Atlantic City to Newport

Atlantic City to Newport

 

Once out in the open sea sailing was a delight. With a breeze almost abeam we sailed most of the day into the evening. As we headed in roughly North Easterly direction up the coast around 3 to 5 miles out. With nightfall approaching and good weather forecast we have made a decision to sail through the night and into Atlantic City the next day. We discussed the shifts for the evening and decided that Sasha should take the 6 to midnight and I would take the midnight to six. We had dinner and a slight change of plan that shifts become 7 to one and one to seven. This was the first opportunity to make full use of the radar installed at Oriental. Sasha set up distance rings and the alarm guard zones. Our radar has two configurable alarm guard zones. Sasha setup guard zone one at roughly 45 degrees of port and starboard thus covering 90 degree arc in front of us about three miles in front of us. She then setup guard zone two to pick up anything within a mile a full 360 degrees around the vessel. Early next morning we had a shortly after sunrise breakfast of what was shaping up to be a rather dull day. As I had not slept a great deal, I went below for nap after breakfast to be awoken short time later by Sasha with the Ednbal; surrounded by dense fog and ships horn breaking the serenity. The radar alarm was going off and the alarm text saying “Dangerous Target”. A few minutes later a large containership passed our bow only a few hundred yards away. Within an hour the fog had cleared to a stage where we had about half a mile visibility. We had past the shipping lane entrance to Delaware Bay however there was still danger from the huge amount of floating debris, mostly wooden logs, floating by. The water was literally covered with all manner of flotsam, plastic bags, tins, plastic containers,. Tree trunks, tree limbs, branches and leaves. We were to learn later that there had been some sort of flood that washed the debris out to sea.

 

 

Later in the day we decided to give fishing a try again, so I put a redhead lure on the 15kg game rod and dragged it behind for a few hours without success. We then changed over to a skirted lure and in fairly short time had a small Bluefish, just enough for dinner. The entry into Atlantic City was uneventful, we refuel, filled water tanks, and anchored in the gazette anchorage in front of large casinos and a wind generation farm.

 

 It seemed a strange location for a half dozen wind turbines, but I guess it had something to do with “feel good factor”, locals sing wind power in the making. Sasha prepared our catch of the day in a Thai style and we had a delicious fresh caught dinner, followed by an early night ready for a very early start, 5 am, and run to Sandy Hook Bay, just twelve miles South of New York.  Initially there was little wind so we were motoring again. By late morning the breeze had come up and was beautiful 15 knots of the stern starboard quarter. Before long it was beer o’clock  and as we sat on the transom sipping on beers and eating cashews and pretzels, the game rod went off. This time we had a real fish. By the time I god the rod pouch on and Sasha had the boat pointed into wind, a lot more line had gone out. After ten minutes or so fish surfaced and dived again about 50 yards behind the boat. It did not take all that long before we had a nice big bluefish probably weighting around 10 kilos (20 pounds) on board. I cut of the fillets and put them in the freezer but   kept the fish bone fresh for fish frame on the bbq that night.  

 

 

The breeze freshened and as we changed course it was right behind us, blowing a constant 20 kts, with gusts 25.. We sailed to the entrance of Sandy Hook which is also one of the main New York shipping channels under main sail only and dropped the anchor at Atlantic Highlands marina in the southern part of Sandy Hook Bay, late afternoon.

Next morning while changing gearbox oil, I noticed some droplets of water in the engine bay under the gear box. Investigation relieved water in the stern tube well and other cavities either side of the engine bay. We sponged up the water – probably 1 to 2 liters (1 to 2 quarts) in total. It was evident that water was sipping in through the epoxy joint that locates the stern tube into the vessels skeg. We put some rags around the area to monitor the leak. After a couple of phone calls to Beneteau and St Barts yachts, we decided  best to haul Ednbal out of the water especially as Atlantic Highlands marina had a good travel lift and hard stand available, although they could not take us out of the water until Monday. We had two days to kill but many preparations to make for the haulout, painting contractor (owners were not allowed to bottom paint – antifoul – their own vessels), antifouling paint purchased etc. Even so we figured we will have . One day for sightseeing so decided to spend Sunday in New York. By this stage the batteries were getting low, so we made arrangements to pick up the mooring at 79th street marina and motor there early Sunday morning.

 

The short trip of 17 miles saw us past a huge number of pleasure craft fishing in Lower Bay and along the sides of the main shipping channel into the Upper bay effectively NY harbour. There was shipping traffic, tugs pushing barges and few passenger ferries but nothing to out of the ordinary. First tourist destination – a look at the Statue of Liberty that stands on Liberty Island, right on our route up the bay to the Hudson River. Our cruising guide warned of the 150 yard security zone around the statue we honored as we went past. We had seen ferries going to and from Liberty Island that appeared to be escorted by two Coast Guard vessels with machine guns on their bows. After we had passed the statue, one of the ferries was coming up behind us when the Coast Guard escort sounded his siren and put on his flashing lights. We were abruptly advised that the ferries had 100 yard security zone around them which we must honour immediately. No argument.

