Day 33 - New York City / Jersey City

An early start once more for the 82 mile run up the New Jersey shoreline.  To get out of Waretown there is a trip across the Barnegat Bay and a very convoluted route through a shoaling passage to get to the Barnegat inlet.  I don't know how we did this in the fog 6 years ago!  This morning we had a convoy of centre console fishing boats all rushing to get out to the ocean.

Once there they appeared to simply drift until they caught dinner!  Usually they managed to drift right on top of my course line.

This is Memory Maker, Steve and Donna, who are following us to Half Moon Bay.

Approaching New York we started to see larger ships but there were fewer than we had seen before so squeezing in between them was not a problem.

 Verazano Narrows bridge, the entrance to New York and the Hudson River.

New York skyline.

We cruised over to Liberty Island for the customary photo shoot.

This is Andrew "COOP on the Hudson" Cooper who lives at Liberty Landing Marina.  We have been conversing with him on Facebook's Live Aboard Boats for a while.  Great to meet this fine man at last.

Meanwhile we have this view across to Manhattan:

Tomorrow we head up the Hudson for Half Moon Bay.

Day 32 - Weather

This is the first day we have had steady rain rather than an afternoon pop-up thundershower.

Days 31 and 32 - Waretown, NJ

 We snapped this picture while we were waiting for the vet to come back when we took Spooky yesterday.  Check out the notice through the door and the advert:

We ran outside in easy waters past Atlantic City to Waretown.  We saw little to start with because of thick fog.  But it cleared slowly.

We saw one shrimper...

And we made it in just ahead of thunder storms to Waretown. We fueled up and made our slip before the rain set in.  Jo made a great supper as usual.

The next piece of our journey has to be made on the Atlantic to New York City and the forecast is not good for tomorrow.  Saturday is a chance.  We shall see...

Spooky - Update

From Jo's Facebook post:

Our friends have all been asking about Spooky.

She is not doing too well. Had her to the vet last evening, here in Cape May, NJ. We are just trying to keep her comfortable until we get home and back to her vet in Brockville. The word "lymphoma" keeps coming up in conversations with both our vet at home and the one in Cape May. We will find out more in a few weeks. In the meantime, she is on meds to keep her happy and comfortable for the remainder of the voyage.

Thanks to you all for your concern re the "White Witch" (a.k.a. Spooky).

Days 29 and 30 - Cape May, NJ

Last night Jo called Linda, a friend we met in Hope Town, Abaco, who had moved to Delaware City.  We met her and a friend for supper at Crabby Dick's.

We had company for the trip to Cape May,  Memory Maker, a 45 Sea Ray sedan, joined us for the run.  We saw one of the more elaborate light houses en route:

..and one of the bigger barges!

The tides were kind again and we pulled into Cape May at about 1:30pm.

I hadn't used my trusty home made ladder for a while but it helped here.

We are picking up a rental car for 24 hours so we can take Spooky to the vet this evening and re-provision tomorrow.

Day 28 - Delaware City

Today has been and still is hotter than hell.  On the other hand, the tide has worked with us all day to make the trip quite short.  We pulled in to Delaware City at about 1:30.  Not a lot to see today as the Chesapeake Bay narrowed to a river then a canal and then dumped us out into the Delaware River.

Plenty of bridges across the canal to make up for very few across the Bay!

Spooky found a new pillow in her air conditioned comfort below!

Tomorrow we run down the Delaware River to Cape May while we stop for an extra day.

Day 27 - Rock Hall, Maryland

Another early run up the Bay.  This time we started at 06:30.  Just set the autopilot, get the tablet and "watch" the Hungarian Grand Prix as if you had live TV.  We did that but it's not the same of course. Still, he's the man, Hamilton!!

We could see the William P. Lane Memorial Bridges from 30 miles away.  They run from Annapolis on the east side to Kent Island on the east side of the Chesapeake bay.  3.7 miles long and 182 feet high if you take the centre span.

It's two bridges now, one east one west.

You can see the difference in engineering approach in this photo.

