The trip North

[Kevin's Post]We asked Ed to come along on the trip to RI to help us learn how to sail and keep us from killing ourselves.  He agreed, but had another boat delivery scheduled and couldn't do it until mid-may.  That was fine with us, we would use the time to get more familiar with the boat systems and get her ready for the big trip.  At this point, Amanda and I finally told our employer (we worked at the same company in the same department) that we would be leaving the company at the end of June, oh, and by the way, we'll be gone for 2-3 weeks in May to sail our yacht to New England.  We were worried that our coworkers would bear us some ill will since we were quitting to basically go on a permanent vacation (in their eyes), but everyone thought it was pretty cool and they even threw us a big send off party with a nautical theme.

We made one more weekend trip out to the boat to move it out of the Jupiter marina.  We discovered there was a municipal mooring field in Stuart about 20 miles north that only costs $10/day.  So, we motored back up the ICW and tied up to a mooring for the first time.  We used three dock lines to tie off to the mooring since we were leaving the boat again for a few weeks and were terrified that the lines would chafe through.  We were also worried that leaving the boat unattended in a mooring field was an invitation to thieves.  The boat had locks, but nothing that would stop a determined thief.  We left the dinghy on the boat hoping that would make it look like someone was on board.  I figured it was actually safer than at the marina, since at least the thief would need a boat to rob us (or swim).  At the marina, anyone could just step aboard and rob us.  Still we worried a lot about the boat for those weeks, especially since Amanda had accidentally left her engagement ring in the port bathroom.

We headed back to the boat about a week before our planned departure for Rhode Island to provision and get her ready to go (the ring was still there!).  Ed had provided us with about a dozen different lists of gear we should have on the boat for a "delivery".  These included everything from spare parts, to first aid items, to specialized tools.  It was like an expensive scavenger hunt trying to track down all the items he wanted on board.  We spent literally thousands of dollars searching for and purchasing all these items.  Then it took us days to find places to stow it all.

We consulted with Ed regarding the weather and agreed we would try to leave FL on May 14th.  We planned to just hug the coast all the way up to RI so that we wouldn't be far from shelter if the weather turned ugly or if we had mechanical problems.  We would sail non-stop as long as the weather was tolerable, but we would keep an eye on the weather and take a break if things got unpleasant.  It was about 1500 miles so we figured it would take at least 8 or 9 days if we went non-stop, longer if we had to stop for weather.

The 14th came and we picked up Ed and headed out the St. Lucie inlet to the open ocean.  The forecast was for 10kt winds, 1-2 foot seas and scattered thunderstorms.  We motorsailed on one engine to keep the speed up, this was all business, not a pleasure sail.  With Ed costing us $300/day, it was worth it to burn a little extra diesel to shave a few days off the trip.  The first night there were some squalls to our east with some lightning, but Ed showed us how to monitor them with the radar, so it was easy to see exactly how far away they were and which direction they were headed.  You could track the squalls just like they were a boat.  We altered course a few times to dodge the storm cells, but for the most part the squalls stayed a good distance away.

The good weather continued for the next few days with the wind staying mostly between 10-15 knots out of the southeast.  We were sailing northbound in the Gulf Stream, so the current added a few knots to our speed.  We each were taking 3 hour shifts so we would have 3 hours at the helm, then six hours off.  On watch, there wasn't much to do since the autopilot steered the boat.  We just had to watch out for other boats and stay away from things like cruise ships and container ships.  At 4AM on the third night at sea (May 18), we were off the coast of North Carolina when the starboard engine sputtered and died.  Ed investigated and saw that there was air in the racor filter so he filled it back up with fuel from a jerry jug and bled the air out.  We restarted the engine only to have it stall again a few minutes later.  It looked like we were out of fuel, even though the fuel gauge said we had a quarter tank left.  Ed confirmed that we were out of fuel by using a dipstick in the fuel tank.  The gauge was wrong.  We were only about 50 miles from Beaufort, so we decided we would sail the rest of the way there and fuel up.  But, as soon as the sun rose, the wind died and we were adrift.  This didn't bother Ed, he didn't care if it took us all day to get to Beaufort, but I was a little impatient.  The charts showed half a dozen inlets to the ICW that were closer than Beaufort.  Ed warned us against trying any of them saying that inlets can shoal and change depths and can be dangerous without local knowledge.  So we consulted one of our cruising books and started looking at them.  It turns out Wrightsville beach (Masonboro inlet) is one of the 12 all-weather class A inlets (just as good as Beaufort) and it was only 10 miles away.  So, Ed agreed that Wrightsville was a better plan.  We dumped our 10 gallons of reserve fuel into the tank and headed for the Wrightsville inlet.  Ordinarily, 10 gallons would be enough to motor for 10 hours, but when you're this low on fuel it doesn't take much sloshing around for the fuel pickup to suck air and stall your engine.  So we were all on pins and needles as we approached the inlet and motored to the marina hoping the engine wouldn't stall.  We all breathed a sigh of relief when we got tied up at the Seapath Yacht Club Marina.  We had gone over 500 miles in the first two and a half days.  Not bad!

