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Terry and I (Marie) are currently getting ready to take off on our "round the world" sail aboard our Hallberg Rassy 49' sailboat which has been our home for the past five years. We will begin from NJ around July 8ish and sail North to Maine and then to Nova Scotia. Then to the South towards the US Virgin Islands.
Before we departed NJ, our friends and family, Carol and Jim, my sister, brother-in-law, and mom, honored us with a Bon Voyage party. Thanks to them for hosting this great party and for all of you who attended and for the many gifts.
We left Lockwoods Boatworks on Tuesday, July 11 making the 1500 Morgan’s Highway 35 bridge opening. We motored through Ambros channel out to the Atlantic and headed Northeast along the sound shore of Long Island. We sailed and motor-sailed that night with winds between 5-10 knots. We arrived at Block Island at 1300, picked up a mooring and decided to stay at Block until Sunday, July 16. As you can see from the photos (attached) we took advantage of the great lobsters and fantastic sunsets.
The weather, July 15 and 16, calls for smallcraft warnings with winds up to 30kts. Great surprise, my brother Joe D’Urso took the Montauk ferry to Block today to spend the afternoon with us aboard Zelda. Great to see him.
Sunday, July 16, we headed to Cuttyhunk, MA for the night and then to Onset, MA and waited for a favorable current in the morning to motor through the Cape Cod Canal (which is approx. 7mi long). Onset is a lovely town with small everything. We anchored Zelda and launched for the first time, our new inflatable; Terry suggested we should call it “Tender to Zelda.” We stopped at a marine parts shop to get a replacement pressure switch for our seawater wash-down; no luck (24 volts not too common). However, the parts gal allowed us to log onto the Internet for email and “bills”.
We plan to update this website as our journey progresses. Thanks for visiting.
On July 20, we left Provincetown at 6:30 AM and sailed to Marblehead, MA. We had a great day of sailing with winds 10-18 kts (Zelda loves anything over 15). We sailed with the mizzen, main and head sail and reached speeds of over 8.5kts. The day was sunny and bright and rather cool. We navigated into Marblehead Harbor to find a most incredible harbor filled with hundreds of boats, both sail and power. The channel into the Boston Yacht Club was most interesting with homes along the rocks and certainly narrow channel., We took advantage of our reciprocity with Boston Yacht Club and picked up a mooring for two nights. We enjoyed a great dinner at the beautiful Boston Yacht Club, meandered through quaint streets and found revoluntionary dated homes. We spent Friday morning provisioning the boat and taking a long walk along the scenic rocks along the harbor. People here are most helpful and pleasant. Terry was quite impressed with the fact that when a Past Commodore is aboard the launch, the launch operator displays the Past Commodore flag. Not quite so uncommon, the Clubs in the harbor also observe sundown flag takedowns along with cannon signals. By the way, we are talking nightly via Ham radio with Raoul Rabiner, a friend from Raritan Yacht Club. It is great to talk with him. We currently connect at 2000 on frequency 7230. If any other Hams are interested in connecting, please check in. Saturday, July 22, we left BYC, Marblehead Harbor, MA, and sailed to Portsmouth Harbor, ME (approx 34 NM) where we anchored two nights. If you are tracking our progress, we went from MA to ME (basically sailed through parts of NH but kept going). We took advantage of a great day to catch up on some projects (varnish and electrical) on the boat. If you are tracking our travels, you will see that we are making our way up to Nova Scotia. We have several stopovers planned in Maine; yet to be decided, one of the luxuries of retirement. We are currently staying two days in Portland, ME; getting a few engine projects worked on. By the way, still not even closely bored with retirement; highly recommend it! We plan to update this website as our journey progresses. Thanks for visiting.
Update #3 Does Not Exist
July 29, 2000 Update #4
We enjoyed our stay in Portland, the Yacht Services folks where we took mooring and had some engine work done were most hospitable and helpful. We walked over to town to see the first tall ship (from Argentina) that came in for the Portland Op 2000 tallship event. We also found a movie theater that had a Tuesday $1 ticket night, so we saw Erin Brockevich (excellent) and Big Momma's House (very funny); can't beat two movies for two at $4. We left Portland on July 26 and motored through an area of Casco Bay that has many, many islands. We anchored in a tiny cove off Jewell island across the bay from Eagle Island where Admiral Perry lived. Jewell Island is uninhabited and is owned by the State of Maine. During WWII the island was headquarters for destroyer operations in the Atlantic. We seem to be traveling on a route that at least 2-3 other sailboats are taking as we see these same boats in the same harbors we stop. The couple form the sailboat Madison (after their granddaughter) joined us on Zelda; they are from TX.
The weather on July 27, while anchored off Jewell Island, was stormy/rainy. Before the rain began, we did get in a little fishing and caught 14 baby cod in about an hour. We grilled all and saved a bit for fishcakes the next day.
We are now in Boothbay Harbor, ME, for two days and then to Camden, ME. We hope to pickup our month-old mail there via our mail service (they tell us it's a lot!). We had our usual Shore Dinner (corn, lobster, steamers); can't miss a harbors offer of lobster. Last evening, we caught 6 mackerel (2-3 per hit); lots of fun. The weather improved as we arrived in Boothbay with plenty of sunshine.
RADIO CONTACT: If any of you would like to contact us, we have been talking with Raoul Rabiner (KC2YK). Our call signs are KC2GPH (Marie) and KC2GHA (Terry). We talk at 1600 hours at 7.230 MHz - if that doesn't work go to 14.230 MHz. Terry has also been on the SSB at 2000 hours. 451, 452, 453 from 2000-2005 - 651, 652, 653 from 2005-2010 - 851, 852 from 2010-2015. Give us a call.