Ride the sail...UNDER your boat...

Fred part II in Manasquan...we finally squeezed through the bridge and made a hard turn to starboard to pull up at the Gas Dock in Brielle (Manasquan). There was a brisk current and a nice breeze going, and Fred said we would be able to simply "back up" into a slip next to the gas dock without using sail or motor. This, he intended us to do, by riding the currents on the "sail under the boat" - in otherwords our keel - and making minute adjustments to the tiller. Unbelievably enough, this did work! It did take between 20 minutes and 1/2 hour, but we did it without crashing into anything and were just so happy to be safe! Fred was quite an interesting and entertaining character, and he entertained us with stories for another 1/2 hour afterwards. He even offered to buy us a beer at the local bar! (That never happened before when we pulled into a marina). At any rate, we were very glad to leave Manasquan for Atlantic City in the cool, quiet hours of the morning the next day. Atlantic City was entirely too much. We pulled into the State Marina, but it was rapidly being subsumed by the Donald Trump Marina Casino complex. Bad bands doing oldies until way too late at night outside on the bar deck. Enough said. Next day on to Cape May which was, in fact, gorgeous!!! We spent and extra day there and enjoyed a 4-mile beach walk on the most outstanding beach in New Jersey. The town itself is charming. We were fortunate to be able to dinghy into the floating dock at the Lobster House and enjoy not only the food but also the proximity to all shopping needs. Then on through the Chesapeake and Delaware canal, a very pleasant stopover in Chesapeake City where there is a lovely little jewelry store, and then a quiet anchorage at Veasey Cove in the Bohemia River. We are now at at little town called Havre de Grace, Maryland which is at the top of the Chesapeake Bay in the mouth of the Susquehanna. Wayne has been kind enough to let me type away for quite some time now, so the above entry will be expanded upon a little later. For now, we are enjoying exploring this quiet little town which is a legendary and ancient port.

Into the Chesapeake: Triumph over the Atlantic

After leaving our lovely, quiet harbor at Atlantic Highlands, we braved the Atlantic Ocean to the first and only available safe harbor between Sandy Hook and Atlantic City: The Manasquan Inlet at Brielle. We had gotten what we thought to be sage advice about and anchorage, but as it turned out the Manasquan Inlet is beset by buzzing fishing boats which fly in and out at a great rate of speed with no regard for the sailboats. It is narrow and shallow and lined with marinas too shallow for us to enter and docks too busy to tie up to. We pulled up to one of the 2 gas docks that could accomodate us but they had no room for the night. Hot, tired, and discouraged, we were told we could anchor just out of the fray at "Green 2". Knowing nothing else to do, we anchored out at the confluence of 2 whizzing fishing boat channels and had to think...blow up the dinghy...send Wayne out to find a place for the night. Luckily the Brielle Boat Basin was willing to give us a slip. Now we had to deflate the dinghy, up anchor, and go through an incredibly narrow space created by a "bascule bridge" with swirling currents and stinging-insect like power boaters buzzing around our bow and stern. Just as we were about to make the attempt we heard a fog horn bellow and people started to get out of our way. Another sailboater was about to do the same from the other side, noticed our plight, and blew their horn for us. IF you EVER have the insane idea to attempt to navigate the Manasquan Inlet and draw more than 4 feet with more than 40 feet of mast: know this. #1 The ONLY place that can and will accomodate you is the Brielle Boat Basin, Call them, ask for Fred. That is a whole "nother" story but I have limited time today. #2 You must follow your charts carefully to get there, and it is just beyond the first bascule bridge. You MUST blow your horn when about to go through the bridge, otherwise it is perilous beyond belief. #3. If you can make the run to Atlantic City without going into the Manasquan inlet, do it. There is more which I will put in the next post, but to let all know that from there Atlantic City was overwhelming but a much easier harbor, Cape May delightful, and now we are at the top of the Delaware Bay in Delaware City and poised to sail down the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal tomorrow into the promised land - the Chesapeake Bay. I am reading Michner's "Chesapeake" right now and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in the history of this area. More on that later... thanks again to those who leave comments, particularly congratulations to Lisa and her Corbeau! Please if you can, leave us your email address in the body of your comment and we will respond. Somehow unless you do this, we can't get in touch with you. Stay tuned however, for the Manasquan story has just started and the tale of Fred should not be missed...

