Atlantic Highland – Offshore – Delaware Bay-Annapolis


Left Atlantic Highlands with good conditions at 11AM. The seas and wind continued to build all day. The forecast was to be NNE wind 10-15. The actual winds were SSW 15-20, gusting higher, and the season were 4-6 feet with short intervals, on the beam. Needless to say these conditions were very uncomfortable (although not unsafe), lots of rolling and pitching, holding on for dear life . The NNE winds never showed up. By the next morning we were passing the Delaware Bay entrance about 6AM and after very little discussion we turned the boat toward the Delaware Bay. Once inside the Bay the motion of the boat, wind and seas were so much better. We motored up the bay to Reedy Island to anchor for the night, and get some much needed sleep. At sunlight the next day we rode through the canal at a favorable current and continued toward Annapolis. The current was in our favor, which was wonderful until we approached Pooles Island. The wind was SE 15- 20, gusting to 25,, against the current. Once again Neptune had a hand in our day. For two hours or so we pounded into the waves. It settled a bit and was calmer until we reached the Bay Bridge and once again, we had wind against waves. After another hour or so we were in Annapolis Harbor on a mooring enjoying our arrival beverage. We went out to dinner and took a much needed walk on terra firma. It has been a hard ride home and look forward to being at our own dock soon.

Port Washington – Atlantic Highlands

It was bitter sweet to leave Port Jefferson and our family, but its time to go towards home. On Tuesday morning we left Port Jefferson. There was some fog in the morning, buy it was an easy motor to Port Washington with calm winds and flat seas. We decided to go to Capri Marina for a week to wait for weather to continue towards Atlantic Highlands. Hurricane Florence was on her way to North Carolina, which made the offshore portion of our trip harder. It was only the second time we had been in a marina since we left our house almost 2 months ago. The marina gave us a great weekly rate. Being at a dock has definite advantages. Real showers and bathrooms, easy access to land and walking. We took advantage of all of these resources. We had a very busy 6 days. Jim and Bonnie Cleary, cruising friends of ours, drove over on Thursday night and we all went out to a very nice Italian restaurant for dinner. It was so great to catch up with them. As we have mentioned several times, there is always something happening on a boat. About a half hour before Jim and Bonnie arrived, we smelled something. It’s important to pay attention to your senses. It turned out to be our electric cord connected to our boat. It was hot to touch, so of course we turned off the power from the pedestal and from the boat. The fitting was melted onto the receptacle. Thankfully we were around when it happened or it could have been an entirely different event! Jim and Bonnie arrived and as luck would have it Jim is a Master electrician! He came over on Saturday morning and he and Bob did some boat surgery so that we could have shore power for the rest of our stay. Once we get home we will do a more complete repair. One of the highlights of our stay was that we took a train into NYC and spent the day visiting the 9-11 Memorial and Museum. Its an amazing exhibit and very well done. We had visited the memorial soon after it was opened but at the time the museum was not quite ready. We were also able to meet some dear friends, Joy and Ignatio, for an early dinner and then took the train back to Port Washington. Great Day. Saturday afternoon, after Bob and Jim worked on the outlets we got together with some of our oldest and dearest friends, Jeff and Terry. They drove down from their home in Massachusetts just to see us. We spent Saturday together, made dinner for them on Chanticleer, what a wonderful day. Their daughter and family live in Port Washington and they invited us to Sunday brunch at their house. Jessica and Ed and their 5 year old daughter Maddie hosted a beautiful spread. The added bonus was that I could get a grandchild fix, we played with play dough, and soccer. Fun.
Monday was a good clear day, we left Port Washington early to go through the city and on to Atlantic Highlands. We were anchored and settled by noon! We believed that we had a weather window to go offshore for two nights, arriving at Cape Charles on early Friday morning and then scoot up the bay to homeport. For some reason Neptune had other plans.

Point Judith – Fischers Island – Port Jefferson

One of our goals during our trip is to visit new places. After leaving Wickford, we went down Narragansett Bay to Point Judith, which is a harbor of refuge. It’s a V shaped harbor with entrances on both sides. It was a very calm and quiet night with just a few boats spending the night. Stars abound, a beautiful night.