Our marina today is in Rock Hall on the east side of the Bay.  This next pic is a panorama.  If you're interested click it and check out about 120 degrees of our view.  We love this place.  Great marina, town, restaurants etc.

Spooky is just about over her Steroids so is becoming more normal.  She likes it here as well. Tomorrow we jump into Delaware through the Chesapeake/Delaware Canal.

Day 26 - Solomans, Maryland

We got underway even earlier this morning.  At 0650 were heading out of the river north up the Chesapeake Bay.  Yesterday the winds and swell were such that the autopilot had a hard time keeping up.  Today it was not as bad and we sat back and watched as the temperature rose, the autopilot obliged and we raised our AT&T data limit so we could surf as we cruised.  Running four miles offshore there was little to see and less to photograph.  We docked in Solomans at about 2:15pm.  We are trying a different marina with economical rates since this is for one night only.  Our next longer stop will be Cape May on Tuesday so we can take Spooky to the vet and do a bit of provisioning.

It is a nice spot here; very much a boating community.

We pulled in behind this catamaran (note the beam compared to our 14.5 feet) and were having a beer in the a/c comfort of our main salon within 15 minutes.

This young Osprey peeped constantly for food:

Tomorrow, early, we will head for Rock Hall as we find our way around the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays to New Jersey.

Day 25 - To Kilmarnock, VA

We rose early and got underway at 7:30  after this ocean going ship passed our marina.

Leaving Portsmouth is always interesting for defence folks like me.  We get to look close up at all kinds of US Navy hardware.  This is USS Arlington, LPD-24. Some of her steel came from the twin towers.

This next one is DDG 96, USS Bainbridge.  Seems to have had an "Oops".  Not the only one one if you look her up on Google. Recently had a fireworks and gambling scandal to deal with.

The port also has an extensive container capability on both sides of the river.

This is LSD-51, USS Oak Hill just returning to port from Panama as we passed.

And this is USS Harry S Truman, CVN 75.  She returned from the Persian Gulf July 13th hence why all the flags are out.

Then 6 hours of rocky-rolly passage up the Chesapeake to Kilmarnock, Virginia and we are in port again.

Tomorrow is a similar length passage to Soloman Island.

Day 23 and 24 - Portsmouth, Virginia

One more state line crossed. A very smooth trip from deep North Carolina country side to urban Portsmouth/Norfolk.  Spooky rebounded so we decided not to venture to a vet yet.

The approach to Portsmouth is sudden and industrial...

That's the George W Bush, the last of the Nimitz class carriers...

..and various vessels in refit at BAE Systems.

We hopped on a golf cart with Greg who took us to the Bier Garden.  We had good times there before.  I think I have had one of the better IPAs out of a bottle:

A couple of interesting boats in the marina:

The long range vessel above is from South Africa.  Interesting low profile (low CG) lines and nice superstructure.  The one below is a Nordlund that is yours for $4.95.  One of the better looking megayachts in my opinion.

Day 22 - Coinjock

We had a fairly short run today so we didn't leave until 0830 which gave me time to go into the gas station and have bacon and eggs for breakfast!  The sky was black to the south with lightning and thunder.  I checked my radar app (screenshot below) which showed the intense line of storms to our south and also showed it was staying south.

As we headed north we watched the storm line flashing behind us.  For us all it meant was a wind direction that gave us a mild roll all day and challenged the autopilot to follow.

Coinjock was our destination today.  It's a well known joint for the best prime rib. I reserved ours en route.  This is the understated restaurant below.  The marina is a popular spot for all kinds of boats including cruise boats, megayachts and locals.

We found ourselves in a KT favourite boat sandwich.  Shortly after we arrived a Marlow tied up behind us.

Later, a Fleming tied up in front.

Behind the Fleming was Ocean Club, the boat that carried our friend Crystal.  We saw it first in Fernandina Beach, then in Charleston and now in Coinjock.  Unfortunately the boat had changed complete crew so no Crystal.

Now we are off for our 6pm reservation for prime rib!  Tomorrow, Ocean marine in Portsmouth where we are going to take Spooky to a vet.  We are not happy with her health and have got great support from our vet in Brockville who suggested we try a change in her meds. Later folks!