2010 Highlights

here's a video of some of the highlights of 2010. Looking forward to 2011

Some dinghy fun

I've been working on the dinghy outboard, nothing major, just tweaking and fine tuning. She's running pretty good now.

Pigdog likes the new dinghy

Took pigdog to the boat this weekend, her first time seeing the boat. At first she wouldn't get on because she's not allowed to get on other boats. Once on, she ran all over the boat, jumped on every bed, sniffed every corner. She's been sitting in every seat trying to find which one she likes best. Last night we went for a dinghy ride, she loves the new dinghy

Time for a rest

Pulled into our spot, Dave and family helped us tie up. We were beat. Drank some beer, talked about the trip and introduced them to our new boat.

We cleaned her up, buttoned her up and headed for home.

What a trip.

Thank you Gitana for bringing us home safely.

The longest 20 miles

Pulling out of manasquan inlet, we knew we were in for a rough day. In hind sight, we should have turned around and headed back, but the pull of the finish line was too great for both of us, so we headed out. The seas were sloppy and confused, steep rollers coming from the south east. I couldn't head straight up the coast because they were hitting me broadside, so I had to tack back and forth hitting them at an angle. We're now cruising at about 15kts, tacking back and forth, this is getting exhausting. "how many miles to sandy hook?" "19" F%£k.

I'm so close i can smell dirty water hot dogs.

We spot sandy hook and I surf the boat into the bay. I pull into a safe spot and throw the engines in neutral and walk out onto the deck and re-attach the wiper arm... Again. Collect myself, get my bearings and head for the VZ bridge. Not bad, i thought, heading for the bridge. We get into NYC harbor and it's flat. Whoohoo were are home free.

We get through hells gate, into the sound, and the fog starts to get heavy. I get past city island and the seas get heavy. I cruise past our old harbor, port Washington and the fog is thick as pea soup. I keep going, seas get steeper, fog thicker. Soon we are in 100' of water and we are getting clobbered. I'm down to idle speed and the seas are breaking over the bow. "look out" I mis a boat, barely. Never saw it on my radar. Another so close, we both realize Now that the boat is pitching so bad that the radar is either facing mars or china, nothing in front of us.

I want to turn around but thought there was no way, the boat would roll over if I tried, so I just kept going. I set my course for the closet harbor that I thought I could take the waves at. Plugging along at 5 kts, I could hear things flying in the cabin. I kept looking back expecting the dinghy, or worse the whole TNT lift, to not be there. After a couple of hours of this, I couldn't take it anymore, so it took a more aggressive angle heading for land. A few big waves clobbered us and the boat pitched so bad that It felt like I could reach out of the window and touch the water.

We make it to port Chester harbor and we grab a mooring ball and shut off the engines. I check over everything, clean up the crap flying around, and smoke a cigar. We are 11 miles from home and I'm thinking we are going to be spending the night on a borrowed mooring ball. How the hell the seas could be so rough baffled me. I checked the charts and decided that if I hug the coast, it might not be so bad. I start the engines and head back out. I'm hugging the coast in 10' of water just motoring through.

Finally we make it to norwalk harbor and the islands break the seas. Thank you Jesus was the only thing that came to mind.

Here we are coming into the marina. Battered, bruised, but in one piece.

Gale winds leads the way

We arrived in AC around 3 pm on sat. I pulled in, fuel up and headed back out in to rough seas. The admiral was a champ, no chumming the waters. I made my way up the jersey coast and into the barnegate inlet. Some more poking my way through the channel I met Dom and Bobby Bacala in the bay, they led me to my nights dock. Great meal, great company, great docking rates. A few glasses of wine, filled stomach, and we passed out for the night. Woke up in the morning and checked the weather. I had to get going, a storm is on my butt. But we were thrilled, we were in familiar waters, almost home. The week of long days and some rough weather is quickly catching up to us. The skies are cloudy, the air cold. Water temps are 53 degrees, just 3 days ago we were in 79 degree water. Summer hasn't arrived in the northeast yet.

Rudee inlet

Got up, made some coffee, looked at some maps. Then headed out for the open ocean. We were expecting a nice calm day on the water, wasn't so calm. The rollers were hitting us from the side so we just rocked and rolled all day. Then the seas got messy, so now we are rocking and rolling and bouncing. Normally this isn't too much of an issue if you are in it for a couple of hours, 12 hours and it's an issue. My navigator stopped navigating, I'll just leave it at that.

