Saturday, June 30, 2007

Atlantic City to New York Harbor



















We were planning to leave from Atlantic City early on Monday morning and boat the whole way to New York City in one day. Sandy figured it would take us over 10 hours depending on weather, waves and whether we did the whole trip on the ocean or went into the Intercoastal Waterway. Josh went out to a casino Sunday evening and showed up about 5 minutes before we were plannning to leave (5 AM). Needless to say he slept most of the trip up the coast of New Jersey......















The Jersey Shore is one long beach with white sand and lots of ferris wheels/amusement parks and beautiful homes. We ended up motoring part way in the ICW to see what it was like and at one point due to wind and waves . It was slower than out in the ocean but not near as choppy. We came out to the ocean a second time at Pt Pleasant and went into the harbor to see what it was like. It had beautiful homes and a busy waterway. A home in the Pt Pleasant harbor.
After 9-10 hours we finally came into New York Harbor. There is no ICW (Intercoastal Waterway) from Manasquan to New York. Fortunately the wind and waves were OK most of the trip.


It was spectacular to see the Statue of Liberty and be able to motor by on our way up to the East River.
It was a long 11 hours of motoring day and we were glad to finally reach our marina, The World's Fair Marina, located between Laguardia and Shea Stadium about 10 miles up the East River. You go past Riker's Island and turn right.




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Philadelphia with Josh

Sorry for the delay in updates. We have not had internet access since Cape May on Sunday (Atlantic City and New York City......) We are now in Havershaw on the Hudson and can thankfully get on the Internet!

















On Friday we rented a car in Bear, DE from Enterprise and ran around trying to get all our errands done before picking up Josh in Phila. Main on our list was getting more sparkplugs, which we ordered at a car parts store across the street from Enterprise.




Josh caught an earlier flight from Syracuse to Newark and then took two trains to get to Philadelphia. He is quite the traveler now. We met him at the train station around 3:30 and headed for Independence Hall.






We were able to walk through the Visitor's Center but all the tickets for Independence Hall were out for the day and the Liberty Bell Center was closed. You can see the Liberty Bell on one side at a window.



While we were in Philly we knew we had to have a Philly Cheesesteak for dinner.


C&D Canal






We hit a patch of bad weather on our way to the top of the Chesapeake, rain, lightening but it cleared up as we headed into the canal.





Chesapeake City on the Canal was gettng ready for a big Opening of the Canal Anniversary party on Sat and there were already lots of boats rafted together in the harbor warming up for the festivities to come. We were moving further up the canal to Summit North Marina (it has a pool!)
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Baltimore to the C&D Canal


We left Baltimore Wed morning and took a turn around the inner harbor before heading out.




We were almost to the bridge out of town and the engine sounded like it was missing. Sandy had to put more quarters in the kitty. We stopped out in the main chanel and Sandy started checking sparkplugs. After tinkering and replacing we decided to head for the C&D Canal and get more sparkplugs after we rented the car. It was a good thing we got going because there was a barge headed our way.




Another lighthouse along the way.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Wed 6/27 to Baltimore

From Deb: We left Chesapeake Beach around noon and headed north for Baltimore, deciding to skip Annapolis because we had been there before and wanted to get to our next stop before everything closed, for a change. It was a good choice as we hit a little bit of a lightening/thunder storm coming into Baltimore and it was good to get to our marina. On the way we passed two historic lighthouses (see pics).



















The small building to the left of the lighthouse is the outhouse. Don't
remember the name of this
lighthouse. The Seven Foot Knoll
Lighthouse built on cast iron pilings,

now sits in downtown Baltimore.
It had a whole platform under the
building where livestock were kept.



Chatting with Amy while on our way.
















We got to town early enough to walk around
and see some of the sites. This is the Katyn
Memorial commemorating Polish matyrs
during WWII.


Thursday we head for a marina near the C&D Canal. We'll rent a car on Friday and meet josh at the train station in Philadelphia. We're hoping for a little cooler weather by Friday.....
(sorry for the underlined text. it started and i can't get rid of it :(((( )

historic lighthouses on the chesapeake

Debbie abling drivng the boat at 20 knots past historic Thomas Point lighthouse east of Annapolis
this is one of the last remaining screw pile octagonal lighthouses, not in use but still somehwat maintained.


