All Hands On Deck   Adventures on land and at sea

I have been thinking and writing a lot over the past couple weeks about what I miss about life on the mainland. That partly means Denver life and partly Rhode Island marina life. In both places, I relied on many routines but also had access to more of a variety of activities and resources. I wrote a kind of bitter post about this last week but I think I’ll start over.
Now I realize what Lee and I took for granted in my landlocked Denver world. We had a refrigerator and even a freezer (ooh wouldn’t that be nice right now). Electricity and water were seemingly limitless resources. We drove our cars almost every where we needed to go. I didn’t have to limit the amount of food I bought at the grocery store because of transportation and storage concerns. We watched TV, surfed the internet, took long showers, and did laundry whenever we felt like it. Living on the boat in Pirate Cove helped us adjust to a more mindful, less indulgent lifestyle. Still, transitioning to cruising life meant we gave up out trips to the gym plus swimming laps and yoga for me.
This is when I get to the part where  reclaim a lost activity. Last week I finally got motivated to do yoga on the boat. I had been missing the Ashtanga Mysore class I used to attend in Denver and I always intended to start practicing on my own once the weather warmed up and I could do it on the boat or some nearby flat surface. Eventually I decided that the best thing to do was figure out a place on deck to practice so I can do yoga wherever we are (weather permitting). I scoped things out and decided the foredeck was the only place I could fit most of my mat on a relatively flat spot. The space does get narrow in the front and I can’t stretch my mat out all the way but there’s enough room for a short-ish downward dog.
I started with the sun salutations and opening sequence when we were anchored in Whitehall Creek. That was about all my body could handle after months without practicing. My hamstrings were cripplingly sore afterward but I was proud of myself for starting! I didn’t get a chance to practice again till after my bike accident. Even with my stiff neck I made it through the deep twists in the primary series. I was much less sore that time. I only made it to the same place in the series two mornings later but I added what I could from the closing sequence and it was getting easier. This morning I got an early (6:30am) start and made it all the way through in a little over an hour and a half. It felt so great!
There are a few poses I can’t really do, or don’t feel comfortable doing on the boat yet. More of the primary series is do-able on a triangular-shaped, slightly slanted, somewhat mobile foredeck than I thought. I did have some bewildered onlookers this morning. The fisherman gathering bait in the area looked at me like I was insane and people on the cruising boats anchored nearby certainly got a show.
Having conquered the primary series once, I’m sure I won’t have a problem getting in the habit of practicing every other day or so. I know my mind and body feel better when yoga is part of my life. As far as everything else goes, Lee and I are going to work on setting aside time to relax, have fun, and enjoy what we’re doing. Without a clear demarcation between work and play, I find every starts to feel like work. The day starts with cooking, cleaning up, then figuring out what we’re going to do or what needs to get done, maybe going for a run, assembling or disassembling bikes and/or the dinghy, fixing something, raising sails, lowering sails, anchoring, fixing more food, maybe getting ice, groceries, water or fuel, cooking dinner, washing dishes, checking email, maybe blogging, making the bed, and finally sleeping. True many of those things are fun or somehow enable us to do something fun, but some days it all gets lost in a haze of exhaustion for me. Yesterday we biked into Solomons and Lee bought me a super tasty soft serve ice cream come from Cone Island. He made me sit on the grass and relax for 5 minutes before proceeding to the farmers market to get vegetables. That was exactly what I needed.

Annapolis and Washington D.C.

