Lagniappe: Cape May to Boston

Cape May to Boston

We had a wonderful visit at home for 2 weeks. We worked ourselves silly in the garden and had a great barbecue with the kids and friends. Our friends, Kathy and Mark Hanan had a barbecue on the 4^th of July that we enjoyed tremendously. The night before we left, we went to the wedding of my friend, Cindy’s son and got to see a lot of friends from work. The wedding was wonderful and we had a fantastic time. We also found time to have dinner with friends Bob and Jeanie and with Tammy and Mike and a lunch at Shaggy’s beach bar in Pass Christian with our Power Squadron crowd while home. Seems like all we did was EAT. We both gained about 5 pounds. But what else can you expect from life in New Orleans?

After a hectic last weekend home, we drove back to New Jersey. On the way I called my friend, Mary Eby who has been living in Illinois and found out she and her husband were driving to Virginia to move some stuff to an apartment in Radford, VA where Terry will begin teaching at the university in the fall. We were driving just past there the next day so we stopped and were their first visitors (except for the friends who helped them unload the U-haul the night before)! Such serendipity! So great to see such long-time friends. We did the same thing to them about 28 years ago when they were just moving into a place in North Carolina. Then we visited when they lived in Colorado and in Texas. Just never got to Illinois. Maybe one day they will realize they have to quit moving so we won’t keep dropping in on them.

We made it back to the boat on the evening of July 14^th. We spent the next 2 days loading provisions on the boat, returning the rental car and fixing a few things we had gotten parts for: the AIS antenna connector, the staysail roller furling drum, etc. We left on Thursday, July 17 and motor-sailed to Cape May, NJ. We walked around and saw some of the old historic homes and then came back to our partially deflated dinghy. We had somehow managed to make a small tear in one of the tubes. We made it back to the boat and hauled the dinghy up on deck and stowed it for the trip up the East Jersey coast until we could make a repair. The next day we motored/sailed to Barnegat Bay where we anchored for the night. Friday, we made it to Sandy Hook, NJ where we took on fuel and water. We anchored in a nice cove, had a great dinner and spent the evening planning our trip up to the Battery (at the southern tip of Manhattan) and through the East River in NYC.

Some of the beautiful homes in Cape May, New Jersey:

According to the tides and currents, we figured we had to be at the Battery by 11:00a.m. to ride the current East in the East River and pass through Hell Gate at the right time in order to not get tossed around by the opposing currents. We had checked in with the Coast Guard the night before to make sure there would be no problem going through but as we neared the Verrazzano-Narrows bridge, the Vessel Traffic Service(VTS) came on the radio with an announcement that the East River between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges would be closed to all traffic from 11:00 until 2:00 for a swim event! That is not far from the Battery, but we had to put the engine on full throttle (partially to fight the current which was still going against us at the time) and get past the Battery and through the bridges before 11:00a.m. We made it with about 10 minutes to spare. Although we were a bit concerned that this would throw off our timing to pass through Hell Gate, we had a smooth ride with no problems. I don’t know what all the fuss is about. The bridges were really beautiful and we saw the Empire State building, Chrysler building and the United Nations building. We passed the infamous Riker’s Island and made it to the west end of Long Island Sound and picked up a mooring at City Island Yacht Club. The weather was perfect so we made time to patch the dinghy and kept our fingers crossed that it would hold. Couldn’t put air in it for 24 hours. Some friends from The Bahamas, Frank and Diane(S/V Utopia) met us for dinner on the island. They are staying on their boat in the New Rochelle area for the summer.

Approaching the Verrazano-Narrows bridge south of Manhattan

Passing the Statue of Liberty

Southern tip of Manhattan

Brooklyn Bridge

East River scenery


Manhattan Bridge

Empire State Building from the East River

United Nations Building

Riker's Island

Throg's Neck Bridge

We headed out the next day to Port Jefferson on Long Island where we anchored in a nice spot and watched the ferry go back and forth to Bridgeport, Conn. There were empty moorings in Port Jefferson all around us but are all reserved (evidently for people who rarely use them). What a waste! There were beautiful houses around in Port Jefferson and as we sailed the next day to Fisher’s Island on the north side of the Sound. We anchored at Fisher’s just outside the channel and were again surrounded by beautiful homes and kids out sailing Optimists, evidently at sailing camp. There must have been at least 50 Optimists out there.

Port Jefferson

Submarine coming out of Groton, CT

Island on our way to Fisher's Island

House at Watch Hill

On the 23^rd, we sailed to Newport, RI with a good wind (finally) and took a mooring in the harbor. Newport is definitely a sailor’s mecca. There are so many boats, from tall ships to luxury yachts to sailing dinghies it is amazing. They even have a handicapped sailing program called Sail to Prevail and we saw some of them out in their 24ft boats. We could have stayed for at least a week if we didn’t have plans to be someplace by Aug. 1. Thunderstorms were predicted for that evening and there wasn’t a good protected spot so we figured we’d feel safer on a mooring, especially because we were leaving the boat for several hours to visit friends, Leslie and Carl. They are good friends of Greg’s from Navy days who are living full time on their boat in the Caribbean and were back in Newport visiting family. We hadn’t seen them in about 30 years until the boat show in Newport in 2007 and now we’ve seen them 3 times (twice in the Bahamas) since April! It was great to visit again and “Cousin Alice” and her husband, John made us feel so welcome and at home. John works right near the harbor and kindly gave us a ride to their home, stopping at West Marine so we could pick up a chartbook for the area up through Maine and at the grocery for a few provisions. We got to see quite a few of the beautiful old Newport homes on our ride to their house. We even got to take LAND showers at their house. A real treat. We had a wonderful meal with great company and returned to the boat way past our bedtime.

Beautiful place in Newport Harbor

One of the many schooners in Newport

12 meter boats in Newport

With friends, Carl and Leslie

We got a late start the next morning and had rainy weather with the wind (when we had some) on our nose so it was mainly a motoring day but we made it to Onset Island in Buzzard’s Bay, just west of the Cape Cod Canal. There are so many amazing houses on and around the island. The Massachusetts Maritime Academy (Merchant Marines) is at the beginning of the canal and the USCG Eagle (tall ship) as well as the Maritime Academy’s training ship, Kennedy were docked here. They are celebrating the centennial of the Canal next Tuesday and have a big fireworks display planned. Too bad we had to move on. This was another place where we had to time the trip through the Canal to coincide with a favorable tide. We got up at 5:00a.m.on the 25^th to get to the Canal and time our trip through for a favorable current heading East. We were lucky and didn’t have any barge traffic to contend with in the Canal and had a pleasant sunrise trip through.

Sunset at Onset Island

Massachusetts Maritime Academy ship

U.S. Coast Guard Barque, Eagle at the Cape Cod Canal

After clearing the Canal, we set sail for Boston. We had better weather and sailed part of the way but had to motor when the wind died. We decided to stay in Boston 2 nights so we could see the city. We’ve been trying to get to the Penobscott Bay area in Maine for Aug.1 and feel we’ve missed out on seeing the areas we’ve been sailing past so we actually stayed more than one night at the same place since we left Cape May. We stayed at Constitution Marina which is across the river in Charlestown and walked across the locks into Boston. We saw Fenway Park, took a walking tour on the Freedom Trail with the Park Service which was very interesting and visited churches, cemeteries, Faneuil Hall and Boston Commons. We saw Paul Revere's house and the old North Church. We stopped for a beer at the original Cheers bar and had a great Italian dinner on Saturday night (July 26) in the North End and celebrated LizAnn's birthday a day early.