Finding Fault

Three cheers to the Captain, who busted his hump to get us all the way to Martha’s Vineyard today. Bad weather set us back a day – we spent yesterday near Newport, RI instead of Cuttyhunk. He also did it single handed, since I was pretty much out of it with the seasickness. What I’ve learned in five weeks is that once I’m sick, even with Dramamine, the only thing I can do is lie flat with a blanket over my head. Every once in a while I peek out to make sure Scott hasn’t been swept over board. It’s the least I can do.

And this is my last day on the boat for a while. After my week on the Vineyard, I’m going to drive south to move us into our new place, and let Scott take his time getting back. I think this is a win-win situation for both of us. I’m excited about daily showers, grocery stores, and getting to know our new town. I’m even excited to get back to work. Scott is going to enjoy boating without an itinerary for a bit.

I will probably not blog from the Vineyard vacation, and then will take a couple days to get into the new house and get internet set up, so this is it for me for a bit. Don’t forget to check back in a couple of weeks!

It’s funny when we’re traveling so slowly to realize that we’re hitting a state per day. Two days ago we were in Connecticut, then we anchored for Tuesday night at Fishers Island (part of NY), and today we made it to Point Judith (Galilee, Rhode Island). Tomorrow, our plan to is to anchor at Cuttyhunk Island (Town of Gosnold, MA) before our final stretch on Friday to Martha’s Vineyard.

We are positively racing… at no more than 6 miles per hour.

To celebrate our progress, while we were ashore today, Scott picked up a couple of lobsters from a stand. He’ll be cooking them tonight! I’m sure there will be pictures.

We’re having a pretty frustrating couple of days here. Only 90 miles from the Vineyard, but we’ve been stuck in the same anchorage area for a couple of days. When the current is favorable, there are storms or fog. When those clear up, the current is against us. We’ve already made a couple of false starts today, only to re-anchor when the fog got thicker.

Our goal is to make it to Fishers Island today, but that’s been our goal for a couple of days.

The one bright spot of the last couple of days has been a really nice visit with some long lost relatives of Scott’s. Why don’t you just go over to his blog and read about a little bit of happiness, while we stew here and wait for the fog to lift?

Scott passed the baton with his post about the striped bass he caught. Like last time, we split the harvest and each took one big fillet to cook up. Scott grilled his on the propane grill, and I did a panko breaded fillet, like last time. The final platter:

In this battle, the judgment clearly went to the Captain. While we did the same general preparations that we did for the bluefish last week, the bass is a much tastier fish, and it held up well to the grilling. It was firm and flavorful. The fried fish, on the other hand, was not as crispy as the first time I made it, and I didn’t season it well enough before breading it. I’m sure we will have a rematch soon.

I did also pair the fish with a soup that I was planning to make before Scott caught the fish. It was split pea with Spam soup. It’s something that I don’t think I’ll ever make on land, but really wasn’t bad.

Not too long ago, Scott yelled from the cockpit, “Bring your camera!” and we saw this moving in our direction…

Then this:

And then the thunderstorm started. So, like any normal person, I climbed into bed to hide. A few minutes later, I heard the outboard motor running, and I head out to the cockpit, where Scott is driving around very slowly in this harbor so we don’t hit any moored boats. Because the winds picked up so much that we were dragging our two anchors around the little harbor.

The scariest storm I’ve been through on the boat, but it passed over quickly. Just checked the radar on two different weather websites, and that looks to be it for the night.

And now, we have this:

Most days, either Scott or I try to do some planning for the day’s trip. We look at the charts and books and try to figure out possible anchoring spots depending on how far we might get in a given day. You don’t want to travel as far as you can and then find out that there’s nowhere to stop for another 10 miles. Last night, I targeted Norwalk, CT as our best bet for where we’d end up. First of all, it was about a 30 mile trip, a nice amount of progress, but not a crazy-long day. We had already decided to do the Connecticut coast rather than the north shore of Long Island. And best of all, Norwalk advertises a public dock with a visitor’s center. According to their website, boats can tie up for up to an hour for free and there are stores within walking distance. Just what we needed – we are desperately in need of provisions, and I’m realizing that it is often difficult to find an anchorage where we can get to shore and stock up.