Someone recently described what Lee and I are doing as a permanent vacation. I agreed at the time but that’s not really an accurate description. Most days we are so busy doing things that need to get done or actively sailing the boat that we don’t have time for vacationesque activities. The boat almost completely occupies our thoughts and discussions. That’s why, given the opportunity of free housing in Washington D.C., we elected to take the bus there for a little vacation from the boat.
My mother’s cousin Lyn works in D.C. but does not live there so she kindly let us use the basement apartment she rents from a friend. Lee and I left Pirat on a mooring in Annapolis and took a commuter bus to the capital on Wednesday morning. For me, a trip to Washington D.C. was the culmination of my museum studies. Having read, talked, and written about the Smithsonian I was thrilled to be there for the first time since middle school. I thought it was also appropriate that this trip coincided with my actual DU graduation (I think…I don’t really know the graduation date).
First on the list of museums to visit was the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), an icon in my field of study. We spent a good part of Wednesday going through NMAI’s three main galleries and they were fabulous! It was so refreshing to walk through galleries that were up-to-date and filled with multiple indigenous perspectives. Lee and I found ourselves reading much more than we were looking at the objects. The cafeteria was awesome too, as I’d heard from friends who had visited NMAI. They had indigenous cuisine from all over the Americas.
Next came the Air and Space Museum, a stark contrast to NMAI. It was mobbed with school kids swarming around 70’s/80’s vintage exhibits on space technology. I got to talk to some museum educators who were gathering visitor feedback on ideas for a new exhibit. That was fun.
Our accommodations were a conveniently located near the metro red line and a few restaurants. Museum exhaustion eventually kicked in and it was nice to have a cool bed to sleep in.
On day 2 we finished the Air and Space Museum and plowed through the Natural History Museum. I was impressed with the updated exhibits at the Natural History museum. The ocean, mammal, and human evolution halls had all been redone well. There was also a really, really good exhibit on Inuit culture that included some really good language elements. There was an interactive touch screen where you could hear words, speak them, and see the waveform image for both. With all these great things to see how could we not stay a third day? We spent most of that third day at the American History Museum, which was more interesting than we both expected. Lee enjoyed the exhibits on technology (there were so many things he could have spent days there) and I enjoyed observing teenage museum behavior. Actually, I had been noticing some interesting teens and tweens in all the museums but by the third day there was one trend that was really getting to me.
Kids and digital cameras: Every museum we went to (except NMAI) was full or groups of kids, either from schools or families, toting their digital cameras and cell phones. They would walk, or run, up to a display case, exclaim something like “cool, what’s this?”, and take a picture. Then they ran off to the next case. No one read anything about what they were taking pictures of. I overheard all kinds of conversations about the hundreds of pictures kids had. One pair of boys ran from case to case in an American History exhibit, exclaiming at one that “this must be the first telescope!”, snapping their shots and then starting to walk away. Before they could move a man standing near them told them “actually, that’s a gatling gun.”
What’s going on here? Are kids experiencing museums through their captures digital images? It looks to me like their missing out on the content by frantically trying to capture some kind of status symbol (hundreds of pics from the Smithsonian). I really wanted to take their cameras away. Adults were taking pictures too, although not usually as frantically. It has never occurred to whips out my camera in a museum. Why would you want to take pictures through glass cases?

Unruly visitors aside, our Smithsonian excursion was a nice break from the boat. We took the bus back on Friday afternoon in time to meet Lee’s aunt Pam and uncle Ron for dinner in Annapolis. It’s great to have so many family members around to visit!
On Saturday morning we moved the boat to an anchorage up Spa Creek, away from the bustling Annapolis harbor area. We set up the bikes to run some errands. This is the ultimate place to find sailing supplies so we wanted to take advantage of that. On our way back from a trip to the grocery store, backpacks full of groceries, a mini-van taxi cab decided to pull out in front of me. I near the bottom of a significant hill, going pretty fast. The van was turning left out of a driveway. He almost turned in front of Lee, who was a ways ahead of me, but didn’t check for additional bikers after Lee passed. I’ve never been in a bike accident before. It really happened in slow motion – I think I even said “is this really happening?” out loud to myself. I had a few seconds to break and try to veer left to avoid the van but I whacked right into the left front side, bounced forward over the handle bars, and then landed on my side with my bike. The impact seemed really loud.
Lying on the pavement in the middle of the road is strange. I sort of had the wind knocked out of me but I managed to peel myself off the asphalt while the driver asked if I was ok and if he should call the police (to which I said “I don’t know!” and “Yes!). Lee turned around and was by my side in seconds. My head felt like my brain had been bounced around inside my skull and I had a few spots of road rash on my left side. Without my helmet, It would have been exponentially worse. The helmet was cracked in two places.
I ended up taking an ambulance to the ER, where we spent 6 hours waiting for a doctor who ended up over reacting a bit. He ordered X-rays of my neck, shoulder, hip, and chest, blood tests, urine tests, and a CAT scan. Well, now I can say I’ve had a CAT scan. Everything came back negative and I walked stiffly out of the hospital at 11pm or so last night.
This morning my head feels very bruised. I have a painful bruise and road rash on my bony left hip, and other spots on my shoulder and knee. What an experience. That’s something I never want to do again and I will always, always wear my helmet now!