Sandy Hook and the Statue of Liberty

We sailed into New York City on a cold, blustery, rainy day garbed in great yellow foul weather gear which unfortunatly did not extend to our feet. After about 3 hours of getting progressively more cold, wet and numb we arrived at the Liberty Landing Marina. We recouperated in the down below of the boat by eating hot soup and napping in preparation for the NYC adventure. Our internet connections had been so pitiful we were unable to successfully meet up with any of our friends, but that afternoon braved the remnants of the rain and wind via water taxi to the World Financial Center on the southern tip of Manhattan. We had done a bit of research and had found a chart store called New York Nautical at 158 Duane Street in Tribeca. This is fabulous store with all your chart and reference manual needs, and it is an easy and pleasant walk from the financial district. We passed by the City Hall Park and many other pleasant sites and loved the artsy atmosphere of Tribeca. From there we walked to Canal Street and explored China town, ending up in a long-promised dinner in Little Italy. Nothing like some great pasta and chianti to make up for a cold, wet day. (This was the price of my staying on deck during the horrible morning sail...)The name of the restaurant we selected was La Nonna. I liked it because the atmosphere was intimate and the restauranteur had named it for his grandmother - Annette - same name as my grandmother. We found we had made an excellent selection and enjoyed a lovely dinner. The next morning we took off - now in posession of updated and extensive charts and reference materials, for Sandy Hook, NJ. We are anchored behind a breakwall in Atlantic Highlands and typing away madly at a real computer connected to a real interent connection in the charming little public library. This is a sailor's delight of a town with convenient shopping, dining, snacking, pubbing, movie theatre, library (obviously) and even a waterfront casino and party boat for those who care/dare. We intend to perhaps see a movie for the first time in about 2 months! We will be planted here until the weather report improves as we are about to venture forth into the Atlantic Ocean. Between here and Atlantic City, there is one inlet into the intracoastal waterway that we can probably slip into (Manasquan inlet) but that is the last "safe harbor of refuge" for a boat our size. Figuring about 17+ hours from Sandy Hook to Atlantic City, we prefer to stop on the way if at all possible. For now it is just wonderful to have had a run, a nice shower, a real computer, and the prospect of a day or 2 of just fun!

