was planning a long day the following morning.

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