"this is warship xxx calling power vessel, we are 2 nm off your stern, switch to 72 and answer". That'll wake you up. I look around and sure enough there's a big ole battle ship behind us. Just wanted us to identify our selves and let them know what we were doing etc... Big thanks for protecting our waters.

So we are plugging along. Finally got to AC and everyone started feeling better once we docked to fuel up. We covered some serious ground. Stopped at Dom's for the night and ate some great home cooking. Headed off early to out run some storms.

( pic courtesy of Gary)

Two long days

From bald head island we went to Oriental NC. Got in early enough to wander around the small town, grab some dinner, and plan the next leg. Gary convinced me to bypass the ICW and take the pamlico sound to Oregon inlet. I would shave at least a day off and after idling through SC for a whole day, open water sounded very appealing. So we headed out at 7 and it was like glass. Kicked on autopilot and sat back. After not seeing anything for hours, boredom sets in, so I took a shower, vacuumed, cooked (we did keep an eye out).

Finally got to the Oregon inlet, I was warned that this inlet was tricky, so when I saw that sea tow was leading a sport fish out, I jumped on their tail and followed. It was a tricky inlet and they were dredging the main channel so we had to take an unmarked route. Thanks sea tow.

Headed out the inlet into the open ocean. Calm, warm, flat seas. It's days like this that you need a cell booster. When you get 3-5 mikes offshore, anything that needs reception doesn't work. I can't make or receive calls, email, weather etc... Well I have an antenna, a booster amp, but the wrong repeater antenna in the cabin, so it doesn't work. At least that's all I hope it is. So all I could do was sit back and spot dolphin. I should also note that there is no shortage of dolphin in the US, they are everywhere.

Arrived at Rudee inlet Va early. Fueled up, went and picked up some more supplies, with the help of Rick (he drove us around and gave us a tour of VA beach). Got back to the boat and Gary arrived. I gave them the nickel tour of the boat and then we went to dinner. I haven't shaved for a week, I figured it would make it look like a major expedition if I looked a little rough. Rick bought dinner, thanks Rick. Fun night.

Leaving bald head island

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the blog for a couple of days, I haven't been able to get my hands on the iPad.

We left bald head island heading to oriental. Went through some back country NC. Some great sand dunes to rickety docks, to tree lined rivers. Coming into oriental, you could see the neuse river feeding the pamlico. Big open water for some auto pilot time.

I'll be back, I'm being told we have to go.

Waccamaw river

We had a little bit of a late start yesterday, tired and we had to wait for someone at the marina to wake up and open the fuel dock. On the way out I noticed that my generator shut down so I had to un fix the the fuel thingy and all was good. After some slow going, we hit the waccamaw river, wow. Very beautiful. Lots of marinas tucked in there too. If I had known, we would have planned our trip for a stop in one.

After the great ride through the river, we hit civilization. I think I idled for 4 hours. We're starting to hit a lot of boats heading north, mostly sail boats and trawlers so I have to slow down to give them a low wake pass, tons of houses on the water. I throw a pretty big wake, it's funny to watch jet skiers approaching my wake and when they get close, the look on their face is great. Most wus out and back off the throttle, but a few brave ones launch off it ending up in the water.

Lots of dolphin everywhere. Every once in awhile I get the urge to stop and jump in the water with them, but they'll probably bite my face off. I have to keep reminding myself that flipper wasn't real.

Hit another thunderstorm late afternoon. Lightning so close and so loud that it made my ears ring. Got to bald head island in the dark... Again. Wasn't pitch dark like the night before.

Going to try and catch the tide up the river today, should make some decent progress.

Long day

We left Jekyll island earlyish yesterday, topped off the fuel and
headed off. When you slow down in GA, greenhead flies swarm the boat.
These little bastards bite, and it hurts.

The ICW in GA is a maze of rivers that zig zag all over the place. We
were making good time and decided to try and hit charleston SC. What
we didn't know was that the last leg is very slow going, almost all no
wake. Instead of arriving at 7pm, it was more like 9:30. We had to
navigate in the dark, in strange waters, looking for a marina that we
only knew on a map. This was very hard, very stressful, and not safe.
Finding the ICW off of the harbor in the dark is like trying to thread
a needle with no eyes. We found in by using radar, gps. Once we got
in, I had to use the spotlight on both sides of the shore to poke my
way through. We found the marina and I almost grounded coming in. Then
we got in, and what was supposed to be "many slips" available, we
finally found one. They told the admiral to dock at the fuel dock if
we could find a slip, I think he thought we were in a 20' boat because
that's all the room there was.

