Heading for New England

Sue and I are heading north to New England, looks like tomorrow morning looking at the weather forecast. This has been a week of fairly unsettled weather along the mid-atlantic states, with a series of sinusoidal frontal systems moving west to east through the region, resulting in winds shifting from north to south back to north to south with some westerlies thrown in from time to time. I was hoping/looking for 48hrs of steady southwesterlies, very common for these August days, to take us from the Chesapeake to Martha’s Vinyard, but it never happened. (Looks like it might next week). Instead the winds have been shifting almost daily between north and south.
I had hoped to pick our departure day last Monday, looking for the best 48hr window. Each time I checked, however, the forecast model had changed. Now here it is Fri morning, and it still doesn’t look ideal for a nice downwind run, but at least there are no storms forecasted (looks very reliable) so I think we’ll head out tomorrow morning and just accept the 12-18hrs of light headwinds we will encounter until we can catch the SW winds forecasted further north on Sunday. Hopefully, the models wont change dramatically between now and Sunday – however, the track record is not promising.
So, with an increased understanding of the difficulty the weathermen have in making any accurate prediction over 24hrs, and the comfort of knowing none of the forecasts/models since Monday have predicted any winds over 20kts enroute and no major storms/gales, we’ll set out early tomorrow morning. The boat is all packed… we’re taking the cold foods down today… and we’ll spend the night on the boat, perhaps at anchor down the creek, and get a good night’s sleep before heading out at first light. Its about 5-6hrs to the ocean from our marina ( to southeast – taking advantage of the forecast northerlies tomorrow), then we’ll slowly try to work our way to the north into 5-10kts of northerlies until the southerlies kick in sometime tomorrow evening.
We’ll have HF email onboard so will be able to update our blog and the list with position reports and short emails describing the ocean sailing. Since we’re not on a schedule and there’s no bad weather forecasted, we’ll try to minimize motoring and sail where the wind blows us. Hopefully arriving somewhere near Martha’s Vinyard on Sun or Mon. We’ll be monitoring HF Maritime Net, 14300mhz most of the trip. Check our position each day using the link at the top of the blog.

Chesapeake Bay Cruise June 08

We are back home after cruising up the Chesapeake western shore as far as Reedville. We had a very enjoyable trip with lots of great sailing. That's the advantage of not being on a schedule - you get to sail where the wind takes you.
Thursday through Sunday we worked our way slowly to the north, with excellent sailing each afternoon in the sea breezes. One day we sailed all day with the spinnaker up. The other days we were able to use the whisker pole to pole out the genoa and sail wing-on-wing.



Each day we arrived in our selected anchorage spot in the later afternoon. Here we are relaxing on Cockrell Creek just north of Reedville. We toured around town, checking out "Millionaires Row" from the heydays of the Menhaden Fleet fishing. This is a very picturesque town.




Monday evening brought some severe thunderstorms with winds gusting 40-50kts. We had just enough time to securely anchor and prepare the boat for the approaching storms. An hour later the storms moved on ending with a gorgeous double rainbow and brightly silver lined clouds.



Monday and Tuesday we worked our way back to Yorktown with two great days of downwind sailing. By Tuesday we had the whisker pole handling procedures down pat.
A very successful trip with nothing breaking and no emergencies. A good tune up for our planned trip to Nova Scotia later in the summer.

Here's a link to more pictures of the trip. More photos.

Up the Chesapeake

We finally set sail on Tides Inn on Thursday after a month of electronics installations and other commitments. Here’s a photo of Sue up the mast replacing our VHF antenna which was damaged during a strong wind storm during the winter. The new antenna provides much better reception (we can now hear signals from Atlantic City to the NC Outer Banks) which makes us wonder if the previous antenna was perhaps defective to begin with and that’s why the wind bent it?
We were supposed to be heading for NY City to meet up with Greg and Beth at their weekend independent artist show, but the wind gods did not cooperate and we preferred not to motor for 48hrs into the wind. So, like true cruisers, we checked the wind direction and determined where we could go. We’ve been making our way up the western shore of the Chesapeake.

Thursday we were treated with the unique pleasure of seeing the schooner Virginia come sailing down the York River just as we were coming out of the Poquoson River. We zipped up in formation with them and exchanged captain to captain pleasantries, then continued on our way up to Mobjack Bay. I took some great photos of the Virginia under full sail.
Thursday night we anchored along the north shore of Mobjack Bay, just inside the New Point Comfort lighthouse. Normally this would not be a good anchorage site due to its exposure, but the winds were very light.
Tonight we are up a protected creek from Milford Haven. When we arrived the winds were blustery from the south, but they died completely right at sunset so it is now cool and quiet.
The new electronics have been working great. We now have HF radio to get offshore weather and send position reports from anywhere at sea, plus a WiFi antenna that lets us pick up wifi signals from about 1 mile or so. I updated our position via HF earlier, and am now waiting to see if we can get a wifi signal to download photos and these words to the blog.
Hi to all… having a great time…. Too bad you’re not with us!
Mark & Sue

Sailing on Schooner Virginia

One of these days we'll get to sail on our own boat, but meanwhile I spent the past weekend working and sailing on the schooner Virginia.
On Thursday, we sailed from her berth by Nauticus in Norfolk up through Hampton Roads to the city of Hampton where the Virginia would participate in Blackbeard Pirate Days. Friday was a work day and 3 of us sanded and oiled a good portion of the brightwork - pilot house, wheel house and instruments station.
Saturday and Sunday were public visitation days during the Blackbeard festival.

