Mike and Kathy
09/18/2007, Atlantic City, NJ

Sept. 13....Atlantic City

We were up at 4am for a 5:00 departure but it was so dark that it took us forever to feel our way through the mooring field and channel to deep water. It was 10 miles to Sandy Hook and then 70 to Atlantic City where we find ourselves at this point in time....13 hours of the Atlantic Ocean. The sails were up but due to distance and the fact that there are no places to bail, the engine was on to maintain 6.5 knots. We're anchored in a marsh that is well lit by the casinos across the way. Tomorrow we will run down the coast again... 2 to 5 miles off shore, to Cape May. A front is if forecast for Friday night and Saturday, so our trip up the Delaware Bay will probably be on Sunday....sliding up on the tide and a broad reach. (we're sure about the tide anyway)

We are currently facing our biggest challenge of the trip. ... alternator problems.. The house alternator hasn't worked for a few days. We have run enough tests to realize that the cause is undoubtedly fried diodes. Anyway, we need a new one and the old one fixed to use as a spare.

We would like to get to the to the north end of the Chesapeake where we're a little closer and hopefully can rent a car for a day. The refrigerator has been off for a few days... ice works ok. We leave the instruments off unless we really need them which is rare. No autopilot is a pain, but we take turns steering. We have a little Honda generator so we have lights at night and run our anchor light. It has been an inconvenience but really not much of a problem yet...


Sorry we couldn't meet up with Bob and Karin here. . .

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Mike and Kathy-A little rain must fall
09/14/2007, Great Kills Harbor, NY

September 10 and 11, Monday and Tuesday Great Kills, New York

Monday dawned hot and cloudy with a little fog. We followed "Restless" out of Liberty Harbor a little after high tide to hit the narrows with a little push behind us. At max. the tide here runs at five knots with standing waves so attention to tides is critical. They won't be all that important to us again until Cape May where there are two bridges with 55 feet clearance... plus we want to ride the tide up the Delaware Bay, so a departure a little after low tide is important.

After dodging anchored ships in the upper harbor we ran into some very dense fog just beyond the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. We have not put the radar reflector back up since the mast stepping and although Mike had checked our radar in the morning, when we turned it on it was not working. So, we followed closely behind "Restless", listening to the ship horns and fog horns. It remained foggy and gray for the rest of the day. We arrived at Great Kills Harbor which is packed with mooring balls, and anchored on the north end in front of a park. It was a short day but the forecast for the next few days looks iffy for our first open ocean run.

We have developed alternator problems and spent the rest of the day testing and diagnosing. Voltages seem to be fine except for the out-put so the alternator need to be pulled and fixed. Bummer.

Tuesday.

So, we have turned off any non-essential electrical items and run the generator on occasion. We woke to rain on Tuesday, but when it stopped for a minute, Mike headed for town to look for a new regulator, even though we are quite sure that is not the problem. He came back with ice and a regulator and an attitude. At the first place he stopped, he explained his problem and he was told no one could tie a dinghy up unless they were a member of the club. He was told the same thing at the next place, but the guy let him tie up because it was Tuesday, and not much was going on. He says it's not much of a town anyway, but they certainly are not very friendly!

We had thunderstorms in the afternoon and lots of wind and rain. Steve and Carol from "Restless" called and invited us over for cocktails. We are trying to figure out a good time to head out for the next leg of the trip. During our conversation, Steve mentioned that he wished he had hooked up his radar before our trip yesterday! We were following him closely because we assumed he had his radar on-good thing we didn't know any better. We made it here safely, so it all worked out.

Wednesday

Too windy to travel today. We got restless and decided to go to shore for a walk. We stopped by to see if Steve and Carol wanted to go along, and we all walked into town to pick up a few things. Their dinghy is on their foredeck partially inflated, so we pick them up and visit their boat because our dinghy is easy to lower and raise. Hmm, reminds me of a certain Canadian couple who never had to get their dinghy off their foredeck on the ICW...clever ploy...

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Kathy-Beautiful day
09/14/2007, New York, New York

September 9, Sunday New York, New York

Can you believe that they actually CLOSE the Hudson River for a power boat race?? We got here and the river was closed from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.. We pulled over and anchored to wait. They actually called about 2 and said the river was open again. We decided to try 79th Street Boat Basin for a mooring ball, but the ones we could fit on were taken so we continued on down to anchor behind the Statue of Liberty at Liberty State Park. It is quite calm in here after all the wakes, waves, tide and current in the river. There is really nowhere to go on shore here, except to Liberty Park, so there will be no walk in Central Park on this trip. We can see the Verrazano Narrows Bridge from here. At night it is all lit up with lights and is very pretty. The "Narrows" can be a tough spot to get through, due to tide and wind, so we will choose our time to go with those factors in mind.

Once again, our trip was crowded with history on the way down from Haverstraw Bay. We passed Sing Sing, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, more mansions, and historic sites. We were surprised that across the river from Yonkers and the Bronx are the Palisades, which are tall rock cliffs and are quite beautiful.

Today was the kind of day that made me think of great sails on Lake Michigan-hope someone did that!

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