We spent one night at the marina and took the time to fix the fuel gauge and buy more jerry jugs.  We did not want to run out of fuel again if we could help it.  We left again the next morning with more of the same great weather.  The forecast said the weather would be good for a couple more days, so we motorsailed as fast as we could to try to put as many miles under the keels as possible while the weather allowed.  After two days we ducked into Norfolk to wait out the weather.  Ed was familiar with the area and navigated us to Cutty Sark marina where he knew they would be able to fit a catamaran our size.  

After 2 nights waiting for a weather system to pass we were back on the move on May 22nd.  By sunset the next night we were anchored behind the breakwater in Sandy Hook, NJ with the skyline of Manhattan in the distance.  Our plan was to motor up through New York Harbor to the east river and on to the protected waters of Long Island Sound, but even Ed didn't want to attempt that in the dark.  There is a reversing current on the East River that can be up to 6 knots, so we wanted to time our arrival there to have a favorable current.  Ed used our copy of Reed's Almanac to calculate a window for the next morning.

We were underway early the next morning with Ed at the helm.  It was pretty exciting to be motoring past the Statue of Liberty and under the Brooklyn Bridge and seeing all the other famous NY landmarks.  It was nerve wracking however due to the volume of boat traffic.  We were getting waked every few seconds by ferries, water taxis, and a variety of other large commercial vessels.  Who would have thought that our roughest seas on the passage would be in New York Harbor?  Once we got past the Brooklyn Bridge and up the East River things calmed down a bit and we were tooling along at over 10 knots due to the current. 

After a quick stop to fuel up in Flushing, NY we were back on the move on Long Island Sound.  Less than 200 miles to go, we had hoped our next stop would be our marina in Rhode Island.  But the weather did not cooperate.  Within a few hours, the wind was gusting to 30 knots and is was starting to drizzle.  The seas weren't bad because we were on Long Island Sound, but they were steep and close together so the boat was just slamming through them.  We were glad to be on the Sound and not south of Long Island where conditions would have been terrible.  We decided to call it a day and pulled into a marina in Norwalk, CT.  That evening Amanda and I left the boat to go to dinner at the marina restaurant and thought Ed was already off the boat.  A few minutes later a red-faced Ed shows up saying we had locked him in the boat!  He had to climb out through a hatch.  He thought it was pretty funny too, so there were no hard feelings.

The weather continued to deteriorate and we ended up staying in Norwalk for 3 nights.  It was a nice break, but with dockage at over $100/night and Ed's captain fees piling up, it was getting expensive.  Finally, the weather was good enough to depart and we were back on our way.  We were too close to our final destination to do an overnight, and didn't want to arrive in the dark, so we went as far as Point Judith (at the mouth of the Narragansett) and anchored for the night.  The next day was beautiful and sunny and we only had about 30 miles to go.  It was a Saturday and the Narragansett was chock full of daysailors enjoying their weekend.  We had made dockage reservations for the summer at Greenwich Bay Marina in the NW corner of the Narragansett.  It was pretty exciting to be arriving safely at our new home for the summer after such a long trip.  We really felt a huge sense of accomplishment.  As we pulled up to the dock, half a dozen people appeared out of nowhere to help us tie up to the dock.  What a friendly place!  Everyone seemed excited to have newcomers at the marina and they were full of questions about where we had come from and what the trip was like.  We think we're really going to enjoy the summer here.

After writing a huge check to Ed for his services and putting him on a plane to FL.  We hopped on a plane ourselves to return back to Phoenix. We're not liveaboards yet!  We'll make one more trip to the boat by plane for the 4th of July, then once we get the house all packed up and ready to rent we'll be driving our car (and cat) out to the boat in late July.