[Side note: I don't know if people realize this, but getting an overnight slips at a marina is pretty expensive, usually over $2 per foot a night, and we are on a 30 ft boat. So aside from our brief stay at a strangely inexpensive marina in New Jersey - $.75/ft - we're mostly just hanging at anchor, with one of us kayaking to shore when need be.]

So, we get to this public dock, we tie up, and then we go into the Harbormaster’s office.

[Another side note: I really like the title Harbormaster. I think I want to be one someday. But not in Norwalk.]

They tell us that we can stay for 20 minutes for free, and after that, we’d have to pay $.75/ft to stay until 4pm. Not gonna happen. So, I run to the corner convenience store and buy everything that looks like food, while Scott runs into a little Mexican restaurant and gets us some take out, and we meet back on the boat in no more than 20 minutes and take it out to anchor.

The harbor is a nice enough place to anchor (pic above), but I’m still holding a little grudge.

After yesterday, I think that it’s the New York Harbor that should be called the Hell Gate. It was busy and filled with huge boats, and so I made Scott drive that portion. (In my head, it was like taking a new driver onto the streets of Manhattan. So I mostly took pictures for that part. The Hell Gate itself, the upper part of the East River, was pretty darn easy after that. We caught the current at the right point, and had the river almost to ourselves on a beautiful day.

Scott posted a bunch of the pictures in a slideshow in his blog.  Check them out here.

By the way, for those of you who check the boat cam on Scott’s blog – tomorrow is a good afternoon to take a look. We’re aiming to leave Sandy Hook and head under the Verrazano Bridge, through the New York Harbor to the Battery, up the East River, and around to the Long Island Sound. Scott gives our basic schedule here. This will be a long sailing day, and a rough one. Keep your fingers crossed for good winds and water for us.

UPDATE: Monday morning, thunderstorms and possible hail predicted for later today.  Looks like we’re staying in Sandy Hook for another day.

Now that I’ve spent more than three weeks on the boat, I’ve learned quite a bit about the resources we have to get where we’re going, and how to use them. There are all sorts of variables to sort out in deciding how to get where we’re going and when to travel.

Because of this, I’ve also found myself very grateful to have the following things that the ancient mariners didn’t have:

-Handheld GPS. Loaned to Scott by a friend for the trip, we follow the screen on this little device pretty constantly (shown in the pic above). It tells us our current location as well as our current heading and speed. The maps in it are not finely drawn enough to be useful for navigation, but it does prevent some big errors and it gives us some general idea of how far we have to go. Also, once we’ve anchored, Scott can set it to give us an alarm if we start dragging anchor.

-VHF radio: We stay tuned to the main channel listening to alerts from the coast guard, and calls from boats to other boats, and to towing companies. The general practice is to make contact on the main channel and then meet up on a different channel to finish the conversation. Sometimes when we’re bored, we follow these conversations to their new channel, to find out why the boat needs a tow, etc.

-Wireless phone and internet – useful for keeping in touch with our family and friends, and for checking the next set of resources.

-Online charts of the waterways, and tide and current tables, provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

And if those fail us, we have printed almanacs (shown above) that give us advice about routes and anchorages, and listings of fuel docks and marinas where we might need them.

Altogether, I think I’ll feel less worried about Scott when he’s alone on the boat, now that I understand how many resources he has at his fingertips.

A picture from leaving Barnegat Harbor a couple days ago. Makes me realize that I need to find the big speck of dust on my camera.

I never pack the right stuff for long trips. In this case, I packed a whole box full of work-related books, and only one fiction book, which I finished in my first week on the boat. (Brittnie loaned me “Unaccustomed Earth” by Jumpha Lahiri – it was fantastic, thanks Britt!) After that, I got sick of my crossword puzzle book, still wasn’t able to get in a working mood, and was bored of staring at the walls.

Last week, we made a fuel stop and Scott pointed out the “paperback exchange” shelf in the marina store. I actually said, out loud, “My god, you’ve just saved my sanity!” It’s the perfect solution – you can leave the books you’ve read and not clog up your precious boat space, and pick up new ones. There’s no fine literature, mind you, but who wants that on a boat anyway! Since then, I’ve gone through a couple paperbacks, and exchanged them at the next one. I foresee a consistent stream of mystery novels from now until the end of the month…