A Tale of Two Chemists: Passage to New York … Thursday 28 June

Passage to New York … Thursday 28 June – Sat 30 June 2018

We left Portsmouth, VA shortly after 10 am on Thursday and arrived in Atlantic Highlands, NJ around 4 am on Saturday. It was ~ 265 nautical miles trip and we covered it in 42 hours. It was a pretty easy and uneventful passage. The winds were really light, rarely reaching ten knots and although we had our mainsail up the whole trip we only truly sailed about 10 hours. So it was a long motor-fest. Sea states were good – with a 3-4 foot long period swell but no significant waves and our engine didn’t conk-out! I did switch fuel-separators mid-passage and changed out the dirty one as a precaution as it seemed to have about 20 ml of water in it, but not too much gunk. The highlights of the trip were the sunsets, sunrises and rising of the full moon, which were all totally spectacular. The days were super hot and we made good use of the sun-shade, but the nights were surprisingly cool and we put on fleece jacket and pants as well as foul-weather jackets. It was really bright at night because of the clear skies and full moon and we did alternating two hour shifts. The section of coast along the DelMarVa peninsula was quiet and peaceful, but once you reach the Delaware Bay and continue up the New Jersey coast it gets quite busy with commercial shipping, fishing and pleasure boats. We made good use of our AIS and radar systems and practiced setting guard zones on the radar. This seems to work well once the radar is adjusted properly and it sets off an audible alarm if a new signal enters the area you define ahead of the boat. Leaving Norfolk / Portsmouth was interesting as two aircraft carriers were returning to port as we were leaving. We were fairly close to the first one and headed down the Elizabeth river with the four-tugs that were sent out to escort the carrier to the dock. In total we saw 6 different aircraft carriers in dock or returning to port in Norfolk / Portsmouth.

It was still dark as we rounded Sandy Hook and arrived at Atlantic Highlands, so we dropped anchor behind the breakwater, had a quick drink and some snacks and collapsed into bed. We awoke at ~ 10 am and decided to re-position Cotinga to be well clear of the channel. We ate breakfast, cleaned up the boat and launched the dinghy. It was then time to head into the marina, get a Lyft over to the Sea-Streak terminal in Highlands and take the fast ferry over to Manhattan. This all went well, except that I dropped my iPhone out of my pocket getting out of the Lyft car. It was some ten minutes later that I realized I had lost it and returned to look for it. I was excited to see it lying by the road … until I picked it up and figured out that it had been run over by a car or two. It was absolutely, totally knackered. But the good thing about Manhattan is that it has everything, including Verizon stores, and we were able to get a replacement in short order. We had an awesome time visiting our friends Lynn and Lee. We first met them in 2012 when we were all sheltering from hurricane Sandy in River Dunes, NC and we have remained close friends ever since. We caught up on news and Lynn cooked us some fantastic food on Saturday evening. We slept like logs in the blissful cool of air-conditioning and after a fine breakfast we headed out for a brief walk. This helped us appreciate just how hot it was, so we spent the middle part of the day enjoying the excellent (and air-conditioned) Cooper Hewitt design museum in the upper East side of Manhattan. All too soon it was time to leave and we headed back on the fast ferry to New Jersey. Thanks Lynn and Lee for a great weekend!

It’s now evening (Sunday 1^st July) and I think we are ready to head out at first light to complete the final leg of this journey. We plan to sail along the south coast of Long Island, NY and head directly back to our home-port of East Greenwich.

Mike

Atlantic Highlands: 40 25.10 N, 74 01.33 W