A Tale of Two Chemists: Norfolk to Atlantic Highlands

Norfolk to Atlantic Highlands … Monday 24th - Wednesday 26h June 2013

After our arrival in Norfolk on Sunday we went ashore on the Portsmouth side of the river and visited the "Mile 0 marine store". The man who owns and runs the shop, Bob McBride, is nothing short of amazing. Not only is very helpful in the store but he also ran us out to the supermarket in his car, waited while we did our shopping and then dropped us back at our dinghy. He offered to run us anywhere else we might need, and in case your wondering, it's not that we got unique treatment, Bob seems to try to help out all boaters in this way. The following morning we started to prepare for our departure and noticed that the people on a boat anchored close to us were having trouble with their outboard (their primary engine). Having been the recipient of so much help from Bob yesterday we felt we too should spread some good will. I jumped in the "Dumb Dog" and motored over to the boat. Apparently there are three people on board - Carlos and his girlfriend (who I didn't meet) and their friend Dave. Carlos jumped into the dinghy and I ran him over to the dock so he could go and buy new spark plugs for the outboard. Their boat, a ~22ft sailboat, had been purchased at auction by Carlos's girlfriend and the three of them are planning to take it down the ICW to their home town of St Augustine. The only problem (actually not the only problem!) is that they need to be there by 4th July. I could see a few challenges - firstly the boat looked in terrible shape, secondly, I strongly suspect that none of them have any sailing experience and thirdly, it's 750 miles - which means they would need to cover more than 100 miles a day on the ICW, where night-time travel is not recommended. Anyway, I left Carlos on shore with directions to the marine store and then came back and picked him up a little while later. When we got back to the anchorage we both realized that their boat was dragging it's anchor and was now out in the main shipping channel. I had been reluctant previously to tow them with our dinghy, but now it was an emergency and left little choice. I found that I couldn't tow them with the "Dumb Dog" facing forward because it would just spin round under the load, so I ended up towing them with the dinghy going backwards. In fact it worked surprisingly well and we were able to get their boat onto a free public dock in Portsmouth. At this point I said goodbye to Carlos, who seems like a really nice guy. He says he's going to text me when he reaches St Augustine - but I half expect to read about them in the news!

Gloria and went back to shore for lunch, eating in a fine German restaurant called the "Bier Garden" which we had discovered on our way south. We ate Rouladen and Saurbraten with red cabbage, sauerkraut and spetzle. The food was fantastic and I also had a beer, just one of the 385 different varieties that they have on offer! Now that's my idea of a good place! We got back to "Cotinga" at 1.30 pm, hauled up, deflated and stowed the dingy on the foredeck and did one final check of weather and tides before departure. At this point I realized that I had screwed up my interpretation of the current tables - unlike wind, where the reported direction is where the wind is from, currents appear to be reported in the reverse, i.e. where the current is going. This meant that rather than leaving at 6pm as planned, we needed to get going immediately in order to catch the last of the favorable current down the Elizabeth river and out of the Chesapeake Bay. We had decided that we would skip going back through the Chesapeake Bay and down the Delaware river. The Chesapeake Bay is a lovely place to cruise, but the Delaware river is not. As John and Gail, the couple we met the other night, put it - the sailing community is widely divided on which are the best cruising grounds but pretty unanimous that the Delaware Bay are the worst cruising grounds. Instead we chose to go offshore up the coast of the DelMarVa peninsula towards Cape May and if things were going well that we would not stop at cape May but keep on going all the way to Atlantic Highlands, just south of New York City. From Cape to New York we have no choice but go offshore because the ICW through New Jersey is too shallow.

At about 2.30 pm on Monday we hauled up the anchor and headed out down the channel, motor sailing with the assistance of the genoa and also current. It took us less than 3 hours to reach the gap in the Chesapeake Bay bridge where we raised our main sail, stopped the engine and started sailing proper. Conditions were good with ~ 3-4ft swells from the south east and steady southerly breezes. Unfortunately the wind didn't last and by midnight we were once again motoring with main up. The nights went well - it is close to the longest day and also just past full moon, so with clear skies it was actually pretty bright. Gloria and I took it in turns to do 2 hour watches and we both actually slept during our off periods. In the morning the breeze picked up and we were once again able to sail for a couple of hours, before it became too light to make good progress. So we spent most of Tuesday motoring with main sail up to help reduce the metronome like oscillation as the swell rolled through. Later in the afternoon there was again a period of reasonable wind and we were able to sail wing on wing down wind for a few hours until it petered out once again. At this point we picked up information from the Sirius satellite maps showing thunderstorms all over our projected route, so as the sun went down behind Atlantic city, we put a double reef in the main and committed to a night of motoring. As it turned out most of these storms dissipated and we never got wet. Monday night, south of Cape May, had been very quiet in terms of boat traffic, but on Tuesday night, north of Cape May, it was different story with a lot of large vessels. At about 3am on Wednesday morning the long awaited strengthening of the winds finally arrived and we able to sail the last 40 miles or so up to Sandy Hook. In fact the winds became quite strong, 15-20kts out of the west, and initially we were flying along at over 7 knots even though we still had a double reefed main. Later in the morning as the winds settled we took out the reefs and continued to make fast progress northwards. Our timing was good (pure luck) and we were able to pick up the flood tide going round Sandy Hook and into New York Bay. The seas in the inlet became very choppy for a couple of miles with strong wind over strong tidal currents, but it didn't take us long to get through. Once inside the Bay we turned south for Atlantic Highlands, NJ and anchored behind the protection of the breakwater.

We both feel quite tired after our two night passage, but also very pleased that it went so well - a good boost for our confidence. We covered about 250 nautical miles in 42 hours. Neither of us felt seasick, we both stood watch and managed to sleep when we were off-watch and we prepared and ate simple decent food. We were a little disappointed to have used the motor as much as we did (about 25 hours), but we sailed as much as we could and were willing to switch over from engine to sail whenever conditions allowed, day or night. We're just too impatient to bobble up and down in the swells making minimal speed. Sadly we didn't catch any fish even though we trolled our homemade green fringed lure! Also somewhat surprising is that fact that once out passed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge we did not see a single other sailboat.

We'll spend a few days here in Atlantic Highlands before making our way over to New York City and up through the East River.

Mike

40 24.965 N, 74 01.343 W