For those of you who have followed Nikki and I on our travels on s/v Kristinly, this note is to tell you she is now with new owners Tim and Susan Tiefenbach. They intend to sail her south to NYC and then continue on a 5 year cruise. You fellow cruisers may recognize her but look for a new name which will be s/v Alpenglo hailing from her home port of Dillon, CO.

While we won't have Kristinly anymore, the memories and mementos of the best times of our lives (so far) will will be with us forever. Nikki and I do intend to return to cruising again someday and when we do, it will be on a different boat. Until then, we bid you fair winds and following seas. Be safe out there everyone.

Best,
Randy and Nikki

As you can see from today's picture, we made a stop at the Statue of Liberty with intentions to stay there and catch the fireworks show for both NJ and NYC. As it turns out, NJ canceled their show so after one night, we made the decision to move up the Hudson River to the 79th St. Marina and pick up a mooring. This enabled us to catch the show from the comfort of Kristinly and avoid going out into the bay in our dinghy and also set up our next day heading north about 8 nm father north than the statue. The show was fantastic as always and we had a relaxing evening, with the exception of when the show ended. At that moment, many boats (too many to count) took off at once heading home north and left ridiculous wakes that had us bouncing around for about half an hour.

We met some new friends while at the statue. Jim and Chris on s/v ULLR (which is the Greek god of something that is not printable here, according to Jim) and enjoyed cocktails and shared stories with them Tuesday night. In the small world category, they are friends with Don and Maryann on s/v Straight from the Heart who sent messages to both of us when she realized we were going to be in Sandy Hook at the same time. We found each other and the rest is history. Also of note, Jim and Chris have the most unusual dinghy motor - an old ESKA lower unit with a 4 HP Briggs and Stratton lawn mower engine mounted as the power head. As crazy as it sounds, it works!

We also met a couple on a boat named Windancer (Maryann and I did not get the other woman's name) Long Island who were very nice.

We are making good time today and plan to drop the hook around Kingston. We expect to stop at Castleton-on-the-Hudson late Friday and will ustep the mast there on Saturday. We will then head to the canal for transit through the 12 locks at the south end of Lake Champlain. Sorry Dean and Susan, (at Hop-O-Nose Marina in Catskill, NY) but we will miss you this trip. Have to get back home to get to work.

Today's picture is this morning's sunrise.

We had a great stay at Lewes, DE on the opposite side of the Delaware Bay from Cape May, NJ. Nikki's friends Barb and Karl Hunt met us at the dock for a cocktail, took us to dinner, and gave a brief walking tour of the downtown area afterwards. One of the best parts of the stay was tying up to a marina slip and connecting to shore power so we could run the air conditioning on the boat - HEAVEN! Lewes is a very quaint little NE ocean side town and perhaps sets the standard for hospitality Nikki went for a run in the morning and we set out for Atlantic City around 0800. 8 hours later we arrived at Atlantic City and anchored next to the casinos. Late Sunday afternoon here is a busy place to be with tons of boat activity. These nut birds went to the same boat driving school as the nuts in southern Florida. Every possible direction as fast and as close to each other as possible. Toss in a few penis boats and numerous personal water craft and it is a real shit show. By 1900, things settled down a lot and we had a very enjoyable dinner on the hook. There was a thunderstorm in the distance to the north and Niiki got an amazing video of the lightning in the upper clouds. We will upload and share at a later date when we can get access to broad band.

I woke up in the middle of the night to a coast guard helicopter flying back and forth across the small bay here with their spot light looking for something or somebody. Never did hear what that was all about. What was really great about the stay here is it was much cooler and a nice breeze made for a more comfortable night of sleep.

We departed Atlantic City this morning at 0630 and are bound for Sandy Hook, NJ, which is across the New York Bay from NYC. We plan to go ashore to pick up a few things, let the dogs walk, Nikki will run as part of her training for the NYC marathon this November, and then we will head to the Statue of Liberty where we will take a day off from traveling and hang around for the 4th of July fireworks celebration.

After moving 80 nm in 12 hours, we settled in at this small anchorage at Reedy Island. We have been here a couple of times before and it is a good place to stop going either direction in order to set up for the next leg timed with a fair tide. A boat we passed in the canal followed us into this anchorage and literally dropped his anchor about 50' away from us. He had not been here before and apparently felt that we were in the only spot to be, which is certainly not the case. I talked to him about moving and he said he thought he would be fine. I told him that he was going to be the one moving in the middle of the night if there was a problem.