The morning brought clear and hot weather. We motored across Fischer’s Sound to the West Harbor on Fischer’s Island, another new spot. In Bob’s past career, as a Municipal Financial Adviser, Fischer’s Island was a client. He tells the story of how he would take the ferry from Port Jefferson to New London, then take another ferry to Fischer’s Island where they would have an annual meeting of the town of Southhold. After the meeting you reversed the process to get back to Long Island. We had never been to the island aboard Chanticleer. We anchored just outside of the channel, it was a quiet day, very hot. After jumping in the water to cool off we took the dinghy into town. The town is beautiful and quiet, lovely homes with sprawling lawns. They have a beautiful museum, with photographs and artifacts, many of which are from when the Indians were settled there. The ice cream store was of course one of our stops.

Early the next morning we began a long motor to Port Jefferson Harbor. After nine hot hours we arrived in Port Jefferson where we anchored just inside the entrance, off the main channel in Old Field Harbor. The entire day was very calm with little to no wind. As we turned into the channel the wind literally went from 1 knt SW to 12 knts SE. It continued to remain at 15+ throughout the night. Crazy! In the morning we proceeded to our reserved mooring at the PJ Yacht Club. Port Jefferson is where Caren and her family live, (Bob’s daughter). Its going to be a fun and exciting time here. On Saturday night we are have a birthday dinner with the family at one of Caren’s favorite restaurants, Alexandros. We are celebrating a landmark birthday for Caren, Bobs birthday (not landmark) and her niece Tina’s birthday (also not landmark). Lots of family and food! Our granddaughter Julia arrived home from college late last night with her boyfriend Nicholas to help celebrate. On Monday we will be celebrating Rosh Hashannah with friends and family. That of course means that we will be baking challah, and preparing dinner for everyone on Sunday into Monday. Busy Busy. The birthday dinner and Rosh Hashanah dinner was wonderful. So much fun to spend time with everyone.

As everyone knows, hurricane Florence is lurking. This is our forth time traveling to Maine and LI. Every time we return, there is either a hurricane or a tropical storm. Once again we are dealing with weather. Our hope is to leave here Tuesday and head to Port Washington where we will most likely wait for weather to proceed home.

Onset – Cuttyhunk – Wickford

We watched the sun come up, what a beautiful morning! Its once again 6:30AM and we are actually sailing towards Onset. Both sails are out and the motor is off, wow! When we are on this kind of trip, more often then not we are motor sailing to our next destination. Today was different. The winds were just right so that we could sail close hauled. Three wonderful, quiet hours, and then the winds increased and shifted just a bit and we were back to motor sailing. But it sure was fun! We arrived at the Cape Cod Canal just as the current changed. We took the sails down and motored through the canal (sailing through the Canal is prohibited). As was predicted, the winds picked up quite a lot. As it always seems to happen when we go into Onset the wind was howling, but with Bob at the wheel, we took on fuel and water, and then went to our mooring. The launch stopped running at 6 so it was dinner on board. It was a quiet night.

The winds were once again due to get high in the afternoon, it is Buzzards Bay after all. Cuttyhunk is a short distance away so that is where we headed. Cuttyhunk is not my favorite harbor. The moorings are very close to one another and I feel like we are in an apartment building, where you can see and smell foods being cooked, cigarettes being smoked and all the social chatter. Going ashore was nice, however, as we were able to take a nice walk.

We were happy to leave at 6:30 the next morning. Our destination today is Wickford, RI, on Narragansett Bay. We were rolling a lot (winds were 16-20, seas were 3-5 feet) but with our main up we were able to ride through the waves quite well. Another short day - arrived about lunchtime and picked up a town mooring just past the breakwater. It’s a long dinghy ride to town but worth the ride. What a beautiful town. The main street is full of historical homes dating back to the 1700’s. Most are well cared for and the streets are just lovely. It’s a really nice place with restaurants, art galleries, antique shops, boutique clothing shops. Our good friends Joe and Michele from Simple Life live in Cranston, about a half hour drive away. One of our goals was to be able to spend some time with them. They met us at the dinghy dock the next day, took us to the market and then we went out for dinner together. Great fun. The next day as we were going to town we ran aground and damaged the propellor of the dinghy. At first we thought that we broke a shear pin. After Joe called his Yamaha mechanic we determined that we don’t have a shear pin, that the prop was damaged and needed to be replaced. Believe it or not, we had a new prop on board that we had purchased for a spare when we bought the engine 18 years ago. About ¾ of an hour later we were in business again! The car was back on the road - Wohoo!!! Once again our friends picked us up, this time driving to their house for delicious pasta and home made meatball and sausage spaghetti sauce, and a really nice wine of course, Yumm. We hugged goodbye with a promise to see them again soon as they are going to be going south to the Bahamas and will be traveling down the Chesapeake Bay right past us. Hopefully we will get back before they pass us!