The Big Apple and Hudson Valley: NY Adventures

We are happily docked at the Tarrytown Marina and enjoying the lavish hospitality of my Aunt Marianne at the present moment. Since leaving the Canal, we to Rensellear, NY for a night after which Sarah and I caught the Amtrak into Manhattan. Arriving at Penn Central we spent about 3 hours walking around Mid-Town Manhattan including Columbus Circle, Central Park, the Public Library (featured in the movie The Day After), Times Square, Fifth Avenue, and various shopping venues including a brave venture into one of the hallowed territories of the rich and famous - Bergdorf Goodman. If you have never been there, it is one of the largest and "toniest" pricey stores in Manhattan all done in white marble and gleaming art deco. The basement is a floor is dedicated solely to perfume and cosmetics with all of the most famous product lines from Lancome and Chanel to Clinique, etc. Each product counter had fantastically coiffed and made up salesladies who were busily applying their wares to incredibly well-dressed and jeweled New York debutantes and their moms. The next floor (main floor) is all accessories and jewelry - handbag department, scarf deparment, hat department, on and on and even a Van Cleef and Arpels counter. The jewelry, needless to say, was NOT costume jewelry. The next floor housed designer collection clothing. Even Sarah was hesitant to touch anything ( I knew better). After 3 floors we knew we were woefully underdressed and tried to leave unobtrusively. But what an experience! Next we took the subway down to Canal Street and strolled from Chinatown to Little Italy. We scored a Dolce and Gabbana knock-off bag for Sarah in Chinatown as well as a few other items. By this time it was pushing 6pm and we took the subway back to Times Square, walked to Penn Station and caught a train to Newark where we picked up the Air Train to the depot for hotel shuttles and by 7:30 pm we were exhausted but happily checked in to a gorgeous room at the Airport Marriott. Sarah flew back home the next morning, and as pre-arranged I went back into Manhattan and walked the few blocks from Penn Station to Port Authority and caught a bus to Kingston, NY to meet up with Wayne. He had worked like a dog the day I was playing in NYC, getting the mast de-stepped (which means put back up) and getting the boat ready to be a sailboat again. I managed to find him at the waterfront in Kingston which is a DO NOT MISS for boaters on the Hudson. The entire waterfront areas has been re-habbed into adorable little boutiques, restaurants, bars, and all totally geared to boaters. It is also an extremely historic area (as is all the Hudson) and quaint as all get-out. You can anchor out and dinghy in to this area if you prefer (which is what we did) and for $10 the Rondout Yacht Basin will let you take a shower and jump in their pool. Next morning we left for the Hyde Park Marina and soon after casting off - just as Wayne was extolling the beauty of the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson River Valley - the boat made a soft "thud" as we ran aground for the third time. NO!!!! You're kidding! This can be a serious situation in the Hudson as actually there is a tide and the tide was going out. After a frantic effort to free the keel, it became painfully apparent that the only thing we could do was wait until the tide was coming back in. When this happens, the sailboat starts to lean over on it's side until it is nearly horizontal. You can feel the process occuring on board, and it is quite unsettling. The only thing to do was to get into the dinghy and wait it out with water, sunscreen and a book. Luckily the water Sheriff came by and explained that we had made a common mistake: an old lighthouse had been restored and although the sailors had asked for the trim to be painted green, history buffs insisted it be painted red. Many sailors mistake this lighthouse for a "red" when it should be a "green". In sailing terms, this is a very bad situation because you make the decision regarding which side to pass it on based upon its color. Clearly, we should have passed it on the port side, but we went to starboard and therefore, like many before us, ran aground. The Sheriff said he had saved many a sailor from just this spot, which made me feel alot better but Wayne was still disgusted. The Sheriff said he would come back when there was more water, but perhaps we could row out an anchor and try to kedge ourselves off if it started to look more favorable. This is exactly what happened and by 1pm or so we were free of the mud and underway again. Wayne says there are 2 kinds of sailors: those who have run aground and those who will. This is sailing wisdom. I believe it, but I have had enough running around for now. In fact if it does not happen again at all this trip, I will not be disappointed. On to the Hyde Park Marina - which we discovered upon arrival had actually burned down last year. All but the floating docks -and so we tied up to the remnant of the gas dock and spent a pleasant evening anyway. The next day was a fabulous trip through the West Point area in which we saw incredible ruins of old forts and arsenals as well as the home of our Army Academy. Cool stuff actually. We gassed up at the Panco gas dock along the way but there was really no good place to stop or anchor so we went all the way to Nyack. There is a large anchorage area in Nyack, and it is an ADORABLE town. It is upscale artst-fartsy complete with a natural foods grocery store and a fabulous wine store. There are any number of historic mansions along the short and pleasant walk to town, most in excellent repair with lovely gardens. We picked out some nice wine and a few essentials and had dinner on board with every intention to spend another day the next day. In the dead of the night, a storm of major proportions blew up with rain, thunder, lightening, wind, you name it. Wayne bolted out of bed and onto the deck without a stitch of clothing to protect him from the elements to make sure our anchor was holding and the dinghy was still here. Yes on both counts, but it was difficult to sleep much after that and we both slept in fits and starts. Logically, the worst thing that can happen when you are anchored out somewhere is that you "drag" your anchor thus potentially crashing into another boat or running aground or crashing into rocks - you get the idea. OK, dragging is not the worst possible thing - totally losing your anchor would be worse but that is a rare occurance and one that better not happen to me...The next morning brought no more rain but a visciously building wind and waves - even on a river - that did cause us to drag our anchor quite a distance at which point the only choice was to get somewhere safe! We motored over to the Tarrytown Marina and were extraordinarily happy to have made our destination intact and to enjoy some calm water at last. The marina is a stone's throw from the Tappan Zee bridge and boasts a wonderful view of the New York skyline. The staff is friendly, the facilities clean and secure, and next door is a large park with among other things tennis courts. Heaven! That's where Cassie is while we visit with my auntie. Tomorrow we will take her out into the Hudson again and attempt to find an achorage for her somewhere in the Manhattan area. We are hoping to hook up with the fabulous painter John Ranson Phillips who some of you may remember from his show in the DeVos and enjoy some mouth-watering Italian food at a sidewalk cafe in Little Italy. Next entry - our New York City experience.