Sailing with Jeff

Chestertown and back to Baltimore

Baltimore 1

Last night I was sitting in Pirat’s cockpit, listening to a street performer and music from the fountain on Baltimore’s inner harbor waterfront. Both of these soundtracks became very annoying. The street performer DJ plays the same song for his robot/mime to dance to over and over again and the fountain plays the same selection of 4 or 5 songs coordinating to water spurts all day long. Last night was our fourth night on the city docks since we returned with Jeff on Tuesday. We also spent 2 nights on the same dock last week. With access to so many museums, waterfront walking, shopping, and excellent people watching why would we want to leave?

It has been a busy week. I’ll hit the high points.

Lee and I went on an informal tour of the Pride of Baltimore (the tall ship docked next to us) last week. While we were on Pride’s deck we looked over at our boat to see a woman posing with our boat while her date took her picture. She was half standing on the side of the boat with her hand on the lifeline. Lee and I got a good laugh out of that one. Perhaps we should start charging for pictures. Multiple people have walked onto the dock and posed with our boat over the past few days.
With Jeff, we spent 3 nights anchored off of Eastern Neck Island, a wildlife refuge with lots of migratory birds and very few people.
We finally tested our MPG on an afternoon sail along the Chester River.
Memorial Day brought us to Chestertown for their quaint parade.
Sailing back across the bay on Monday afternoon was fabulous! It was a brisk beam reach in 15-18 knots of wind with Pirat doing about 8-8.5 knots. We even poled out the jib on a dead down wind leg!
Rock Creek near the mouth of the Patapsco River (where Baltimore is) had a cool Osprey nest in a channel marker.
Back in Baltimore, Lee and I have been marching all over the place to see the sights and enjoy the luxuries of docked life. We went to a movie, Whole Foods, The 4 Maritime Museum ships, the B&O Railroad Museum, the Aquarium, Lexington Market, West Marine, and various waterfront shopping centers. We walked, ran, and biked. On Wednesday Lee and I had lunch with my moms cousin Lyn. She gave us lots of good tips on enjoying the bay and we’re looking forward to visiting her in Massachusetts in the fall.

Safeway delivered our groceries this morning (it’s free the first time) and we finally said goodbye to Baltimore. The sail to Whitehall Bay, just outside Annapolis, was wonderful. We passed lots of boats that didn’t even know they were racing us! After evading some Bena-toos (as Lee calls them) that were following us we found a private anchorage along the creek. The water is warm. The boat is hot. Tomorrow: no using the oven to make dinner! It’s way too hot!

Oh, and we’ve been transients for one month now. Wow! It seems like much longer.

Sailing into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor last week brought on lots of “ooh”s, “ahh”s, and “look!”s. It was amazing to be able to anchor or dock right in the middle of the city. We tied up to the city docks, which are quite inexpensive for what they are, where you are, and compared to everywhere else we’ve been. There were a few other friends cruisers on them as well.
We were tied up right next to the Pride of Baltimore, a tall ship that sails around and looks cool for a living. Our two night stay last week was hot and action-packed. Lee’s friend Jeff arrived from Atlanta on Thursday night and we left the city the next morning.
The three of us spent the weekend across the bay in the Chester River. The weather continued to be hot but beautiful. We went our longest so far without a shower, spent half our time swimming, and got really, really, really tan without trying at all.
Now we’re back in Baltimore again. Jeff hopped back on a plane yesterday and Lee and I began our planned days of enjoyment here with some nice meals out and a movie last night.
I still don’t have high speed internet but I’ll track down a cafe tomorrow and upload some pictures. I’ll get into much more detail about our last week of sailing in my picture post as well.
For now, I just wanted to give everyone a quick update, in case you were wondering.

