With our challenging schedule this fall, Jen and I decided to move Master Plan south to Chesapeake VA before November. We will not be heading south until the first week in November. We got really lucky last year when we departed on Halloween (Oct 31). As you get further into the fall, weather windows start getting smaller and smaller. The Inter-coastal waterway really begins in Norfolk VA so we wanted to be set up and ready to go when we are ready for our departure.
With this in mind I departed our home port in East Greenwich at 6 AM on Monday with my friend Jarrod. Jarrod is a sailor who lives on his boat full time. He has sailed his boat to Key West every winter for the last 10 years. He usually does this single handed. So needless to say, I had a very experienced first mate on board. The weather was marginal to start. Hurricane Isabel had passed several hundred miles off shore on Sunday. this had churned up the surf on the east coast. So when we rounded Point Judith RI we were bounced around in a beam swell for a few hours. As we got into Long Island Sound the seas calmed down significantly. We had timed our departure so we would be going with the flood tide going down the sound. This set us up to arrive in New York's east river with the tide with us. There is a section in New York where the East river and the Harlem river converge known as "Hell Gate". Hell Gate has very strong currents, timing your arrival at hell gate is critical as they can run as much as 8 knots. Our 6 PM arrival was perfect to shoot us through New York.
Going through NYC reminded me of this 9/11 video, very cool
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg
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| Lower Tip of Manhattan |
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We checked the weather down the coast of New Jersey while still in NY. The coast of NJ can be a very rough piece of water. If the weather changes there are few places to get in and out of the weather. The forecast for that night was for northwest winds 10 to 15 knots. This was not great but it was good enough to go. So go we did, taking 4 hour shifts at the wheel. We spent the night cruising down the coast with little to no other traffic out there. It was very overcast so except for the lights on shore it was very dark. We arrived in Cape May New Jersey at 7 AM to refuel at Utches Marina. At this point we had a choice to make, continue across the moth of Delaware Bay and down the Delaware and Virginia coast or go up the Delaware and down the Chesapeake and Delaware canal to the top of the Chesapeake bay. After another check of the weather we decided to continued up the Delaware Bay. Although this adds around 80 miles to the trip, it is more protected with lots of places to bail out if the weather got to bad. Going down the outside is faster but there are very few places to bail. We arrived in the Chesapeake around 3 PM with a decent forecast for that night. This was a surprise as we thought we would have to stop to let the low pressure system clear out. Apparently it moved faster than the weather guessers had predicted. So with 15 to 20 knots of a northwest wind we headed to Norfolk. It was a bumpy night as we cruised along under a half moon. As I reported for my 2 AM watch we were crossing the mouth of the Potomac River. This area can be treacherous as the waves have a very long fetch to build in the Potomac. Jarrod had his hands full as I arrived in the pilot house. We were passing a tug that was towing 3 barges and there was tow other commercial ships heading straight at us. We were also in a following sea that makes Master Plan very difficult to keep on course. After taking over for Jarrod we finally cleared the Potomac and found some better seas. We continued uneventfully to Norfolk, arriving in the Elizabeth River just after 9 AM. We passed the worlds largest Naval Ship Yard in Norfolk. So from here it is just 12 miles to Atlantic Yacht Basin where we were leaving the boat. I called Jen and had her book flights home for that evening. We had traveled over 500 nautical miles in just 48 hours. The last 12 would take us 6 hours. We had the worst bridge luck ever. There are 3 train bridges that are normally in the up position. Each one came down for a train just before our arrival. Then at the great bridge lock a red flag (dangerous cargo) barge arrived. They will not allow pleasure craft to transit the locks with a red flag barge. So we waited another hour for that one. At 2:30 PM we finally arrived at the Marina. After cleaning up Master Plan we caught a cab to the airport and flew home.