Out of the Canal, into the Hudson

We had a busy day our last day on the Erie Canal, transiting through 6 locks in total, the last 5 dropped us over 150 feet! Overnighting at Waterford we discovered a very nice little municipal swimming pool and park which even had tennis courts! I suffered a crushing 6-0 defeat at the hands of the captain, who was feeling quite plucky indeed. Then on to Albany/Rensellear this morning and now we are at the Albany Yacht Club enjoying a warm Hudson River afternoon at a nice facility replete with wireless. There was one more lock this morning - the Troy Federal lock. Sailboaters beware: This lock has cable and pipe (mostly pipe) but NO ROPES whatsoever. Thank goodness we had done a cable and a pipe lock already on the Canal, it would have been very confusing if we had not. We are hoping to get the mast stepped at Catskill tomorrow and then have sailpower again. The Hudson has significant tides, and so we will have to consult the tidal charts on the way down to New York City. Hopefully, we will be able to stay a day or so in New York before plunging into the Ocean down the Jersey Coast.

Highlights of the Eastern Erie Canal

Sarah and I are furiously typing side-by-side in the Canajoharie, NY public library. Since leaving Fairport, the highlights have been a visit to the Ess-Kay Boatyard in Brewerton, NY. We stopped there just prior to crossing Lake Oneida (the largest body of water in the Canal system) and were able to get diesel, pump out, marine parts, even the coaxial cable fitting that Wayne needed for the top of the mast to ensure our radio works once the mast is back up. A delightful lady named Kim helped us there. Highly recommended! We crossed the Lake which seemed like an actual lake with wind and waves (unfortunately the following waves made Sarah quite ill and she was the first one aboard to lose her lunch since we shoved off...) We arrived at Sylvan Beach about 3 hours later and tied up to the wall at a lovely little cafe, whose owner John was so very kind. The Cafe (of course I left the name of it on the boat) was established in 1977 (for all of us class of '77-ers) and the folks are just lovely there. It is right on the wall - you can't miss it! Just behind the cafe is an amusement park where Wayne kicked booty in mini-golf. Sarah came in second of course and I wound up in last place. Some things never change. We had walked the beach in the late afternoon and were delighted to be able to watch three very skillfull kite surfers - it looks like such fun. That will have to wait until next year. After leaving Sylvan Beach we had intended to tie up in Utica but IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. The wall there is like Mount Everest, and there are no facilities to speak of, so we went on to Ilion. Highly recommended as well - at Ilion there are hot showers, electric hookups, a cute little cafe, and walking distance to everything. Today we went through 5 locks including lock 17 - a 40-foot drop and arguably the largest lock (or largest lift/drop) in the world. It was impressive. Canajoharie is an industrial little town but the library here boasts a lovely new art gallery and a collection of American artists including works by Winslow Homer. The name of this facility is the Canjoharie Library and Art Gallery and they can be found at 2 different websites: http://research.mvls.info/can and www.clag.org
The folks here are wonderfully nice and it is an amazing thing to find a museum of this nature tucked away in the middle of nowhere. We are hoping to get to Waterford in 2 more days, then Troy and will be updating the blog when we catch up with life. For the moment, all is well!