I always intended to start another blog focusing on cooking aboard Pirat. It’s hard enough to maintain one blog with spotty internet so we’ll see if I can manage two. My friend Danielle of Danielle in Brazil inspired me as well. Her cooking blog is a nice addition to her fascinating musings about teaching and living in Brazil.

Now that there are a few posts in Boatbites I’m ready to unveil it. Perhaps I can also lure people there with banana bread…

There should be a link to the cooking blog on the right side of the page here as well.

At anchor in Back Creek. Click for more pictures.

It actually feels kind of nice to be sunburned. After a winter in Rhode Island I’m finally starting to thaw out!

Well, we made it to the Chesapeake. I must admit I wasn’t too impressed at first. Power boats rudely assaulting us with their wakes are pretty irritating when you’re trying to sail on otherwise flat water. Havre de Grace, MD, was  not a particularly nice first anchorage. It was bouncy, noisy, and kind of ugly. At least we snuck some showers and picked up some provisions there. Our second spot, where we spent only an afternoon, was better. Actually, it was Betteron, MD. We swam off the beach there and enjoyed some more scenery.

Our third anchorage was the best. When Betterton got too windy and rough we motored up the Sassafras River to Back Creek and snuggled into our own private cove. We may have only had a couple of feet of water under our keel but it was paradise. The shoreline was covered with tall trees shielding grassy, green hills and a few isolated houses. Our cove featured the Mount Harmon Plantation, whose manor house offers tours Thursday-Sunday (we missed them). We did walk around the plantation trails yesterday. It was so gorgeous and green. Now I know what people mean when they say the air is thick and perfumed. That’s what it was like there.

We swam in the relatively warm water (I scrubbed off the green stuff we’ve acquired on our water line since coming into fresh water), spent two nights at anchor, and had a bit of an adventure getting out this morning. We had set a stern anchor (a second anchor off the back of the boat) to keep from swinging into the shallower water. This morning we pulled it up to get ready to leave but then ate lunch before actually setting out. By the time we were ready to start the engine and take up the main anchor we realized we were stuck. It was low tide, the wind was blowing over the beam (middle of the boat) and we weren’t moving. Yuck.

A quick glance at the tides showed high tide wouldn’t be till 7pm and there was still about half a foot to drop so we decided to try getting out as soon as possible. Pulling on the bow anchor and powering up the engine did nothing so we redeployed the stern anchor perpendicular to the boat out in deeper water. We used a monster primary winch to crank in on the stern anchor, gave the bow anchor slack, and before we knew it we were swinging free! Lee got the bow anchor up using the dinghy since we weren’t going back over there to get it in Pirat. Getting the stern anchor up was a bit more of a challenge. It was buried in an arms length of mud but we hauled it out with the winch. After only a little grounding on our way out of the channel we were on our way up the Sassafras again.

Our current location: Georgetown Yacht Basin in Georgetown, MD. Lee needed to pick up a few parts for our leaky engine water pump so we came here for their marine store. Their pool and showers are nice too! It’s very hot and we both have sunburned backs. Some ducks came by earlier and I think they were flirting with the boat.

Tomorrow we’re leaving the Sassafras and crossing the bay. Lee’s friend Jeff is coming up to sail with us for Memorial Day weekend and we’re picking him up in Baltimore on Thursday night.

Now there’s more to read about our adventures on the blog Foreigner’s Finances. The author interviewed me about my alternative post-graduation lifestyle and some of the practicalities of cruising. Check it out!