I'm rambling, so I'll stop. Gotta go fuel up and head off for more
adventure.

Some people are crazier than me

I'm cruising in a total downpour and I see these two blips on the radar. As I came closer, it's two kayakers paddling up the ICW.

Yesterday way a series of thunderstorms. The first one hit us hard and the windshield wiper assembly popped off and was just laying there. Great. Had to rely on radar and gps to poke my way up. In between storms, I spent my time on the deck trying to fix it, didn't really fix it but got it to stay on and wipe for a little while before it would pop off again.

Didn't get to turn on the autopilot today, the route was very twisty and turny requiring me to "drive" the whole time. By the time we reach Jekyll island, I was tired, wet, hungry. We docked and cleaned up everything, ate, then crashed. Now I'm up early, it's dark, and all of the boats around me are still sleeping. The only thing I can hear is little waves slapping the side of the boat. Having satellite tv comes in handy at times like this.

The weather looks good today so we should make some good progress through GA.

Get out of my way storm

Going to try and sneak in behind this storm, seems to be moving pretty fast, so we are just going to sit tight for a little bit and then work our way up behind the storm. I put up the canvas just in case we bump into the tail end of it.

First full day

We cruised for 12 hours yesterday and made it to Daytona beach. Boy Florida is a long state. The Indian river went on for hours and hours. Rain was expected but we didn't see any, just sun and lots of water.

I was able to explore the auto pilot yesterday. OMG, this is the best thing since the invention of shoes. To be able to actually eat while under way... To get up and stretch without having to stop... To take a pee... 12 non stop hours was actually doable, enjoyable, and I wasn't completely wiped out afterwards.

Filled up when we got to the marina, the dinghies on the boats here are about the size of my boat. We're tied to the fuel dock, not the most private place, but we have an easy departure in the morning. I have to check the tides in the morning because a boat hit bottom on the way out of the marina and bent a prop, not something I would like to do. Speaking of which, we had our first grounding scare yesterday. A sailboat modified into a cruiser grounded right in front of us. Before I knew what happened, i dodged around him and my depth sounder jumped to 3'. I threw the drives in neutral and coasted over the shallow spot. A butt pucker moment.

We saw tons of dolphins yesterday. A mommy and baby followed us for about a mile. I don't know if I could ever get used to that, it's just awesome to see wild dolphins right next to the boat jumping in your wake. I wish I could upload video from my camera.

On our way

We caught the 6am flight and got to the boat by around 10. We were beat but decided to try and salvage our day by putting some water behind us. We made it to palm beach gardens Fl and found a marina to stay at. It was slow going up the ICW in south Florida. Lots of no wake zones, bridges, manatees, traffic. We were able to open it up a couple of times, the boat cruises like a big comfortable cadillac. I'm having issues uploading my videos from my other camera, so for right now it's pics. Today we are going to try and outrun some weather and do about 200 miles. I think.

On standbye

We are on standbye for the 6am flight. No sleep, no food. Looks like
we lost a day of cruising.

I sold all of my jetblue stock.

Bored

Watching netflix at the samsung charging station

Still at the airport

Well, it's 1am. Our plane broke, there's no more jet blue planes at
this airport so they have to fly one in from another airport. We've
wandered around the whole airport, nothing is open. I sat on the
toilet for 20 minutes just so I wouldn't have to look at the same
people. All we had to eat was pretzel wrapped hot dogs, that was 5
hours ago. This sucks.

Some iPad/iPhone apps I'll be using on the trip

As most of you know, I'm a big apple fan. Google earth now let's you read my maps from google maps so I can can have a birds eye view of my route and where I'm at on it.



For my logbook, I'm using an app the a fellow CSR'r developed.



For weather, I'm using the weather channel app and weather bug. I kind of like the weather channel app better.



For tides, I like this one for the iPad.



And as a backup to my paper charts, inavx and navionics. Navionics hasn't come out with an iPad version yet, but it works fine.

T-minus 1 day

Well, didn't get much sleep thinking about the trip. Have to get up and find some spare windshield wipers. Dave reminded me and FW had the part number, gotta love FW. I've been going over the route this morning trying to wrap my head around how many miles we have to cover. Gotta go to work today and try to finish up some stuff before we leave. We have a ton of stuff packed, why do we end up with so much corn on our trips?

Anyway, here's our route on the inside.


View ICW in a larger map

Sick of charts

We've been mapping on paper charts, google earth, gps. I've been knee
deep in charts for weeks and now I have a headache.