A new passenger - Sarah!

After an action-packed 2 days of visiting Wayne's sisters in Pennsylvania ( where we celebrated his birthday on the 5th), we are now back on the Canal with Sarah as our newest crew member. She has become the technical support officer as she is the one who really knows how to load digital photos to the internet, etc. She has been settling into the canal routine quite well, and is an important addition to our lock team and dock team. It really is nice to have one more crew member around to catch dock lines and fend off the boat. Sarah is a pro! We are both sitting in the library in Baldwinsville, NY - she using Wayne's laptop wireless and me at one of the big towers I like so much. Not much really to report - after Great Lakes sailing the canal is so easy. We are headed to Sylvan Beach after crossing Lake Oneida tomorrow where we anticipate amusing Miss Sarah with an amusement park. It must be said, however, that all of the towns along the canal have been very welcoming, and the ability to connect with friends and family via internet is fabulous.

Fair sailing to Fairport

I am enjoying a sultry Erie Canal evening on the back of the boat in the fair village of Fairport. This is a town that really caters to the boaters. We are tied up at a nice municipal facility with incredibly clean and nice showers and bathrooms, power and water hookups and even pumpouts. The phenomenal thing is they have this great wireless as well and it's free! I tend to get excited about small things anymore. We are awaiting Wayne's sister after a long "worky" day of lift bridge and lock navigation. Once again we refined our systems and discovered it is much better to lock through on the port side given the way the boat swings ass out in reverse on a starboard tie up. We are geared up with gloves, boathooks, fenders, and various lines that are just staying out on deck for the duration because you must be ready to lock up or down - as soon as you enter and they think you are close to being ready the water level stars changing. Today we went through a section of the canal which had a significant amount of work barges and little tugs that pull them around. I tried to make radio contact with one such foursome, but could not understand the reply. Wayne was at the tiller eating a sandwich when suddenly he realized that these guys were not playing our game the way we thought and we were on a collision course. Sandwich ditched, he deftly maneuvered out of the way when a guy on the tug came out shouting "back, back!!!!!" Would have been nicer if he had simply responded to my radio appeal. After turning Cassie in a tight circle, the tug and barge pair had moved enough out of the canal that we could pass. This time they did respond to my radio appeal to simply not change their configuration. He only had just enough time to finish his lunch when we arrived at the first of our two locks. Yeowzah, time to spring into action again! We are getting better and better at all this, and so although it can be a lot to do, we were not too stressed by locking through two times in ten minutes - the locks are only a short distance apart. The lock and lift-bridge operators are wonderful, helpful, and we arrived sans major problem to our current resting place. We had to give the boat the once-over inside and out for the arrival of Princess Sarah, and now she is clean and sweet-smelling and ready to accomodate our star guest. We'll probably take a break from blogging for a few days now to enjoy a real bed, laundry facilities, and real bathrooms that you can even use in the middle of the night if you want. Sarah will finish out the Erie with us so stay tuned for the next installment. Recommendation of the day: stay here at Fairport if ever you ever naviagted on the Erie Canal....

