Columbus Day Weekend

Yeah, a four day weekend. And with bad weather predicted, the thought of going to the home of our friend, Lianne, in Great Barrington, Mass, though in the landlocked Berkshires had a lot of appeal.  Well, it turned out this was not a totally waterless weekend, and the Fall weather in the mountains turned out a lot better than had been forecast. We saw a play and a dance recital and climbed Monument Mountain, and ate a lot of good food. And we met up with Rona, who got us out of Customs hell in St Vincent's in the early spring of 2011 and hung with us in Bequia.

The watery part of the weekend took place on Monday, on the way home. In the department of it's-a-small-world, it turns out that both "Autumne Borne" with Dean and Susan living aboard, who we met while leaving Beaufort, SC in the spring of 2012, and "Teepee" with Manu and Michelle living aboard (with their guest Colette) who we first met in St. Martin in December, 2010 and several times since, were on opposites of the same finger pier at Hop-O-Nose Marina in Catskill Creek, where it flows eastbound into the Hudson in Catskill, NY. Teepee, left, before her mast was stepped and Autumn Borne Right.

And Catskill was only about a 20 minute dog leg detour on our way home so why not.

Hop-O-Nose, comes from a rock where the Catskill flows into the Hudson, which was thought to look like a nose and from which the native Americans dove into deep water on hot summer days.

There were seven of us so it was two trips in our car to a nearby diner for a great lunch.

Manu, Dean, Susan, Lene, Roger, Michelle and Colette

What We Did This Summer

From June 11, our first day, when we came aboard, got ready and slept aboard in anticipation of departure the next morning, through September 10, when we returned to our home mooring and went home, we were absent 92 days, and 91 nights -- a good part of the summer and the 2013 season.  Our summer went to Maine!

So where, specifically, did we go and what did we do there? Most of the rest of this post is extracted from the 63 posts published during the adventure. They are a diary/log,  and the data is tabulated here.

We had 26 lay days and 3 day-sails with the balance, 63 days of passage making. This is a higher percentage of sailing days (73%) than in the Caribbean, which surprised me, though many of the Maine passages were much shorter.

I added up the mileage of each daily passage: a total of 1415 nautical miles round trip -- equivalent to 1627.25 land or "statute" miles.  The lowest daily mileage was 1.7 miles and the longest was 128, with an overnight.  Days of less than 20 miles numbered 34, and on only 15 days did we go more than 30 miles. Only 5 days included in those 15 longer days (including the two of the overnight)  saw passages of greater than 50 miles.

We visited 57 different anchorages/ports/harbors, though we did not go ashore at 14 of them. We visited Portland, Frenchboro and Bar Harbor twice, but each of these three counts as only one discrete harbor. Of the 57 stops, 29 were new to us and 28 were old favorites, which we had visited at least once before in 2002 and/or 2008.  Some old favorites did not make it into our itinerary this trip including Camden, Castine and Belfast in Penobscot Bay, Burnt Coat Harbor and Bath. And with a plethora of little niches when you can anchor and hang out in solitude, there are many more new spots for next time, whenever than may be: 2015, 2016? Roque Island is so beautiful that the fact that we spent only one night there is a shame.

Alpha Girl and Whitty spent every day and night on board EXCEPT for the 12 we spent at a dock.  Where they go at night is anyone's guess, although we tend to think they do not go far!  We now think they enjoy being on the boat more than being in our NYC apartment; and maybe I do too!

Of the 91 nights aboard, only one, the last, was spent on an overnight passage, from Jamestown RI, back to City Island. All of the 90 other nights we were secured to the land. Of these, more than two thirds, 61, were on moorings (eleven of them free!) with only 17 on anchor and only 12 (in six ports) at docks. So this was a low-rent vacation. We did spend one night off the boat, in a hotel in Cohasset MA, where our room overlooked the boat on its mooring, the hotel constituting a craving that Lene wanted to fulfill. At docks, they charge extra, normally $10 to $20 per night for the privilege of hooking up to the Marina's electricity. We never hooked up. Despite the fact that our 12 volt cigarette lighter type plug was charging our laptop, cell phones, iPads, and Kindle most of the time except at night, drawing electricity from our boat's batteries, we never had to plug in to shore power.

We enjoyed dinners in friends' homes on three occasions, in Essex CT (thanks Bob), in Provincetown (thanks Mark et al.) and on Mount Desert Island (thanks Barbara).  Of the other 88 dinners, 38 were enjoyed in Restaurants and 50 aboard. And only 15 lunches and six breakfasts were consumed off the boat. So of 273 total meals (three per day) only 62 were not had aboard ILENE.