Below is Sandy Point lighthouse just north of the chesapeake bay bridge.

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Engine repair in the Soloman Islands

Lovely spot. We were at spring cove marina. $55/night- stayed 2 nights as had to wait for 3 inch extension higher exhaust risers to be shipped overnight from volvo for only $350 plus $150 shipping overnight normally only $90 shipping--they are about 40 pounds each. debbie is a real trooper. you can see her here helping me do a compression test [she could get down to see what she was doing --good news all 180-185 # which is great and confirms no damage from water coming in while stopped from a wave coming over the std height exhaust risers.



deb in our dinghy with $99 TROLLING
MOTOR and jump battery that is our
transport to marina parts boatyard.
Sandy had to make 5 trips, a couple of
them with heavy boat parts in the
dinghy. He only had to jump in the
water once to get a part that fell out.













Monday, June 25, 2007

We had a little [big?] motor trouble on day 1 at the end

This is Mike, from TowBoatUS. But let me back up a little. After 3+ hours of motoring partly at -8 mph and partly at 20 mph, all running pretty smoothly, I was putting along at 5. We reserved a spot at the marina which was 5 miles away. Deb awoke and called the lady who is doing her med. transcription while we are gone. We were in mid channel and she was asking deb to listen to the Dr's recording to interpret what he said, so i offered to stop the motor so she could hear better, not knowing it could hurt to be drifting in the channel... after a while I asked deb to postpone her conversation until we got to the dock as we were only a mile or two away now. Went to start the motor and THUNK it would not turn over. 1st thinking it was battery problem I tried using our massive jump battery and then hooking our four boat batteries in different ways.
We were now driftng toward the beach. I did not want to use our main anchor as it is operated by a windlass which uses power i was not sure of, so i deployed the 2nd anchor [of 3]. After wondering if we were dragging the anchor toward the beach i set a mark on the gps and found we were staying put. After a bit more tinkering, I called boat US towing [I am so glad i bought the top of the line tow insurance.]

From Deb: Mike came out and tied up along side (while talking on his cellphone). We thought he would just tow us in to our marina and we arranged with the marina to tie up to the fuel dock since they would be closed when we got in. Mike offered to see if we could fix it instead. First he tried jumping it with his battery cables hooked to his
boat (more power)-no go. Sandy thought it was the starter, explaining when putting in the new motor he had a new starter but the old one was working OK and didn't change it. Mike offered to change it now. What a deal. The starter is at the bottom of the motor and requires either fitting in the area next to the motor or hanging over the top of the motor to reach down there. Mike just hopped down there and started unbolting things. The starter was changed but still a no go. Next try was cleaning out the sparkplugs and yes, there was water in the cylinders. All the sparkplugs were pulled and dried, the engine run to clear out the water and everything put back together. We were praying a lot. Turned the key
and it started!!!! Yeah!! Mike packed up and wrote us out our paperwork and was off on another call. He spent close to 2 hours helping us.
We were able to get to the marina on our own power.
The Solomons is really beautiful. The marina was very nice and there was a West Marine within walking distance! There was also a boatyard across the creek that had the sparkplugs we needed. They had exactly 8 (amazing, that was how many we needed!) and they were only $18 each but for Sandy only $16 each. (Two broke putting them in so we will have to find more on our way). It was an expensive 2 days. It was also very hot. Posted by Picasa





Stephen Trice, the boat salesman and do-it-all at the marina. He sold us the boat, remotely, did the heavy lifting part of pulling out old motor and bolting in the new motor and was generally helpful in every way you can imagine. As I left, my last words to him were, I have never met a more honest and real salesman.








Deb felt a little under the weather on day 1 and took a nap. Isn't she cute. Saturday at the party someon from C dock wanted to know who my daughter was. She sure looks good as a senior citizen [just turned 55 in case you didn't know]

this is the map of the day 1 trip 40 miles.

Marina Party the night before we left-1




The night before we left, it happened that Olversons Lodge Creek Marina Yacht Club was having their June event, hosted by C dock [the most social dock and where our boat was in the winter]. the Egg-stravaganza--you can see the c-dock cooks with their chicken hats which i wanted badly but could not buy.

We won 3rd place in the raffle, a BBQ book--sounds like a good omen, but wait till you hear about day 1.

There was a band which we really liked, but we had work to do packing so we could not stay.