24 hours to Block Island

We left Barnegat before 6 a.m. (ugh) on Saturday, needing to catch the current out of the channel.  AND to avoid the gazillion fishing boats that zoom through it.  There were literally hundreds of fishing or sail or pleasure boats in Barnegat Bay when we went the 8 miles from Linda and Jim's to our anchorage near the inlet on Thursday. Many are rental, with no clue of boating etiquette. Even at 6 a.m., there were these little fishing boats, drifting with the current, some in the damned middle of the channel, as we made out way out to the Atlantic. At least there were none of the big fishing charters, zooming at full speed, literally tossing us about and throwing waves of water over our bow.  RUDE.  My bias comes out,but there seems to be more of this behavior here than we see in the South... y'all...

It was a long, uneventful trip.  All overnighters are long. It was 145 nm from harbor entrance to harbor entrance. Fortunately, we had the expected mild weather with SW winds 5 to 15 kts. Unfortunately, that wind speed and direction dictated that we motorsail the whole way, with the main sail up, and the engine helping. Poor Smoke...she's never happy with long voyages, but eventually she just settles down, the "cat" takes over, and she simply sleeps.

She hates the engine noise.  Maybe it hurts her ears.  But she does hate the noise, and she refuses to go below when we are motoring.  So, we do accomodate her by putting food and water in the cockpit for her.  But the litter box ---- that's another story.  When we have long passages, I admit that every 6 hours or so we succomb to using sails only and turn off the engine for 20 minutes or so to give her time to do whatever she needs.  Yeah, I know....crazy old cat owners... but we do.

On any overnight passage, we really look forward to the sunrise. First, the glimmerof the spectacle to come...

And then the main event ...  (you didn't think you'd get out of this blog without sunset/sunrise pictures, did you???)

When we arrived at Block Island, at 6:15 AM on a Sunday morning, we found what we expected - a crowd.  This big 150 ft or so sailboat didn't have a anchorage inside the harbor.

Once we got into the harbor and anchored, we noticed a few more "significant" boats. How'd you like to own your own tug?  This baby is big - look at the anchored sailboat behind her. 

Or your own ship? (yes, check out the sailboat again)  Note her flag - that is a Bermuda flag.  Many, many big money yachts owned in the USA are registered in British colonies to avoid taxes. This baby is lit up tonight like a casino.

 Once you get to to town, you'll find cute, big, New England style B&B's.

But don't be confused - this B&B is filled with tourists from the mainland.  Most come over on the numerous ferries that run back and forth multiple times per day.  Some are "people" ferries; some carry cars and people.

And why are they all coming over? For the beaches, bars, and the shopping strip.

Not that we're complaining!  We love the place.  Today we wandered through the many shops, people watched, visited the beach, split a $15 clam dinner, had locally made ice cream, and visited the historical sites.  oh, and bought a few groceries. 

The weather today was good, but turned windy in the afternoon. Monday promises to be VERY windy, with thunderstorms.  We will wait it out here and hope to get to Onset, to position ourselves to time our scoot through the Cape Cod Canel to Provincetown.

We had only about  2 1/2 hours sleep each last night and a 2 hour nap this morning.  Time for bed!

Barnegat

We had a great visit with Linda and Jim.  On Thursday we took the short drive to Tuckerton, NJ.   http://www.tuckerton.com/
Tuckerton is a small seaport town down one of the many fingers off of Little Egg Inlet, south of Barnegat.  The river down to Tuckerton is small, narrow, and winding.

There is a nice marine museum in Tuckerton, the Tuckerton Seaport and Baymen's Museum.  http://www.tuckertonseaport.org/   It was a wonderfully cool afternoon, so this seemed like an ideal little trip.  There is a working boatbuilding facility there.  They make "sneak boxes", boats used to sneak up on game birds!  or to sail.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakbox
 Here is a new one under construction.

They carve decoys here, too

A boardwalk runs around most of the museum.  Here are Jim, Linda, and Luke.

Luke found  washtub to play.

A walk to the top of theTuckerton Light House finished our visit.

Full of diesel, we have safely transited Linda & Jim's lagoon, past the masses of fishing boats and sailboats in the Barnegat Bay, through the narrow, winding Oyster Creek, and are anchored in again in Myers Hole, awaiting the slack/outgoing tide tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. to exit the inlet into the Atlantic.  With continued luck, that will take us to Block Island in 24 hours.  Back then!

To Barnegat

Back to Barnegat!  We sailed with friends Margo and Clive from Atlantic City to Barnegat.  Atlantic City from the water...

Entering Barnegat, the waves they were a-crashing, but we made it in fine.  Barnegat Light is one of the tallest lighthouses on the east coast.

