Sunday 20 October 2019
Last night we were sitting in the salon with a nice buzz on from dinner and probably far to much lubrication (let it be hereby known that the only crew member with any kind of a buzz on during this trip has been El Capitan...) when a series of sirens started off ashore. Since I joined the Shelburne Volunteer Fire Department I have become very sensitive to Firefighter memorials and to the sound of sirens so when these went off last night I really wanted to go and help. Plus, in virtually every community that we have visited on this cruise they have had a volunteer fire department and they all answer to an acoustic fire alarm. Part of me thinks that if our town, Shelburne, still had the same thing - an alarm waking everyone up while the volunteer firefighters responded - there wouldn't be any question as to the value they contribute to the community. Shelburne used to have one but apparently perhaps people complained about the noise so it was replaced by a system of pagers and iPhone apps.

To get back to our cruise. Last night was another calm, almost windless night and again I am second guessing myself about not leaving straight from our transit of the East River. We would be in Cape May by now as we were only six hours behind Courlevent and they made the trip in 30 hours! Oh well. If we had done that we wouldn't have had a chance to see this interesting part of New Jersey.

And speaking of Courlevent, we have a very brief, one or two sentence conversation via messenger yesterday afternoon to say that they were in Cape May, safe and sound and thinking of taking a dock for the blow that's coming through. As of this posting they were at anchor. Estelle’s friends are still with her but will be heading out tomorrow. I believe she told us that they have further plans in Mexico. I'm sure they will be missed both for their watch keeping and for their company. She messaged me that at 17h00 she was getting a lot of wind in Cape May.

Every morning we are awakened at about 05h30 by the small wakes from commercial and private sport fishermen heading out into the bays for the day's assault on the finny denizens of the brine. It doesn't particularly bother us as it is great to see people enjoying the natural resource that is around us. I am also struck by how much more Americans do that than folks at home. Granted there is ten times the population but even a tenth of the number of boats heading out every day is still far more that what we see at home.

We went in for showers at the Keyport Yacht Club and to buy some more one pound propane cylinders from the Home Depot. The launch operator had a great chat with us about health care plans plus he told us that when we left the East River at Liberty Island if we had gone straight across the harbour instead of turning to port to go out under the narrows bridge we could have gone around the back of Staten Island and come out right at their club. It would be the same distance as if we had come out and gone to Atlantic Highlands. Good to know and now I am passing that along. Getting the propane cylinders was a non-starter. We had the Home Despot in sight but getting there involved crossing six lanes of zipping traffic with a thigh-high cement barricade in the middle - not happening.

At 11h15 we dropped the mooring and set off for the short trip to the more sheltered mooring field behind the breakwater at Atlantic Highlands. If you're following the blog you may have noticed that one of the members at the Atlantic Highlands Yacht Club posted a comment and was kind enough to offer to host us and show us some of his community. On our cruises we have met so many interesting and friendly people through the blog. Some have remained friends even after we have sailed our separate ways. He and his lovely wife (a fellow knitter so Barb was happy...) took us by road out to the end of Sandy Hook which is a huge Federal Park and the site of Fort Hancock and also to a museum based on twin lighthouses (Twin Lights of Navesink) both within close driving distance of the mooring field. It was really very nice that they took the time to come down and show us around - we both really appreciated the tour; such a beautiful community but with oh so expensively crippling taxes.

The day was pretty dead at Atlantic Highland Yacht Club but in all fairness it is Sunday at the end of the season and pouring rain. From our short trip into the place I will say that it has a totally different vibe from Keyport. Not better. Not worse. Just different. I think that it's big attraction for transients is how close it is to Sandy Hook if you are staging for a trip around the point but if proximity is what you are looking for then an anchorage just off the Coast Guard Station would be the best of all bets.

Oh. And on our tour we were told that the place that sold the great BBQ ribs has gone out of business or at the very least moved somewhere not close to the harbour. Boo! Drat!

Back to the boat to dry off and get ready for the night. We won't have to get underway until noon tomorrow to meet the slack tide and head south.

Barb will spend part of the morning finishing off the latest version of African Peanut Soup which will be great to have for warming meals while we are underway.