Away at Last

We left Maine with both relief and dismay. We had not done the sailing we so wanted to and Maine is such a wonderful place that we were upset that we may never have the opportunity again. We also were become very attached to the people we had met and it felt almost like leaving home. Everyone had been so friendly and the guys at Lyman Morse especially so.

We had a really great journey down to the Cape Cod canal (other than the fact we were freezing at night and sat with 6 layers of clothing and under a blanket!) arriving there so early that we took advantage of the fair tide to travel on to Block Island. After a good nights sleep, we headed on down Long Island Sound. Unfortunately, the wind turned against us and after a day of banging into waves and making only slow headway we decided to find an anchorage for the night and continue in the morning. The following day still hadn't a good wind but it had lessened and the waves weren't so bad. We continued on down the Sound and were looking at our entry into the East River when we realised that we couldn't make any sense of the instructions in the pilot book. It was badly written on that particular point so we couldn't work out the necessary time for our decent down the river which we needed to do with the tide. After phoning a few friends, one was able to give us good advice (Thanks, Bill) and we went down the river perfectly. It was really interesting going down past big houses before passing the airport and moving into industrial areas before getting to Manhattan. At that point, we were just 2 more tourists pointing out the more notable sights like the Empire State and Chrysler Building. At the mouth of the river, we were presented with a great view of the Statue of Liberty before turning up the Hudson toward the anchorage. About an hour later we were secure and able to relax and plan out what we were going to do.

As we were pretty tired, we had the next day off so just stayed on the boat and relaxed. The following morning, we dropped the dingy and fixed the engine only to find the Chapter Two jinx had struck again! Our fuel was full of water and this stopped the engine as we headed to the landing place. Given the 2 -3 knots of current, we had to row to direct our dingy into the landing with just one chance to get it right. Once there, efforts to sort out the motor failed and as we had to wait for a turn in the tide, we decided to head on into New York. We strolled across Central Park and eventually to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We had a nice time there before heading off to meet some friends, Mark and Liesbet, met in the Caribbean who also happened to be in New York. We had a lovely time catching up with them but had to call a halt too early as we had to catch the tide to get back to the boat. As it was, we left it almost too late and by the time we had rowed the mile or so back, the current had started to turn so we were very glad to make it onto the boat.

We then had to decide what to do. New York wasn't the easiest place to try to get the motor fixed but without it, getting to and from shore was a big effort with a risk that we might not get to the place we wanted too. Having listened to the weather forecast, it was clear that southerly winds from Hurricane Igor would make sailing south impossible for a week. So, we decided to leave next day and hurry down to the Delaware.

We caught a fair tide down the Hudson and had a wonderful passage past the lady with the torch. Once past the Narrows, we had a bit of negative tide as far as Sandy Hook but having turned south, we seemed to have a favourable current which stayed with us all the way to the Delaware. As seems to be common, there was little wind and we motored through the night arriving at the Delaware in the early morning as the sun rose. It was a calm day so we opted for the inside passage round Cape May that cut some miles off our trip. We had a long hot trip up the Delaware and arrived at our overnight anchorage just as the sun set. As the entry was narrow, about 20 feet, and the current strong, it was a challenging end to the trip. Still, we snuggled the boat down and went to sleep ourselves.

The morning was grey and the wind blowing hard. This gave us some nasty wind against tide waves and again, the exit was as challenging as the previous day's entry. Once out we headed for the Chesapeake and Delaware canal, about 3 miles away. Once inside that, it was a calm and easy trip to the Chesapeake. We anchored in the Sassafras River in what is one of the most peaceful and beautiful spots we have reached in the voyage so far. A very relaxing evening with a modest amount of alcohol sent us to bed very happy!!

Unfortunately, we weren't able to stay another day as we would have liked as the wind was forecast to change to a bad direction for our trip so we reluctantly set sail again. We headed to Annapolis, and picked up a mooring buoy in the harbour. We stayed there a few days and sorted out some sail repair issues and tried to get the outboard motor fixed. We also had a pleasant wander around the town although we did not visit the naval college. After getting the motor back - working but still not quite right - we headed down South river to stay with OCC port officer Westbook Murphy at whose dock we currently are. Thanks to his help we have had a couple of interesting and tiring days in Washington.

The first day we visited the Air and Space museum where we saw everything from space shuttles to Lindbergs 'Spirit of St Louis'. Then we walked around the major monuments, Linclon, Washington, Jefferson and Roosevelt, and the 2nd WW memorial. The second day we spent the morning at the Arlington cemetery, had a lovely lunch in the national gallery and then walked around the gallery until our legs gave way.

When we got back to the boat we had a lovely meal of fresh shrimp with Westbrook and his wife Cindy and fellow OCC members Wolfgang and Gemma. Tonight Westbrook is cooking crab for us which Mike is really looking forward to and then tomorrow we continue our trip to Deltaville where we are leaving the boat for our trip home.