Passage to New York

Passage to New York

Friday 23rd - Tuesday 26th May

No trip to Portsmouth is complete without a visit to the Biergarten restaurant. On Friday we met up with Charlotte and Klaus, who we hadn’t seen for a number of years, and had an excellent lunch. It was wonderful to see them again. Afterwards we made a start on re-provisioning and preparing the boat for Rod’s arrival on Saturday evening. We decided to stay on anchor at Hospital Point on Friday night and then moved on to a dock at Ocean Yacht Marina on Sunday morning to make life easy. It was here that the 2017 Caribbean 1500 rally started and I spent a couple of weeks at the marina prior to the big passage to Tortola, and we have subsequently stopped here on several occasions. It turned out to be a little less peaceful than we anticipated as their was a live concert taking place in the outdoor auditorium next door. I don’t know which bands was playing in the afternoon but it was loud! Rod arrived around 8.30 pm as ‘Cool and the Gang’ were just getting started.

Other than a brief patch of northerly winds, the weather forecast for a sail up to New York looked promising. To be more precise it predicted there would be so little wind that we would motor the entire way and this turned out to be correct. We left the dock at 9am on Sunday and with the benefit of an ebbing tide, headed down the Elizabeth River and out to the Chesapeake Bay entrance. This area has an astonishing military presence with naval shipyards lining the shore. In total, we counted 5 aircraft carriers within a 2 mile radius of the city. At least 3 of these are in for repairs / major overhauls, whilst the other 2 look like they might simply be in transition. Having dodged a few tugs towing barges, and passed over the Chesapeake Bay tunnel, (it’s weird to think you are sailing over a motorway), we headed north up the DelMarVa peninsula. The seas were a little choppy at first, but settled down after a couple of hours, and the winds were light. Whilst it was bright and sunny, it felt increasingly cold as the day progressed. We all ended up wearing our foul weather gear for the entire trip. At night Gloria and I both ended up wrapping a sleeping bag around us while we were out on watch. Rod apparently is made of tougher stuff! We did a 2 hour ‘on’ / 4 hours ‘off’ schedule from 7pm to 7am and that worked out well. 

From early on in the passage we picked up a ‘boat-load’ of flies. These looked like house-flies, but would bite if you gave them a chance, and there were literally dozens of them. Rod named himself “Lord of the Flies” and went about swatting them with great gusto. Thankfully, with so many clothes on we didn’t get bitten too much, but they certainly were annoying. 

We ate well, as ever. For dinners we had Bouillabaisse on Sunday and ready-made (Kevin’s) coconut chicken and rice on Monday. We had sandwiches for lunch and bagels and eggs for breakfast on Monday, with plenty of fruit and biscuits / cookies for snacks. We drank copious amounts of coffee to help us keep awake through our watches. 

About half way through the trip, whilst off the delightful (not) Delaware Bay entrance, the forecast northerly winds did pipe up to 8-12 knots and we spent a few hours pushing through the resulting chop. Other than that, the seas were about as flat as you can imagine. We rounded the tip of Sandy Hook at ~3.30 am on Tuesday morning and were anchored off Atlantic Highlands an hour later. You could already see the skies to the east were starting to brighten with pre-dawn light. We covered about 260 nautical miles in a little over 40 hours. We all hit he sack to try to get some sleep.

Mike

40 25.014 N, 74 01.201 W

A collage of murals that we came across on "Wall Street' on the outskirts of Portsmouth

Late afternoon clouds off the DelMaVa peninsula

Strange clouds backlit by the sun

Sunrise off the Delaware Bay entrance

Ditto

Rod in the early morning sunshine

Once we passed under this elongated cloud formation the winds veered from north to east

Sunset off New Jersey

A triple exposure (in camera) of the sunset off New Jersey ... and an inverted version of the same image

Gloria sheltering behind the dodger

Mike - A self portrait on Sunday morning (iPhone)

Early morning light from our anchorage in Atlantic Highlands, before going to bed