Labor Day and the Potomac

We are planning on meeting up with a few folks up on the southern Potomac over Labor Day. It's about a three hour boat ride in good weather. Let's hope the remains of Tropical Storm Fay pass over by then and the weather holds up. There are four Sea Rays and families coming and we are planning a cookout for Sunday. I'm going to pick up a Bushel of crabs somewhere along the way... and of course my camera will be ready to roll.

The boat got lifted out of the water yesterday for a rudder repair. The port side rudder had dropped and it was resting on the safety cotter pin. Loosing a rudder would leave a nice 2" hole in the bottom of the boat... that could be a really bad day. I'm also getting the swim platform hardware that resides underwater cleaned and repainted. The boat should be back in the water tomorrow.

More later...

Annapolis and Going Home

One of the nice things about staying at the Annapolis Yacht Basin is the proximity to the town. It’s a stone’s throw to town and all the shops: All the boys wanted to make sure we ate breakfast at Chick and Ruth’s Delly (Yes… it is spelled D-E-L-L-Y): And so we all headed up there on Monday morning: The place was packed as usual.

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The downside to staying at any of the marinas close to town is there are limited options for walking the dogs. Also, there are signs posted around town like this:

I’m not really sure how they determine the actual fine since it has a range of $100 to $150. Is this something determined by the police officer when he catches you or does the judge in court determine this? Or, better yet, is there a scale they use to determine the fine? Do they have to save the evidence if you go to court and do they save this evidence if you appeal the decision? I asked one person about this who lives there and he said he believed it also had to do if it was runny or solid.

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Because of the dog issue and the fact the kids wanted a pool, we moved the boat over to Mears Marina after breakfast. Susie loves that marina as it has a nice pool and picnic grounds and places to walk the dogs. Plus it’s all fenced in and security is a little better.
So after we docked, everyone headed over to the pool:

And I wanted to head up and say hi to Jim at BOE Marine and buy him lunch. He owns Club Sea Ray… well at least he thinks he does. We went to a place called The Boathouse. I think every town has a restaurant called “The Boathouse”. Here’s our waiter: We talked bad about some of the Club Sea Ray members and their stupid questions and answers. Jim came clean and told me he has a second identity (he actually has 5 or 6) he uses called “wkearney99” to stir things up. Oh no… this is as bad as finding out Darth Vader is Luke’s father… Darth ended up picking up the tab.

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I needed to go to the grocery store and pick up a few things and Jim offered to let me borrow his work truck. That was very nice… and what an opportunity to take pictures and cause trouble.
We walked back to BOE Marine. Oh! I need to bring up the “blue light” thing. When we were in Nantucket, I made a post on Club Sea Ray about how tacky I think blue lights look on a boat. Like this:

There’s a $2+ million boat with what looks like a teenager’s gaming computer’s blue cathode lights duct taped to it. Yuk.

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In Jim’s store, however, my mind has changed.

By seeing a sample of these lights in a fish bowl with bubbling water and pea gravel at the bottom, I feel different. They are not tacky but very high class. And if you match them up with the blue rope lights: They look even better. I need to order this set up ASAP and be the envy of the dock.
Seriously, Jim letting me borrow his truck: And getting some stuff outside of town was a big help. Especially that new GPS and chartplotter I needed from West Marine.

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I got back to Mears with my supplies for cooking out and prepped everything for dinner. It was a real masterpiece:

Steak, fresh corn on the cob, pineapple marinated in maple syrup and cinnamon, and potato wedges with a little olive oil and salt and pepper and some ice-cold beers made for a great meal.

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After dinner, John (the oldest) left to go see Kendra. Her mother came to pick him up and he’ll be coming back to Williamsburg later in the week. Susie and I did the “John is leaving” dance.

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Tuesday morning arrives and I think everyone is ready to go home. I check the weather forecast and they’ve changed it from 5-10 knot winds out of the north and sunny to a small craft advisory being raised at 2 pm with 20 knot winds out of the south. Of course! We left the dock at 8:00 am and head south to try and get out of this weather forecasted to move in. I had not put any fuel on board since Cape May so I ended up stopping at Solomons Island and picking up about 260 gallons. That was enough to get me to the south end of the Bay and not go lugging a bunch of fuel around I didn’t need as I wanted to have some speed today.

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The trip down the Chesapeake was uneventful and pretty much flat dead calm with lots of haze. Visibility was only about 4 miles:

We got to Hampton about 2 pm and filled the tanks up again with diesel. The weather looked like it was starting to deteriorate and I was just hoping I could make the hour and a half run up to the Chickahominy River without getting dumped on or struck by lightning. Fortunately, we made the run with no issues. Well… maybe one issue.

