Eleven Trips-Rough Weather and Injuries. 3,000 Miles

 Way behind on blogging our trip. This section had some epically bad situations, and memory making stops.



We travelled from and to:


Highlights:

Martha's Vineyard is a really quaint place. We spent two nights on a mooring ball. As a huge fan of the movie Jaws it was great to see some of the spots where it was filmed.



And, we took a bus up to Oak Bluff. The town has dozens of weirdly cute cottages as part of the Martha's Vineyard Camp Meeting Association.


Next highlight was staying one night at the Mystic Seaport Museum Marina. With the transient dockage fee you get free access to the Seaport. We had been their earlier in the summer. Love this place. It is a great museum and working restoration boatyard. I used the drone to get a pretty cool view of the entire property that evening.

Mystic Seaport

We spent one night anchored right next to Ellis Island with an amazing view of Manhattan. Plus we got our picture taken in front of the Statue of Liberty.




Final highlight is that we arrived safely near Baltimore MD and were able to fly home for a week.

And we chocked up over 3,000 miles since starting. Quite a milestone.


Now for some challenges:

Dawn twisted her knee and still has some pain.

The trip originally planned from Martha's Vineyard to Block Island was a very bad day. The weather was not as forecast. We were hitting 5-6 ft waves on the bow with a short period. Everything was tossed around. Rather than turn back we made a 90 degree turn and headed to Newport RI. 



At the NYC anchorage we were aware it could be rough, especially during the day. I had just stood up and the boat started pitching side to side throwing me to the floor, but not before my side impacted a chair. I could not get up. I later re-hurt the area causing me to think broken rib. I was x-rayed yesterday--not broken, but it still smarts.

Then the worst, but not final bad day. I left a day early from Atlantic Highlands hoping to make Cape May. It was flat calm for hours, but then a much worse than forecast situation developed. We were in 6 to 8, with occasional 10 ft waves with 20 to 30 mph winds all on the nose. The boat was a total wreck, but the boat will always take more than the crew. We ducked into Atlantic City for the night feeling blessed. It was beyond crazy and photos' and video fail to capture the chaos.



We had one more bad day, but less time. The run from the east side of the C&D Canal to near Baltimore. Again, it started off flat calm. The expectation from several weather sources was 15 mph wind and 1-2 ft waves. What we encountered upon entering the northern Chesapeake Bay was 5-6 ft waves and 25 mph wind on the bow. As we continued south and closer to land things settled down.

Going forward we will work together better to compare forecasts and stay put in iffy weather days. We experienced three separate, long trips where the conditions were DOUBLE the forecasts.


Updated Nebo logs

Updated Photos

YouTube






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

So Ready to go, but..

Image
 As of Saturday 5/14 we are still in Ft. Meyers. Using the time to continue to provision and learn the boat, so not a waste of time. It does mean we are running "late" for a full Loop this year. No Worries. The latest, and hopefully final immediate issue-need an alternator rebuild. That should be complete Monday with a departure east for Tuesday. What has been done to the boat? There are two lists. One the mandatory repairs based on survey. That list was long and increased but I did a lot of the work myself. It included: New master cabin A/C New refrigerator. My tech said he is waiting on fridges for six months. But, I found one in Miami with an outfit that had 10. Was there the next day in a rental truck to get it. All new fuel filters and a fuel polishing. replace 2 batteries rebuild one alternator  new horn new compasses: electronic for autopilot and analog for helm all new fire extinguishers Then there was the want to have stuff: find and purchase a used RIB (rigid inflat
Read more

Trip Summary

Image
 Hello everyone, We are about 750 miles into our Loop trip. It has been awesome. The way the loop commonly works is by season. Our "late" start from Florida puts us way behind the majority of the Loop pack. Many are up in New York by now and we are still in South Carolina. While every part of the Loop has its beauty and interest Canada and the Great Lakes in the summer are definite high points. We are rushing north a bit, but mainly for the goal of getting away from heat and hurricanes common to the Southeast. Now in South Carolina and the temps are in the 80's. Much better than back in Florida. Since we don't want to rush our Canada experience this year we are going to go north as far as possibly Maine, then before it gets too cold come back down the east coast as far south as we want. There is a plan to go back home to Texas for the Christmas holiday period and spend a month there. Then, in late January possibly go to the Bahamas before going back north completing a
Read more
Image
 Casting off! Dawn and I have been dreaming and planning to do America's Great Loop boat trip for a few years. Well, in mid March of 2022 we found a boat, after 6 months of serious looking and years of dreaming. What is the loop you ask? Per the America's Great Loop Cruisers Association it is: "The Great Loop is a circumnavigation of the eastern U.S., and part of Canada.  The route includes the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the New York State Canals, the Canadian Canals, the Great Lakes, the inland rivers, and the Gulf of Mexico. "Loopers" take on this adventure of a lifetime aboard their own boat." More from the AGLCA: https://greatloop.org/page/FAQs Here's a map: https://greatloop.org/page/Map  We purchased our boat in west Florida near Ft. Meyers. So, that will be our starting point as soon as we fix a few things and do some provisioning.    Next Post: The Boat.
Read more