It was low tide and we couldn't make it into the lagoon where friends Linda and Jim live.  So, we anchored in Myers Hole near the inlet for a few hours while  the tide rolled in.  Luke did a few small chores, I defrosted the freezer, and Smoke guarded the boat from our dinghy.

 

Linda and Jim live about 1/2 way down a lagoon off of Barnegat Bay.  We squeeked Latitudes into the entrance to the lagoon with a mere 1 inch under the keel!  But we made it, and here we are tied up at their dock in the lagoon, along with their first "Winsome".

Linda and I did a walk each morning while it was still cool, along with neighbors Mary and Agnes.  I also got  bit of groceries, cat food and toys, etc.  On Wednesday, Linda and I did fabric shopping at a fantastic discount fabric shop in NJ.  I got  pattern for a shirt and one for a T-shirt (or T-shirt dress) at half price, plus the fabric for both.  Can't wait to start on them!

Wednesday night was a wonderful dinner at Margo and Clive's, along with Linda and Jim.

More walking today and the guys have gone on a bike ride to the nearest strip mall.  We hope to leave on Friday and anchor near the inlet.  From there, a dedicated run overnight to Block Island if the weather forecast doesn't change.

Through the C&D Canal into Delaware

We left Fairlee Creek without a hitch, rode out a terrific thunderstorm in Bohemia Creek, just south of the C&D Canal, and entered the canal early on Saturday morning.
Our first stop was in the quaint town of Chesapeake City, about half way through the canal.

The town is only 2 streets wide, both full of little shops, B&B's, small restaurants, and such.

This little shop is our favorite, though.

That would be because it's owned by daughter Lisa's in-laws, Donna and Mike!  They have been there about a year now and love the town.  We can see why!  Our visit was too short, as we needed to time the current through the canal.  Next time we'll stay overnight.

The canal has blasting current in each direction, up to 3 kts, so it's important to time your ride with the current instead of fighting it.  Luke did his calculations and we did just that.  Smokey helped, watching for  anything in the water.

Here are a couple of the many bridges that we pass under as we transit the canal.



Once through the canal, we set the anchor at Reedy Island, just across from the nuclear plant.

As we relaxed in the cockpit, we watched this huge ship heading down the Delaware River.  It is carrying cars.  To really get her into prospective, look at that sailboat on the bottom right the picture.  We are REALLY glad we didn't meet her in the narrow canal!

We see all kinds of strange water craft on our journies. This is one of the strangest. The crew are definitely a bunch of bird brains!



This  a work day for us - we are making our way eastward, down the Delaware River, to its mouth into the Atlantic, just south of Cape May.  It will be a full day of sailing for us (well, motoring actually) but will make great strides in getting us closer to cool Maine!



Annapolis and Fairlee Creek

It was a hot and humid ride to Annapolis (surprise....).  We were exhausted by the time we got there.  As we approached, there were 6 big cargo ships outside of Annapolis, just before the Bay Bridge.  They are all awaiting their time to go into the port of Baltimore.  They were all still there when we left the next day, too.

Our anchorage was at Luke's favorite spot - on Back Creek, in front of the Watergate Apartments where he lived as a young bachelor.

A cool shower, and we were ready to go to town for dinner in an air-conditioned seafood restaurant and to pick up some calamine lotion for my sun-blistered back.

As we left on Wednesday morning,we were surprised to see 6 navy boats, all lined up in a row outside of Annapolis.  Training boats we guess, from the Naval Accademy.  If you can't learn boating there, where CAN you learn it!?!  (yet again another hazy picture - must be July on the Chesapeake)

We had a nice 4 hour trip northward to Fairlee Creek, home of friends Kathy and Don.  They graciously allowed us to use one of their docks for Latitudes ---- A/C!  water!  laundry and best of all, a great visit with Kathy and Don.  We squeeked into Fairlee and to the dock with only 1/2 ft of water under our keel at some places.  We definitely won't be able to leave until high tide on Friday (sitting on the bottom now).

We had a good morning of shopping and sightseeing.  In the A/C this afternoon, laundry again, blog, and doing a little cooking here so I can hard freeze food before taking it to the boat.  We are being taken by boat (faster than a sailboat!) about 9 miles up the Chesapeake to a little seafood place tonight.  Tomorrow we'll try high tide for a run back to the Chesapeake to continue our little hot trip.

 

whoa, it's hot and hazy in the Chesapeake

Hot and hazy motor ride from Tangier to Solomons.  We made good enough time and had a nice visit with friends Ret and Joe, from New Smyrna Beach, FL.  They keep a sister boat to Latitudes in Solomons.  Here are the amazing cliffs just outside of Solomons.

Smokey was a little anxious on our first couple of sails.  She's accepted it now and relaxed (somewhat....it helps to have daddy's seat)

Next, another hot and hazy ride from Solomons to the Choptank River.  Just look at this haze.  Those dark smuges on the horizon are land.