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As I’m about 2 miles north of the James River Bridge, where the river is about 7 miles wide, along comes Mr. Angry-Tug-Boat-Captain.

This guy hails me on 16 and tells me to “back it down or your wake will tear me up”. According to my radar, I am 0.43 nautical miles from him at the closest point in a shipping channel on wide open water and he has a billion tons of gravel on board. Let alone the guy is in an area that is notoriously rough… HUH? I’ve run into this guy before. He yells at everyone on Ch. 16 about their wake and his tug boat. He proceeds to thank me for my wake and then the Coast Guard comes on the radio and says “Channel 16 is to be used only for hailing and distress captain. If you need to talk to the other boat, go to another channel.” Ridiculous.

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Got to the dock about 4 pm. The day ended up being a long run and I was exhausted.
I’m always afraid to get to the house after these long trips… never know what utilities have been shut off, etc. etc. We had some friends stay at our house this year as their house was getting remodeled. The house was in great shape when we got home and they left us some steaks and corn in the fridge to cook out. How nice.

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They also had a Golden Retriever and I guess it didn’t do too good with the dog toys we had. There was a note on the counter:

And all new dog toys. Very nice touch… We really didn’t expect them to do everything they did while we were gone… PLUS… all the utilities were still working!!!

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So this is my last post for this trip. We did about 1500 nautical miles and burned a little over 2800 gallons of diesel fuel. OUCH! However, it was a trip of a lifetime and lots of great memories. I hope my kids look back at this someday and remember all the things they were able to do…

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Now I have to go back to reality and figure out how to pay off these credit cards.

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Oh yes... and one final note. If my children are reading this... I've found the incriminating pictures you all took and left on my camera and I will be saving them to show someday at your weddings...

If I live that long...

Cape May and off to Annapolis

As I said, the 6 hour run from New York City to Cape May, New Jersey was picture perfect. The only issue we really ran into was leaving New York harbor and the debris fields we would encounter. You would think a boat had sunk with the mile long trails of telephone poles, chairs, stumps, and whole trees. I’m not sure how people that boat up here avoid replacing props and shafts every year.
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The last hour of the run into Cape May was great with Susie and I sitting on the bridge with the boat bobbing along, and good music playing…
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I wanted to stay at Schooner’s Landing which is a 4 mile run north after you enter the Cape May inlet on the ocean side but when I called on Friday, they were booked. I ended up getting a reservation at Canyon Club but there is really not much there to do. As we pulled into Cape May, I asked Susie to call up to Schooner’s Landing and just see what they said and they said “SURE! Come on up!” Why is it that when I call and a guy answers the phone they never have room but when Susie calls back with her female voice, they always have room? Must be my sparkling personality. I cancelled the Canyon Club reservation.
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Why did we want to stay at Schooner’s Landing? Because my Atlantic Cruising Club (ACC) book rates Canyon Club at “3 Bells” (check upper right corner):

And Schooner’s Landing at “4 Bells”:
And I’m so sick of staying on the boat at this point, I need all the frickin’ bells I can get.

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The cruising guide and charts call this trek northward the Intracoastal Waterway but it’s not like the southern ICW where barge traffic is moving through. This is like swamp land that is “deep enough” for larger sportfishing and cruising pleasure boats can dock. You have to go through this bridge:
And past a fishing boat fleet: And through the swampland:
To get to Wildwood:
I’m also not sure where the town of “Wildwood” is but there where several stores and restaurants within a few blocks of the marina. Most importantly, there was a grocery store, a liquor store, and a restaurant that served cheap food:
We ate dinner there. Here’s a happy looking family. Just a note: The potato skins appetizer does in fact have “cheez wiz” on them.
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Plus, the kids wanted to go down and check out the boardwalk….
I didn’t walk to the boardwalk with them. This foot of mine is turning into a really convenient excuse not to do things I don’t want to… Here’s the boardwalk: And a view as they were walking up to it:
And the family always buys nice things for Dad: I wasn’t there but they said the rides were really expensive… Like $60 a ride for some. Ouch!
We were planning on heading down to Annapolis on Saturday but we awoke to some really bad weather moving in. A front was coming at us from the west: So there is no way I was going out in that garbage. Susie and I watching one of those charter fishing boats that hold about 50 people go out right into a wall of black clouds and lightning that morning. Idiots.
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We decided just to stay at Schooners for the day and do laundry and do some other chores around the boat. The weather cleared up later in the day but the radar showed storms popping up all up and down the coast and it wasn’t worth the chance of getting hit and getting to Annapolis.
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Sunday morning we headed out early to get to Annapolis. On the way out, one passes by a big Coast Guard training facility:

