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Zebulun
at anchor
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Oct 9 Family visiting us at Solomons Island were
returning home to Boston. We hitched a ride with them to
Newport, Rhode Island so we can help Tom take his boat Zebulon
down south. We had met him and his wife in Virginia. They had sailed
the boat to Maine for
the summer, and in between work and schedules, left Zebulon
on a mooring in Newport. It was starting to get cold, and they needed to
bring it down to their Florida home as soon as possible. At
Newport, after we got reacquainted with Tom, we walked to a supermarket
nearby to do our provisioning for
the next several days. Back on the boat, we made dinner and
discussed about the trip. We left Newport
the next morning - a frigid Monday morning, I might add. The temperature was 45 degrees with wind gust of 25 - 30 knots,
swells of 4' waves 1 minute apart. Needless to say, the
seas were rough and brrr, was it cold. Water sprayed
over the bow God knows how many times. Eileen went down
below and got sick (and wanted to get off ASAP. You know that
feeling?). We decided to anchor early, about 14:00 at Plum
Island (no, not Mass, but at the entrance to Long Island Sound.
The anchorage was so quiet it was like day and night.
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The next day found calm seas with 6-9 knots wind from the
west. It was much better, but still cold. Tom sailed
with the jib for a few hours. At 09:30, we heard the Coast
Guard calling us on the VHF radio. Tom talked to them
about registration and stuff. Everything checked out ok,
and we proceeded our merry way. Going down the East River,
we ran with the current at Hell Gate and Zebulon got up to 12.4
knots - a record! We were the only pleasure boat around.
It was neat seeing FDR Drive, packed with traffic of course,
from the river.
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| We got to New York City just before sunset.
The Manhattan skyline and
the Statue of Liberty were simply magnificent, and was the
highlight of the trip. We were busy snapping pictures when
a small coast guard patrol boat chased after us. We had no
idea that the harbor was secured from sunset to sunrise (our
radio was off for some time, and theirs was not working either,
so we shouted over to each other), but we were already
approaching Verazzano bridge. We apologized and they let
us by. |
Statue
of Liberty at sunset
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We took advantage of the nice sea conditions by doing an
overnight - a new experience for us. Tom and Sophal took turns
watching; it's somewhat a blur now - it was so cold they
had donned at least 4 layers of clothing complete with gloves
and hat...we got to
Cape May some time during the day and got fuel there, then ran
over to Lewes, Delaware at the mouth of Delaware Bay just in
time for another lovely sunset.
The next day was a beautiful sunny 78 degrees. Since we
had made good time, we took it easy this morning. We
dinghied in to town, enjoyed coffee in a local bakery, did some
errands in this quiet retiree town. It felt gooood to be
on land! We didn't get back to the boat until noon. The Delaware Bay was a little rough, but it paled in comparison
to the first day of the trip. We cruised up the C&D
Canal, and anchored on the Chesapeake side near red marker 16.
A lovely quiet area. As we started to make dinner, flies
flew in and never left! Tom and Eileen spent the next
morning swatting flies. They seemed to have reproduced
themselves overnight!!!
Oct 12 This was now Friday. We had to get to Solomons Island because we have boat show tickets at Annapolis
Saturday. Luckily, the weather was nice, and we made it
there around 16:30. After we anchored and had a
cocktail, Tom was going to dinghy us back to our boat. A
police patrol came by and warned that if we didn't have
registration for the dinghy, he was going to have to slap us
with a $75 fine, if we took it out. Apparently, all states
have the same law, but Maryland REALLY enforces it. Tom
had to row his dinghy to shore, and we walked back to our
marina. We got together the next evening to do laundry (our
excitement for a Saturday night).
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