We met up with nine sets of people who we had known before, and had six sets of people aboard who we had not known until we met them on this trip -- fifteen sets of guests, all told. Some merely sat in the cockpit and took a tour of the boat and others sailed with us, including sleeping aboard.

How were our days distributed among the states we visited? Starting closest to home: New York - 5; Connecticut - 3; Rhode Island - 3; Massachusetts - 23; New Hampshire - 4 and Maine - 55. With 19 days before arriving in Maine and 18 after leaving, we spent 55 of the 92 days (60 percent) in Maine waters.

We attended seven live performances of plays, concerts and dance recitals and four movies, for a total of eleven. And we visited 21 museums, some of which held interest for less than an hour and others for most of a day.

If anyone is interested in sailing to Maine, and has questions, just ask away!

Autumnal day-sailing: Last Five of 2013

Tuesday I sailed with my stock broker from JP Morgan-Chase and his wife, RJ and Angela. A lovely young couple, first time sailors, they learned to steer.

I picked them up on the upper east side and dropped them off there at the end of the day.  She will be entering CUNY grad school in Sociology soon.  They are pescatarians, a word I had not known before: They eat animals that come from the sea, but not those on land or ones that fly. We put up sails but, as shown in the photo above, there was very little wind. The initial plan to sail toward Manhattan but it was changed because there would be even less wind in the relatively narrow passage between The Bronx and Queens. Next choice was Mamaroneck, where my guests had worked. We motored through the passage off the US Merchant Marine Academy and deeply into the harbor, with the main up. Normally I would not sail into such a crowded harbor with sails up but no wind.  We got very close to my friend Len's lovely 1938 wooden sloop, "Mary Loring," tied fore and aft on her two moorings. She was painted blue since last I sailed on her and looking pretty. Notice, left to right, her wooden boom gallows, the vent for her coal burning stove, the wooden running light mounts on her shrouds and the boom of her staysail.

The wind picked up a bit on the way home but when it finally got really good we had to continue to motor-sail to meet my time deadline for the theater, though we did tack up Hart Island Sound to the mooring. We were out there for more than seven hours. Next time, hopefully RJ and Angela will get the full thrill of sailing experience.

Wednesday, after lunch,  I had two rides on two different Catalinas. First we sailed on Morty’s “Easy Living”, a 31 footer. We went out into Eastchester Bay and back. Morty had to get back early. We were under main and Genoa, with the later partially reefed.  In addition to me and Morty, Mike, Sandy, and Rhoda comprised the crew. Back on the mooring, all but Morty transferred by launch to Mike and Sandy’s “Pas de Deux,” a 27 footer, and retraced our wake, this time though with genoa only. Altogether we were out on the water from shortly before two until 4:30.

Saturday Lene joined me on ILENE with four other ladies. Christine and Heather drove to the Club to meet us and we picked up MJ and Sarah near our home and drove them. 

Christine, Heather, Lene, MJ and Sarah in the launch, on the way back to land,

We sailed from about 12:15 to 4:30, in very light air. We had full sails up on a beamy port reach, and drove deeply into Little Neck Bay. I acted as an unpaid charter captain, doing all of the sailing while the girls talked with each other, only disturbing them occasionally to gain access to the winches. When the wind died in Littleneck Bay, we furled and dropped the sails, locked the rudder hard over, and drifted while Sarah and I went for a delightful swim in the big unheated pool.

The sun had come out by then, and in early October the water was cold, but not at all painful like in Maine.  The bad thing was I discovered that between the time that we took off the dink in mid-September and this swim, someone had hit us, hard, in the stern, breaking the swim ladder, which will have to be replaced, and taking a chunk out of the gelcoat of the aft end of the swim platform, perhaps 2” by 3”. This will be an expensive repair. They left no note. People are so irresponsible; it is quite maddening! Why, though, darn it, is ILENE such a magnet for irresponsible boaters; her third hit since early 2011. Oh well, no one was injured. After drying off, I put up the main again and after a few tenths of a mile at .5 knots, turned on the motor, and motored at good speed to the NY State Maritime School’s training ship, west of the Throgs Neck Bridge, and then more slowly back to the mooring.

