As this is written at the Severn River Marina in Gloucester, Virginia, I am in a very different place from the last stop we made – Liberty Landing Park just off the Hudson River and New York City. We left Port Washington on Monday afternoon, a day later than originally planned, due to a problem with our engine's water pump. Fortunately, I had a spare. Although it wasn't quite up to the engine's demands, we'd used it before and I was confident it would get us back to Virginia where I could order a new one.
The next few days of travel point out to non-cruisers some of the challenges we've found traveling in a boat. But first let me tell you that we thoroughly enjoyed our time in NYC. We left Port Washington in the afternoon because of the tide in the East River. There's a spot called Hell Gate (nice name, don't you think) where the Harlem River enters the East River. The tidal current here can run at 5 knots or better. Since we have trouble doing more than 6 knots, we don't want to arrive at this point with the tide running the wrong way. Hence the afternoon travel. Then we had to go down the east channel where a bridge must open for us. We'd prefer the west channel, since there's no bridge to worry about, but Homeland Security was worried about the UN and so closed the west channel. Our timing was good, though, because shortly after we transited the East River, they closed both channels. We'd have been totally blocked from making our anchorage and would have to return to Port Washington against the tide. Not good. However, we had picked a good time and made our way out to the Hudson, still getting a view of the UN and getting our first look at the new building going up at Ground Zero as well as seeing a number of well-known sky scrapers including the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building.
Once out in the Hudson, we worked our way past a number of fast moving ferries and many police and Coast Guard boats all on patrol. Then it was across the Hudson past Ellis Island and Liberty herself. Although I'd been to the Statue of Liberty when we were much younger, going by in our boat was a special treat.
We anchored in NJ at Liberty Park with another couple, Dick & Libby, whom we'd met in Marathon. They'd spent the summer on the Erie Canal and then on Lake Champlain before heading south on the Hudson to NYC. We then spent the next morning on Manhattan, taking the ferry over to the financial district. We walked to a point where we could see much of the construction at Ground Zero and then took a bus around Battery Park over to the old seaport and did a little window shopping and lunch. The energy and cultural diversity of this place is really obvious, and it was worth our brief visit.
As we planned our next move, things began to get complicated. This is where the difference of traveling by boat becomes so apparent. We had to travel down the coast of NJ, and we'd hoped we could make the leg a day trip only and anchor somewhere on the Jersey Shore, but there were no safe inlets for us before Atlantic City. We couldn't reach that point until well after dark, and we had no desire to enter an unknown inlet in the dark. That meant our choices were down to two. Either we'd head all the way down to Cape Charles and the lower end of the Chesapeake in three days and two nights (not very attractive) or go overnight down to Cape May and turn up the Delaware Bay to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal that would take us to the Chesapeake Bay. The problem with that scenario is that the tide current would be running against us for several hours, making it nearly impossible to get to the canal in daylight. Even if we did, we'd have no place to stop until after dark. That didn't sound like a safe choice. We could have waited a few days hoping for better weather, but the tides in the Delaware Bay wouldn't be appropriate for another week. In the end, we decided to do the two night trip down in the ocean. The seas wouldn't be too bad, but the wind and waves would be against us, meaning little sailing and slow going. There was a chance of thunderstorms in the forecast as well. Of course this trip would be with an engine that couldn't run at full power due to the water pump issue mentioned earlier. We get little sleep on overnights. Plus our autopilot wasn't working, so we'd have to steer all the time. This makes the trip doubly tiring.
Our friends we'd met up with at Liberty Landing decided to do the same, since they were interested in getting down to North Carolina soon. It went as well as could be expected, but that wasn't good. We were doing less than 4 knots at times and the engine was running hot. By the time we reached the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, our oil pressure alarm went off, telling us we'd lost some oil due to the hot engine. We stopped to add more as the first of several large ships and tugs pulling barges went by. We weren't sure we'd make it to the marina, since we were later stopped by a passing thunder storm. We were in Mobjack Bay at the time, so we just pulled off the side and dropped our anchor until it passed. It turned out to be a brief stop, and we were able to continue our travel, but we arrived at the marina in a downpour. We again dropped the anchor and decided we'd deal with getting into the slip in the morning. We were exhausted and the boat was a mess.
Once we were settled, the rain stopped, and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset – a gift to help remind us what an unusually beautiful, serene spot this is. I know we appreciated this quiet spot when we lived here year round. After passing through spectacular scenery of a different sort, we can still appreciate this as well.
Once we're back we deal with all this straightening up. We also catch up on laundry, fill the water tanks, take the dinghy off the back of the boat and begin the preparation for the continued travel as we head down to Florida. That travel won't happen for a few weeks. We've got to work through the engine issues, paint the bottom of the boat and reorganize the boat for our southern experience. This will be the last entry for a while. Once we're ready to leave, I'll report back in. Till then best wishes to one and all.
Captain Bob
Carpe Diem
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