The weather forecast didn’t look too bad. NOAA had put up a small craft advisory for the northern Chesapeake Bay with winds gusting to 20 knots but how rough can that part of the world get? The Delaware Bay had forecast winds of 10 knots out of the NW and waves “1 foot or less”… Now the Delaware Bay has an orientation of NW to SE and is notoriously rough especially when winds are aligned along the bay. I told Susie I wanted to get out early before the waves built up so we got out by about 7:30 am.

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Well… Once we cleared the inlet on the Delaware Bay side, the “1 foot or less” was total CRAP! My wind meter on the top of the boat is indicating winds blowing at 20 knots or so and gusting to 28 knots out of the NW. To add icing to the whole thing, the tide was moving in at maximum ebb (about 2 knots) against the wind. The bay was a total carpet of white caps and very steep 3-4 footers. It was like someone hitting the boat with a wrecking ball.

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I could not make any speed in this slop. Susie turns around and yells at me “Can’t you slow it down and trim the nose down?!!” I think she’s on to how to drive the boat. I ended up having to back it down to 1500-1600 RPMs and nosing the boat down and plowing through the stuff. We had spray shooting over the bridge and it took 3 ½ hours to get up the bay. I think a sailboat passed me at one point… on a tach even.

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So we got into the Chesapeake Bay where this small craft warning was and the bay was picture perfect weather. Unbelievable.

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Made our way down to Annapolis and docked and the Yacht Basin and washed the 2 inches of salt that was crusted on everything off. We went up to the Federal House for dinner and retired for the evening.

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Our plan is to stay in Annapolis until Tuesday morning and then head south... Maybe I'll go buy the owner of Club Sea Ray lunch or something...

Off to see the wizard and "do you take credit cards?"

As I sit here and write these notes out, we are in Cape May, New Jersey. Actually, we are in Wildwood but close enough. We made the run from New York to Cape May yesterday off the coast of New Jersey and the weather was great.

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Our boat has been parked at Liberty Landing Marina:

It’s on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River on the edge of Liberty Landing State Park and the Statue of Liberty. The dogs love the place because early in the morning we let them off their leashes and let them run. The park is never really crowded either so it’s a nice place. Only problem is, the dogs seem to find the bird poop very tasty and it’s a battle to keep them out of that. Why do I buy special dog food for them again?

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On Wednesday, our goal was to head uptown around Times Square for lunch and see where the Gershwin Theater was. We had tickets for Wicked and wanted to see how long it took to get there and make sure we wouldn’t get lost and also grab some lunch. To get to the city, you take a water taxi over and then walk to a subway station. The water taxi drops you off in Battery Park right by the World Trade Center site. Of course I didn’t bring any map with me and the times I’ve been in NYC (probably 20+ times) I’ve always had someone carting me around. But how hard can it be…

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So we head on over to the Park Place subway station and here we are looking all knowledgeable on how the subway system works:

Note the spiffy “Nantucket Reds” I am wearing…

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So buying subway tickets becomes a challenge. They have these machines with touch screens but the “touch part” is mounted about 6 inches above the actual screen so you have to touch it multiple times and you end up touching things you don’t want to touch… Also, it won’t let you buy multiple tickets for multiple people so with 6 of us, I have to buy them one at a time (no one else wanted to touch the dirty screens a million other people touched). I don’t have enough “small bills” for this thing and a Metro card is like $7 each. No problem… I’ll just stick my credit card in it multiple times.

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I normally carry 3 credit cards with me. I do this because when I travel a lot, one of them always gets turned off because of “fraud alert” problems. Well… I put my first credit card in the subway machine and get a ticket.. put the card back in and get a second ticket… put the card back in a third time and BAM! The credit card is rejected and gets locked. Hmm.. no problem .. I have another credit card. I do the same thing and sure enough, I get two tickets and then that credit card gets locked. Down to my last credit card, I buy two more tickets (I now have 6 tickets for us) and that one gets locked. Great!!!! What a picture. Here I am franticly trying to find credit cards to put into a subway ticket machine hoping they don’t get rejected or locked over some $7 tickets. All my cards are locked by now! Oh well… we got down to where the train was running.