Here we are at the top of Delaware bay, near the entrance to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. It took us all day to get here and there wasn’t a breath of wind! We motored through the hot, glassy calm bay with nothing to look at but the occasional solitary lighthouse sticking out of the water. At least it was hot. This was the first time we’ve stripped down to our bathing suits on the boat. It finally felt like summer.

The rest of our stay at Cape May, NJ was surprisingly pleasant. After a couple of nights at the marina we figured out where to anchor and moved out in front of the Coast Guard station. As soon as we got there about 8 other boats joined us at anchor. A dingy came over to us from the last boat to arrive. The couple inside it were looking for showers and we shared what information we had on the subject. Babette and Jeroen turned out to be sailors from The Netherlands. They came back after their showers and invited us to dinner on their boat.

We had an excellent evening aboard Zilvermeeuw, their 36-foot aluminum “real sailing boat” as J called it. He noted very early on that both our boats were “real sailing boats.” Babette and J improvised a tasty dinner of cruising stores and told us stories about their voyage from Holland, to Africa, the Caribbean, the U.S., and through the intracoastal waterway to our present location. Like Lee and I, they chose to leave their jobs and go sailing while they were still young. They limited their trip to one year and visited the destinations they most wanted to see. New York City is last on their list before they head back across the Atlantic.

The stories and advice J and Babette shared with us that night were encouraging and enticing. Now I want to get to the Caribbean more than ever! Sailing in crazy weather seems like just another experience along the way and all the hurdles we will probably face really don’t sound that bad. It was nice to hear that we’re already doing a lot of things right and that others have made mistakes and survived. Mostly, it was fabulous meeting another couple our age doing what we’re doing. We’re not alone! We’re not crazy! Babette and J seemed to feel the same way.

After a day playing in Cape May (riding bikes, running on the beach, taking outdoor beach showers, grocery shopping) we had our new friends over for a BBQ on Pirat. Another night of stories and conversation ensued. They even brought us an intracoastal waterway guide that they don’t need any more. We all said our goodbyes and began readying our respective boats for morning passages.

Our passage didn’t start out so well, as we had a hard time getting the stern anchor up. Lee finally dove down and wiggled it free of the mud suction. Zeilvermeeuw left shortly before we did and turned North while we turned South.

I think my favorite part of today was finally getting to go swimming off the boat when we dropped anchor this evening. I lowered myself into the slightly murky bay water and discovered that the current was strong enough for me to swim a comfortable breast stroke and stay in one place behind the boat. The water was warm (about 70) and felt great even if it wasn’t blue and tried to wash me away!

A rainbow over the mast towards the end of our wild sail to Stratford.

I actually finished that post last night but lost the end of it because I started working offline and it didn’t save.

Our night in Atlantic City was uneventful. We took hot showers and went to bed. It was hard to face another day of motoring in nonexistent wind the next morning. The boat was just as reluctant. When Lee tried to start the engine to get going it wouldn’t even turn over. After some trouble shooting he figured out that the starter motor was stuck and unstuck it. Lee is great about explaining these problems and fixes to me but it just makes me more amazed that he figures these things out and knows what to do to fix them.

Yesterday was another long motor down the coast. The wind was even lighter than the day before and the clouds threatened rain all afternoon. The New Jersey coast is flat, sandy, and has water towers every few miles. That’s about all we saw. Boats heading North passed us once in a while. There are a lot of mega motor yachts around.

We pulled into Cape May harbor, again accompanied by dolphins, at around 3:30pm. I radioed the marina I’d called earlier about a slip. After the frightening sight of 6.3 feet on our depth sounder we warily made our way to the fuel dock. Our draft it 7.25 so how were we in less than 6.5 feet of water and not aground?

It started to rain as soon as we tied up. The huge fuel dock turned out to be our transient dockage for the night as well so we just stayed put after getting diesel. Our special treat of an evening was to go for a run, take showers, and go out to dinner across the street from the marina.