Monday we sailed back to Norfolk by way of 8hrs of crew training in the southern Chesapeake Bay. After many tacks, jibes, sail adjustments, man overboard drills, abandon ship drills, etc... we finally returned to home berth in Norfolk. I now know why Popeye has such huge arms. A cruise on a traditional sailing vessel with no winches onboard will develop some big biceps and triceps. Next weekend its Harborfest at Norfolk. No long sailing days for that festival though.

Meanwhile, my latest and last project for Tides Inn is finished - an external WiFi antenna to improve our laptop wifi range. We are set to sail to NYC next week for the June 14th weekend where we will meet up with Greg and Beth who will be in Brooklyn at a craft fair for the weekend.
Our first chance to try out the HF radio and daily position reports. Stay tuned to the blog to see how it works out.

HF Radio Install

I finally finished installing my new ICOM 802 HF radio with Pactor III email capability. It was quite a job running all the cabling and copper foil that connects the transceiver, antenna tuner and underwater ground plane (2 dynaplates on our boat). Everything seems to be working as advertised. We can now send and receive emails (short with NO attachments) and send position reports to our blog site here.
And, we can now receive weather reports and wind Grib files which will let us know what the weather is doing out there in the open ocean away from VHF local wx broadcasts.

So, we're officially ready for some ocean passages now. We're planning on heading to NYC in June to meet with Greg and Beth, then to Nova Scotia in August to escape the Chesapeake summer heat. Working up for the big trip to the Mediterranean in the future.

Delivery Trip to NYC

Sue and I just returned from delivering a Hunter 280 from Deltaville, VA, on the Chesapeake, to Rye, NY, on Long Island Sound. The trip had a little of everything with some motoring, some nice sailing, some bad weather and a great sunrise as we entered New York harbor.
We motored up the Chesapeake, through the C&D canal and down the Delaware Bay in very light winds. That was a 38hr leg, leaving Deltaville just before noon on the 14th and arriving at Cape May at 0200 on the 16th.
We then spent a full day + anchored at Cape May awaiting the passage of a frontal storm. After a full day of rain, the front finally passed through, of course, at 2300 that night, bringing a 180degree wind change which required us to reposition our anchor in the middle of the night in 20-30kt winds. But once the anchor was reset we (I?) were finally able to relax and get some sleep. The next morning the winds were dying and by 0900 we and the 10-12 other sailboats in the anchorage were ready to get underway to continue the voyage.
We had some great sailing conditions for most of the day with 10-15kts of SW winds pushing us northward. By late afternoon the wind was down to under 10kts, but was forecast to freshen from the west after dark. We reefed the sails down to 2 reefs and motorsailed along. About 2300 (seems the time things always happen) a couple short squalls went through with gusts to 30kts. Good thing we had those reefs in as we were heeled pretty good even with that short of sail. The wind then went back to 10kts or so, which was OK as we didn't need to arrive at NYC until the tide changed at 0600.
We arrived at Sandy Hook, NJ, the entrance to NY outer harbor at exactly 0600 as the sun rose from the east and the winds rose from the west to 20kts. It was a blustery and bumpy ride across the outer harbor close hauled into the westerly winds which were opposing the incoming tidal current. Its good we had the 2kt current on our side as our speed through the water was down to 3.5kts.
Once we finally bashed our way to the Narrows, the NJ shore sheltered us from the worst of the wind and waves and it was good sailing again up the inner harbor. It was early Sunday morning but we still had a bit of traffic with tugs on one side, a cruise ship coming up the other side, the Staten Island ferry zipping across the channel and several pleasure boats out.
We cruised up along Liberty Island and Ellis Island, then crossed over to the North Cove marina on Manhattan to pick up the boat's owner who would ride with us up the East River to the Long Island Sound and Rye, NY.
We then motored the final 5 hour transit to Rye in very light winds and eventually some light showers as we arrived at Toujour Pret's new home in Rye, NY. Overall, a very successful delivery with no untoward incidents enroute. The best kind.
Here are some good photos of the trip. Photos

Tides Inn is back at Dare Marina in the Chisman Creek off the Poquoson River as of 1 April. We had a brisk sail up from Hampton with 15-20kts of southerly winds. Now for a few days of spring cleaning/polishing/waxing and its time to get sailing.
The Inn is open, so come on by.

Riding Caledonia to Guadalupe (click for link to Canadian Sailing Expeditions)

The SV Caledonia finally set sail for the Caribbean on 23 Feb, arriving in Guadalupe on 2 Mar. I ended up sailing (working) onboard for the trip trying to get her ready for her first cruise - which departed on 8 Mar. Sue stayed home minding Gennie and working with Tara.
It was an uneventful passage, with winds on the nose most of the way but, no significant storms/seas as we hurried down always in front of an advancing cold front.
Many of the crew were seasick pitching in the 6-8ft swells and waves, but I with my patch did fine.

I am now finally home and back to retired life - ready to get working on Tides Inn. Here is a link to some select photos. Photo Link