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Here’s Timmy demonstrating how to look for a train coming:And how NOT to look for a train coming:

And here’s a picture of credit-less me sweating trying to figure out the damn subway map. I can read a nautical chart, but what the hell is with all these train 1, 2, 3, I, V, N, L, express, etc. etc. things. All we want to do is get up to 50th street station from Park Place. We can’t exit the station as I have no credit left to get more tickets.It appears the only train that stops at 50th street is train 1… but train 1 does not stop here… so we get on train 2… going the wrong way. We get off train 2 going the wrong way at the next stop (I think it was Atlanta, GA) and get on train 2 going the right way.

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An hour and a half later (no joke), we arrive in Times Square on train 2:

The kids were very hungry by then so we hopped into ESPN Zone and grabbed some burgers. Finished lunch and gave the waitress my credit card… she returned several minutes later:

HA HA HA HA…

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We walked around a bit. The older boys wanted to find someone called the “Naked Cowboy” but he was no where to be found. We headed on back to the boat (only took half the time) and let the dogs run and got ready for the theater.

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So here we are waiting for the water taxi at Liberty Landing yet again as we are heading to see Wicked:

And this is the oldest trick in the book after you take someone’s picture: “Is your zipper down?”

Off across the Hudson River:And we made our way on the subway to 50th street with no delays and found the Gershwin Theater:

We decided to get some dinner at a little English Pub place called “The Playwright”. I didn’t get a picture of the frickin’ restaurant but I did get a picture of the napkin:

And John:

Walked over to the Gershwin Theater and we had great seats for the play. Orchestra seating and dead center to the stage.

Wicked was a wonderful play. I thought Timmy would fall asleep but he was really into it and the story was just fantastic. The plot takes place before and during the time of the Wizard of Oz and explains the story of the Wizard of Oz witches. It also gives some depth to the other characters. I had no idea what to expect and the interpretation of the original story by the writer was very well done if not a little twisted… I did sneak a picture after the play during the applause:

And if you are reading this and haven’t seen the play, I’ll ruin it for you and tell you the death of the wicked witch of the west with the bucket of water was staged and she ended up running off with the scarecrow to live happily ever after.

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The following day, Friday, was a “free day in NYC” for everyone. I thought the older boys would go off on their own but they ended up tagging along with us for awhile. The younger boys wanted to go back to Times Square and go to the big Toys-R-Us that is there and a few other places.The Toys-R-Us in Times Square is HUGE. It has an indoor Ferris wheel and this big honkin’ T-Rex that groans and moves around:

They also have piles of Webkins… Like a virus they are everywhere. Webkins chickens:

Webkins turtles:

Even as we were walking around the city, many stores have Webkins signs in the window:

Damn Webkins

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Timmy had saved up his money from doing chores on the boat and bought some cool Star Wars toys:The older boys did take off on their own in search of the Naked Cowboy. We found them later after they had been in the Hershey’s store:

Susie and I found an antique store off the beaten path. We saw two 4 foot pedestals we liked for the house and bought those and had them shipped back to Williamsburg. The credit cards are working again.

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We then walked on back to the boat. I was exhausted… and broke:

My left foot (the one I had surgery on) was swelled up and hurting pretty bad. The broken toe on that foot also now has the “black and blue” spreading… I needed to get off my foot. We were going to head up to Hoboken for steak at Arnolds but that just didn’t work out. We went back to the restaurant at Liberty Landing and then crashed.

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I could write for weeks on silly things one sees in New York City. For example, what in the world does this sign mean?

I guess there is “No Parking, No Sweeping, and No Littering between the hours of 9 to 10:30 am on Tuesday and Thursday.” Any other time, one is free to litter and sweep.

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My son breaking the law:

Friday morning came and the weather looked great off the coast of New Jersey so we needed to get ready to book out. As Susie was finishing up some wash and the kids were walking the dogs, I was filling up the water tank. When it was done, I pulled the hose out about 10 feet from the nozzle and the damn thing comes snapping back and the metal tip of the hose embeds itself into my right foot’s big toe:

What are the ODDS OF THAT?! Now my GOOD FOOT is bleeding and probably needs stitches. Also, I was told by someone earlier in the trip if I get New York water on an open sore, there is some flesh eating virus in it and I could end up getting sick and losing limbs… GREAT! I wrapped it up and we headed out anyway..

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Zipped on by the Statue of Liberty:

And made our way down the coast. We are now in Cape May waiting for some storms to pass so we can head over to the top of the Chesapeake Bay... and find an Urgent Care.