The storm most of you have probably heard about by now that spawned at least one tornado and caused major power outages in the mid-Atlantic states hit us about midnight. I woke up to unbelievable lightning about 20 minutes before the winds hit. I am telling you, even having grown up in SD and seen some awesome thunderstorms on the plains, I have never seen anything like this in all my years. It was like Hollywood being over the top. Nikki and I donned our life jackets just to be safe, and she also put the life jackets on the dogs. I blew the air horn multiple times to wake the guys on the other boat and then the winds hit us broadside. I don't know how high the winds were, but I would guess 50 kts minimum. We heeled over a good 10 degrees as the wind pushed us sideways and toward the other boat. At one point, I could see the bow of their boat within a few feet of our stern. The wind and rain were so strong we could hardly see their anchor light and only their spotlight gave a clue as to their location. In the end, our boats did not collide, no lightning strikes, and the anchors held. but I was pissed - both at them for anchoring so close, and at myself for not insisting they move, or move us if they ultimately refused.

In the height of the storm, we heard a mayday call from two brits who were in the Delaware River a few miles away from us, on a 26' sailboat, completely exposed, sails down, engine not working, and ran aground. The US Coast Guard responded and saved the day of course, but what a helpless feeling hearing someone on the radio pleading for help and feeling helpless to do anything about it. I concluded it made no sense for us to try to get to them and possibly put us in the same predicament. Thankfully there are the wonderful men and women of the USCG keeping watch over us and always there to help when needed.

We went back to bed when it was all over, around 0100, and woke at sunrise, weighed anchor, and headed south down the Delaware for Lewes, DE to meet up with Barb and Karl, two of Nikki's friends from way back.

We departed Antipoison Creek the 27th early with hopes that the forecast of NW winds at 10 - 20 would be closer to 10 than 20, but it turned out to be more around 20+, which is really bad when you are transiting the mouth of the Potomac River, which runs NW to SE and creates a very long fetch for wind waves. When we got to the mouth, it became obvious we were going to get the shit kicked out of us if we continued so we back tracked an hour to Mills Creek and settled with a small gain for the day of about 10 nm. Mills Creek is a very good anchorage and we spent the day lounging around and doing pretty much nothing. The next morning (28th) we left with calm winds and other than the oppressive heat, had an uneventful trip north and anchored at Herring Bay, about 12 nm south of Annapolis. This was the start of the very hot weather.

We had hoped to meet up with Nikki's friends Heather and Steve in Annapolis, who live nearby, but they were unable to make it, so we pressed on to the Delaware River. We made excellent time, arriving at the C&D canal at just the right time tide-wise and made nearly 9kts for the 12 mile transit.

It was a long 12 hour drive, made longer by a couple of traffic delays caused by who knows what. This picture shows what happens when your RV catches fire just as you are entering the bridge into Maryland. Traffic had to be backed up 20 miles, or something like that. We spent the next two days recommissioning Kristinly and launched her as planned on Tuesday and motored 12 nm to Antipoison Creek,where we spent two hours at anchor finishing reinstalling the mainsail.

Just as we were approaching the anchorage, the engine sputtered and died. I have had a problem with air getting into the fuel line recently, which is a bad thing for a diesel engine. Anyway, I was able to restart the engine and we anchored for the evening. When I went to start the engine the next morning to leave, nothing. Thinking the primary and secondary fuel filters may have plugged with crud from the tank after sitting for 3 months, I set about changing them. After that was complete, I tried to prime the filters and no fuel ... Duh, I had forgotten to reopen the fuel shutoff valve at the fuel tank, which I always close when laying the boat up for extended periods of time. After opening the valve and priming the filters, she immediately started back up. About that time, Nikki mentioned that it might be a good idea to have check lists for both decommissioning and commissioning the boat. One would think I would have done that by now, especially considering I usually forget something that leads to a similar experience such as this one. Nobody has ever accused me of being the sharpest knife in the drawer ...

The footnote to this is I am surprised the engine ran for nearly 2 hours on just the fuel in the line. It must have been able suction a little fuel past the valve, or something like that. ALso, I am pretty sure the air we infiltrating the line at the primary fuel filter as it no longer is happening after changing the filters. Yaaaayyy!