Cape May looks like a cute town and there’s lots of fun things to do (museums, beaches, shopping, boardwalk amusement park) but today it is raining. We’ve been so lazy: sleeping in, barely leaving the boat. I’m doing laundry and chatting with other transients in the laundry room. We finally have some high-speed wireless so I’ve been uploading all the pictures from my camera. Here are 3 new albums covering the trip from Stonington to here (click on each photo for an album).

Lee showing Conor how to haul him up the mast to install the RADAR. Conor generously served as our mailing address for a few last minute items.

The grand finale to our passage through New York City.

Me at RCYC's opening day festivities.

We think we figured out a place to anchor here and will probably head over there tomorrow night after one more night at this luxurious dock. Tomorrow should be rain free so hopefully we can explore a bit! Our next leg is a bit up in the air. We might head to the Chesapeake and Delaware canal entrance on Thursday or Friday or we might take the Atlantic route to Ocean City, skipping the C&D and entering Chesapeake bay from the south.

Ahhh, finally tied up in a marina with some time to kill and their wireless isn’t working. Pictures will have to wait. It’s a good thing I have plenty of stories to tell!

Lee and I are starting to look the part of wandering vagrant sailors. A woman working in the cafe I last posted from asked us if we were Scandinavian. She said she was from Sweden and we looked Swedish. I looked at Lee. He looked at me. We took in each others dirty hair, mine in braids and his accompanied by a grizzled beard. We were dressed for the rainy, cold weather and carrying backpacks. Yep, we did not look like we were from around there. I told the woman we sailed in on a boat and she seemed satisfied.

The trip through New York city was breathtaking and a bit chaotic at times. It was a clear sunny day and plenty of spectacular views unfolded as we wound our way through Hells Gate, past Manhattan, and into NY harbor. A party boat filled with dancing Asian tourists passed by in the morning, waving and taking our picture. Several cargo ships accompanied by color-coordinated tug boat lumbered by. I swear, the tug boats match their tankers and container ships! The bright orange Staten Island Ferry was quite a site blasting around harbor and there were countless other working boats around.

I lost track of the number of bridges we went under. We sailed past the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I think our brains were worn out from processing everything by the time we got to the coast of New Jersey on the other side of the bay. We anchored off Keansberg, NJ, explored the abandoned boardwalk carnival, and moved to the other side of the bay to escape a rising chop the next morning.

Great Kills harbor was kind to us. Lee called up Staten Island Yacht Club before we motored over and they kindly offered us a free transient mooring. When we got there we discovered there was no place to dock our dinghy and go ashore without paying transient fees to the yacht club with actual waterfront space: Richmond County YC. We paid them a bit reluctantly but got several nice showers and launch service out of the deal. The Staten Island YC was essentially a bar populated by big, gruff, but friendly guys with such thick NY accents I felt like I was saying what every time they talked to me.

We enjoyed a bit of free food and drink at RCYC’s opening day party on Saturday and then picked up some interesting groceries at a Russian market down the street (“Russian Chocolate” with squirrels on the wrappers included). I had my first Italian ice (tasty but not as good as soft serve).

Yesterday morning it was time to head for Atlantic City. I set up the solent on deck the night before. It was hanked on the stay and stuffed in the bag all ready to go in case it got windier than the forecast 5-10 knots. Ha! Yesterday turned out totally calm most of the time and light right on our bow the rest. We fought through swarms of little fishing boats just outside the harbor, raised, then lowered, and furled our sails dejectedly. We even rigged the MPG, our big light air/downwind genoa. A little voice in the back of my head told me it was a bad idea to keep raising it when it was getting really hard crank the winch. I should have listened: the top hank was too big for the splice at the top of the synthetic stay and it got stuck. We managed to get it down by rigging a halyard to the bottom of the sail and bring that to a winch but the top hank bent completely open. The solent stay won that battle.

We pulled into Atlantic City just after dark with the city lights blazing. It reminded me of driving into Vegas; the city just appeared out of the horizon. Dolphins escorted us in and a coast guard helicopter dropped a rescue swimmer (training, I assume) into the ocean right next to us at the mouth of the harbor.

Atlantic City to Cape May, NJ…to be continued.