Hot times on the canal

Middleport was charming and offered us our first taste of life on the canal. We were tied up next to a trio of boats from Niagara, one of the couples on board was from Canada. They gave us an earful of their exploits and a lot of great advice about the canal and where to stay. We have started to hone our systems of starboard docking in the current which keeps wanting to push our stern out, arranging dock lines around the mast and lines which are holding the mast supports in place, and getting the hang of contacting roving lift bridge operators by radio and cell phone. It can get pretty wild! We went under 7 lift bridges today, only about 4 tomorrow but 2 locks to go as well to get to Fairport. Just as you might settle in to read a bit, all of a sudden it is time to spring into action to do something...I am the Lt. Uhuru of the ship: in other words the communications officer. So my job is to plan ahead for the lift bridges, note where we are on the charts, and then call at the appropriate moment (or radio) to let the bridge operators know where we are and when they might expect us. Since some of them operate more than one bridge at more than one town (and unbelievably enough we are not the only boat on the canal), their job is much easier with good communications and we are less likely to have to wait. Now we are in Holley, NY and I have found another haven for the computer-addicted: the Holley Free Public Library. There is a brand new and squeaky-clean wooden dock on the east side of the Holley lift bridge with free shower, power, water, whoo hoooooo!!! Wayne is provisioning at the Jubliee Foods while I get to chill (literally!) here in the air-conditioned comfort and blog away. The canal offers none of the challenging weather of the Great Lakes, but other challenges such as bridges and locks abound. I remember with fondness now the trip down the Detroit River, past the Renaissance Center in the early morning light, past enormous steel foundries and manufacturing plants belching pollution, past the legendary Enrico Fermi nuclear plant and spotting so far on the horizon the Perry Monument of South Bass Island. Sailing from there to Cleveland with charming captain Gene was a gas. Geneva-on-the-Lake offered a great Fish Fry at the High Tide, then games galore at the arcades. The best of these was the Air Hockey, at which I was so terrible and got clobbered by Wayne. I did win the Skee Ball however, having developed my "skills" earlier in life. From Geneva, the most notable highlights were the lovely State Park Marinas and the BAD ASS weather from Erie, PA to Barcelona, NY. We set out with a big ole head wind in the morning, which only got worse and worse. The waves kept crashing over the bow, the boat rocking and rolling, until Wayne finally said, "I can't stand this any more, we cannot make it to our original choice of harbors, we have to stop!" Barcelona was a little cesspool of a town, but it was very good to get anywhere out of the weather. Those days seem so long past, now that we have tasted canal life! It is so hot and steamy that we were unable to even manage a run today, despite the well-maintained, tree-lined trails that encircle the little town here. The best I could manage was a pilates session under the trees by the dock with a little breeze and a lot of shade. Despite the daily 2 or 3 beers, we continue to lose weight as boat life is constantly on the go. There is apparently no way to survive boat life without a goodly supply of "cold ones" and the time to enjoy them. We have been blessed with both! Tomorrow we are on to Fairport and a rendez-vous with the lovely Kathy Francis Gearinger.

If you've ever navigated on the Erie Canal...

We are in a public library in the lovely and quaint town of Middleport, NY. Adorable! We sailed in beautifully on a West wind which pushed us from our last Lake Erie port of call to Buffalo. There was a navigational jigsaw puzzle to go through in the Harbor there, but then we entered Black Rock River Canal. Downriver just a small bit from the entrance to the canal we were hit with the triple threat: a lift bridge, a swing bridge and the Black Rock Lock. Hooboy, were we lucky that somebody was right in front of us leading the way. We have been having trouble with the radio, and never know if we are actually communicating with bridge operators or lockmasters, so we just followed the other guy and the things magically happened. Spent the night tied up at Wardell's in Tonawonda (the only place to step your mast). Mast down this morning and a delicious, lazy motor up to Middleport. HOT! I regret the brevity of the posts, but when I get more time I will expand upon the end of the Lake Erie adventure, meeting the wonderful Gene Iannucci who was kind enough to let us use his slip in Geneva, the outstanding entertainment at Geneva-on-the-Lake and the many other stories. At any rate, we are out of the grasp of the Great Lakes squalls and into some real easy going. Sarah will join us August 5th and we will all be going to meet up with Wayne's sisters in upstate NY. Thanks for your comments, we appreciate them. Ciao for now.