Biddeford Pool - Portsmouth - Scituate

New places are always exciting and fun to discover. Biddeford Pool was recommended by our new friends Bruce and Jane aboard Cerulean. There were several advantages to stopping here, the first is that it brought us 10 miles closer to Portsmouth; the second which is way more important was that it is our last stop in Maine. This is significant in that it would be our last true Maine lobsters this trip. Biddeford Pool is a sweet Maine oasis. The homes were beautiful, the scenery a typical Maine port. We took the launch into the yacht club and took a brief walk. There is one gift shop and one market. The market had everything you might need, plus they had a small restaurant area. But most importantly they had fresh lobsters to buy by the pound. Now I don't want to brag too much but I am getting pretty good a steaming these creatures. These two lobsters were absolutely wonderful!!
What a great stop!

Once again we were underway at 6 AM on our way to Portsmouth, NH. Just another day of motoring aboard our Sailboat/Trawler. It was an easy trip and we were on our mooring by 12:30. In the afternoon we took an Uber to Portsmouth with Tod and Anne from Fiscal Stray. Portsmouth is great! Lots of beautiful homes and town was wonderful. Galleries, restaurants, stores abound. After an early dinner we Ubered back to the Yacht Club and back to our boats. Tomorrow will be a very long day. Its sad to be out of Maine....

Yes, its 6:05 AM and we are underway towards Scituate MA. The conditions changed throughout the day. Started out with big rollers, hobby horsing, after several hours it settled down. The last two hours the wind picked up, as did the seas so we reefed the main and motor sailed to Scituate. Scituate is a great stop to get things done. Laundry, supermarket, hardware store, restaurants, ice cream all within a short walk from the dock. We did all of the above. Fiscal Stray arrived here as well. It was a long day with 56 miles of travel. Staying here another day seemed like a good idea! There is always something that needs to be done on a boat. This was as good a spot as any to take care of some chores. Bob did an oil change, while I tried to rinse some of the salt off of the decks and dodger. Laundry and a trip to the market completed our day. As we were done with our chores, it was time to relax. Drinks, food and friends, it doesn't get better than that. After a nice time with Tod and Anne we dinghyed back to Chanticleer to hoist the dinghy and engine for our departure the next morning.

Kent Cove - Camden - Linekin Bay -


As is our usual practice we left NE Harbor at 6:30 AM to start our way south once again. Our first stop was Stonington, where we anchored just out of the mooring field. This is a working harbor, so there were lobster boats coming and going, rocking and rolling Chanticleer. We launched the dinghy and went to shore, walked the town and had some well-deserved ice cream. Once we were back on the boat we decided to leave and stop at Kent Cove, which is a new place for us. It's located just east of North Haven in Fox Island Thoroughfare. It's a lovely, peaceful spot. The next day we broke protocol and departed at 9AM as our next stop was Camden which is only 16 miles away. We have been to Camden several times - it's a typical, beautiful Maine town. Lots of shops and restaurants and of course ice cream and bookstores. It also has a historic and architecturally unique public library, which has been recently renovated. Wandering around town was fun. After two nights, however, we were ready to keep going south. Back to basics: we left at 6:30 AM towards Linekin Bay. After traveling for 45 miles we anchored and chilled the rest of the day. One of the most noticeable differences from NE Harbor area and Penobscot would be the amount of lobster pots - as you move towards Casco Bay they are lighter. Now don't get me wrong, there are still many, many pots, but somehow less stressful.