It was so hot that we decided to cut our trip to Oxford short.  We actually anchored a little past the above land, staying out of the channel, but in an open area where we could get what little breeze there was.  To help ourselves, we added everything we have to cool the boat --- a sun shade over the boom to cool the top of the boat, "breeze boosters" in the ports to catch and funnel in air, and finally, a Bahamian scarf to block the sun from the side.  Looks rather like a gypsy boat, but it sure helped.

Turns out we had too much of a good thing - a Chesapeake thunderstorm came rolling through around 7 pm and tossed us a bit with initial gusts of about 35 kts, under low, black, raggedy clouds. Pretty impressive, but our 66 lb Bruce anchor and 100 ft of chain did their jobs. The winds quickly subsided to a steady rain. 

We left for a short exploration of Oxford early on Monday morning.  It's a quaint little sailing village, full of beautiful old homes and brick sidewalks.

From Oxford, we motored 4 miles up the Tred Avon River to Peachblossom Creek.  Friends from the Bahamas (met them in the laundromat) live just off of the creek.  Maggie & Greg were having a 4th of July party and had invited us to join them.  It was great fun - seeing them again and meeting their friends.  We had a wonderful time.

Now we are struggling with a finicky A/C pump.  We don't normally run the A/C when we are at anchor, but it was just so stinkin' hot last night that we decided to run it just long enough to get some of the humidity down. The darn thing cut itself off after a few minutes. Seems  to run fine now, but we think the pump itself may be going bad.  sigh.  The plan is to cross back over and go to Annapolis for a couple of days.  May get it looked at then.  After that, we are off to Fairlee Creek, further northward up the Chesapeake to see Kathy and Don.

Tangier

Oh, it was early yesterday morning when we got up at 5:30 to begin our trip.  We slowly pulled away from our marina in Fishing Bay, leaving Deltaville behind.

The wind was nice, about 10 knots, but from the north, a bad sign for a northward sail. So, we made the best of it and set sail northwesterly to the island of Tangier.  En route, we passed a Menhaden boat heading south.

It’s been 2 years since we’ve been here and we like it.  A lot of it has never changed, like the old crab sheds.

Some of the sheds that were destroyed by a hurricane a few years ago have been rebuilt. Still the same style and charm, but certainly in better shape.

Here is a shot of the crab shack area from the south of the island.  Little has been updated on Tangier – look at all of those telephone poles!

Warning--- local Tangier gossip/politics --- skip if you're not interested!  Luke caught up on the local gossip. The owner of the only marina in Tangier, where we always stay, is a life long waterman, almost 80 years old, still proudly owns a big fast deadrise workboat. He is one of the four major family names on the island, knows everything and everyone, and loves to talk to Luke.  He considers Luke a fellow “old guy”. In the 70’s he was a union representative for the AFL-CIO who had organized the watermen and the crab pickers to help control prices. Apparently the union never did any good and the next level up of the union structure made off with the dues. He says that with crab prices and harvests down, 70 of the watermen left the crabbing business over the last few years and now have jobs running tug boats, etc. There are only 30 active watermen left on Tangier.  Recent hardships inflicted by the VA Game and Inland Fiseries Comission include a ban on herring fishing, no dredging for blue crabs. VA is also considering transferring the oversight of the Menhaden Fishery from one agency to another, so that it can be shut down. This is because Menhaden are food fish for game fish like Rock Fish (Stripers), filter a lot of water, and help clean up the bay, etc. Over the last few years, Tangier has had a major facelift for tourism. Apparently a well known Psychologist became interested in the island, bought properties, built a house, opened a Tangier Museum, funded the placement of historical markers all through the town, put in nice trash receptacles, etc. The posters are quite interesting as they explain the history of the various noteworthy houses and structures, complete with historic photos. Well, this psychiatrist was apparently accused of illegally selling drugs to his clients, and because of that, (not sure how it’s related), sold off most of his holdings on Tangier and pulled out.  Now - back to Bobbie ----

Tangier has a lot of birds, especially the wading birds.  This Yellow Crown Night Heron is common, but we really like it.

A first for us, we saw a Glossy Ibis working in the mud flats.  He was about as dark as this picture, just the darkest of brown colors, no contrasts at all.  Very graceful.

How about THIS for bird houses!?!

The streets of Tangier are narrow, suitable for the many go-carts here.  In fact, we’ve seen only 3 vehicles, including the police car.

Graveyards are scattered all around the island.  Many are very old.  All of the graves have heavy stones on top of them to keep the bodies from floating away in flooding of major storms.

Water, water everywhere.  Small inlets fill the island and houses are built everywhere around them.

 We have left Tangier now and are motoring our way to Solomons, MD.  No internet or cell phone towers in Tangier, so I had to wait till we got to mid-Chesapeake to post.  We should be in Solomons by early afternoon.