Sunday, more ladies: This time Lene was joined by Sheila, Susan and a different Christine. There was more wind but also a misting fog during most of the four hours we sailed, which put a damper on the day and shortened it. Winds were between five and ten knots. Our first tack took us close to the last curve of the Throgs Neck Bridge. Then out to the North side of Execution rocks, after which we fell off toward the New Rochelle Islands before the last tack which brought us home through Hart Island Sound on various broad reaches. It was only four pm, too early for dinner but we had wine or tea or coffee and some desert in the Club, where we met the J-24 racers and other friends.
Monday was the fifth sail of the week and the last of 2013, because I will be away, out of town, in Massachusetts and Oregon for most of the rest of October. Peter joined me. He is one of the three men who had helped me during the eight day romp from Hampton VA to Tortola in the Virgins back in November 2010. We sailed for almost three hours in big wind, out of the south. Winds averaged about 27 knots with lulls at 15 and gusts to 34. We had double reefed the main and with the small jib we were heeled at 35 degrees, close hauled, into winds from the South. We made speeds of 6 to 7.5 knots. Exciting! We beat down to the Throgs Neck Bridge with the plan to find less wind in the relatively narrower passage toward New York City. Another advantage of this westerly course was beamy reaches.  But the wind was rounding us up occasionally, until the Whitestone Bridge where we turned back. We had very broad reaches from the Throgs Neck Bridge back to the Club, during which we passed through a short but heavy rain of small drops. But alas, more damage back at the mooring. When we picked up the starboard bridle, we led it over the top of the lower stainless tube of the starboard side of the bow pulpit. The boat's bow then was  pitched sharply upward and the force of a wave; the stainless tube was bent downward into a shallow "V" instead of horizontal. We had sailed slightly less than three hours but we had had enough. Half of lunch was brown bagged from home on the Clubhouse porch (dining room closed on Mondays) followed by soup and coffee at the CI Diner. Sad to end such a great sailing season on such a discouraging note.

Maine vs. The Caribbean

Having sailed in both of these great cruising grounds, I have been thinking about the differences.

Season: Maine is a summer trip and The Caribbean is done in the winter. You don't want to be on a boat in Maine in the winter. It is cold enough there in the summer and there are no services, restaurants, marinas, etc. open in the winter. And in summer the Caribbean is hot and subject to hurricanes. Your insurance will not cover you.  The disadvantage of the summer in Maine is that you cannot sail with your friends in Long Island Sound because you can't be in two places at once. But the Caribbean allows you to sail all year round, enjoying the destination area in the winter and your home sailing grounds in the summer.

Water: The Caribbean and especially Bahamian waters are delightfully clear and warm. Snorkeling and swimming there are fun activities. Outdoor showers in the cockpit in secluded areas or underway or at night are a treat. No one swims in Maine waters unless they have to, to inspect the underside of their boat; and a wet suit is desirable in case such an activity is needed. Water clarity is not as good in Maine but who cares since you are on it not in it. We did get an afternoon cockpit shower one warm day in Maine but don't count on it.

Proximity: Maine is a heck of lot closer to New York than is the Caribbean. Less sailing required to get to the place you want to be and there are no passages that require an overnight sail, because ports are so close to each other.

Food: In Maine you are in the good old US of A: supermarkets are readily available and the foods are familiar, cheap and described in English. And lobsters and blueberries are abundant and inexpensive. In the Caribbean, and especially the Bahamas, good supermarkets are few and far between and on non-English speaking islands you get the pleasure (but also the anxiety) of eating strange foods. The French islands of the Caribbean are departments of France and serve real French foods, such as you can obtain only in French places.

Culture: In the Caribbean, except for reggae/calypso/Afro-pop/Latin music, which blares from radios everywhere, there is no culture: Movies, theater, good bookstores and classical music are not to be had or rarely.  In Maine they are available in many places. Museums can be found in both locales, but more so in Maine, and with more variety

Nightlife/Bars: Readers of this blog who enjoy nightlife must unfortunately be disappointed by our lack of reportage on this subject. We are early to bed and early to rise people and unable to compare the venues on this subject.

Communications/blogging: In Maine these are easy and ubiquitous, except on some uninhabited islands and in Eastport Maine. In the Caribbean, finding wifi, even with a booster, is a constant battle, each nation requires you to get a different SIM card and the cost is high.

Customs and Immigration: Maine is part of the US while in the Caribbean each island or island group is a separate nation requiring time and money upon entry and mostly also upon leaving.

Visitors from home: We had a lot more visitors, either we visited them or they visited us, on the Maine trip than in the Caribbean. I think it is the expense of time and money required for folks to fly down to the southern cruising grounds that deters visitors. Many were invited but few came.

Navigation: Many Caribbean charts show the soundings in meters or fathoms. In Maine we did have one chart in meters, near Canada, but otherwise they are in feet.

Different, but both are great places to sail!