 

 

 

 

Our judgment of tide and current was not the best and it took us about an hour longer than expected to make 79 street marina.  However, by 11 am we were tied to a mooring, and taken the dingy ashore, and were walking up 79th street towards Broadway on Manhattan Island.

 

 

 

According to our waterway guide lunch at Zabar’s on Broadway was a must although I must say we were both a little disappointed. We spent the next seven hours checking out the major tourist attractions within walking distance, past Central Park Maddison Square, Times Square, Empire State Building, and much of a Broadway, then to Chelsea and Greenwich Village, Soho before working our way through Little Italy and onto China Town where we had wonderful authentic Chinese dinner in a little backstreet Chinese restaurant. 

 

I have to say I was not impressed with New York.  To me, it symbolized the pollution of the USA. Not only from  all the energy consumption, but from the huge amounts of rubbish in the streets that provided ever present disgusting smell. Many of the curb side drains had water  and rotting garbage in them, the broken footpaths had all manner of rubbish, plastic containers, cigarette buts, and food items, much of it obviously from fast food outlets.  

 

 

In many ways it reminded me of Singapore 30 yards ago as was with Singapore, hawkers selling all sorts of trinkets from street tolls, mobile hand cart food stalls – smelly, dirty. Homeless people pouching shopping carts with their belongings spilling over the sides, and quite a number of people lying prostrate on footpaths in any number of disgusting states. Never the less, we managed to see a little of New York. Finally getting back to Ednbal about nine. Our sleep over at 79th street marina was quite comfortable although having walked the streets for seven hours we could have slept anywhere.

 

Back to Sandy Hook Bay, we were all ready for our haul out at 13:00 Monday. Once of the local contractors, Al (BIG Al, he was sizeable man) had quoted us a reasonable price for bottom painting and met us at the lifter as Ednbal was taken out of the water. This was the first time I had experienced a travel lifter , having used rail ???? for the last 20 years. It was a very hot day around 100 degrees F but I was surprised at the number of people in the team for haulout – at least six. Ednbal was presurre washed and then relocated to hard stand in preparation for leak investigation and bottom painting.  The feedback from Beneteau was that the seal on the skeg to stern tube should be 3M’s 5200 material. I was able to remove the existing sealing compound in one peace as it was only stuck to the stern tube skeg joint in one or two very small places. After removing the ring of sealant it was obvious that it was not 5200 and the opinion of the couple of people was that it looked more like 4200, the more common above water line silicon based sealant. Whether or not the sealant used was from the original vessel manufacture, we can’t be sure, but given there was no evidence of any other sealant remanence at all, in other words the joint was perfectly clean, we think it likely the wrong sealant was used in the first instance, ala the skylight window situation. Sasha had a similar problem on her Beneteau 44 in Australia and had it remedied the situation by fiber glassing the joint. We contacted a local contractor, Mike White, known as Dr Gellcoat who came and inspected the job. His view was not to fiberglass the joint as it meant fibreglassing the stainless steel stern tube extension that houses the cutlass bearing to the skeg gel coat. Without any prompting from us he advised application of 3Ms 5200, which we did. By now we were in the midst of the worst heat wave of the year with temperatures over 100 F, close to 40 C. Sasha and I prepared the hull for bottom coat to be applied first thing the next morning. Al turned up at around 6:30 am and applied the first coat, followed by the second coat at 18:30 pm. With the cost of the nearby hotels being in the excess of $180 per night, and the marina rule stating no live aboard, we decided to sleep the night in the hire car, Toyota Corolla. It was hot and sticky but we managed few hours sleep. With the hire car we visited Sam’s Club about 45 minutes drive away and did a major stock up of non perishable food items, with bulk M&Ms being on the top of the list! On the way back we picked up the booze and fresh food in Atlantic Highlands.

 

After polishing the topsides Ednbal was ready to go back into the water mid Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday night was an early T-bone bbq dinner and bed, we slept like logs.

 

Our next leg would be an overnighter – up to Block Island and by leaving around the middle of the day, would see us into Block Island by following afternoon. Shortly after 11:00 we had an anchor up and we were on our way. The engine was run for couple of hours to recharge batteries, once we were out in the ocean we began to run up the outside of the Long Island with a beautiful breeze of the stern quarter. This was ocean cruising at its best. We just set back and enjoyed it. Half way up Long Island we went past a couple of tall buildings and even two miles off shore and on the windward side, we could plainly hear music being played somewhere on the Island, some sort of concert we assumed. At one point we went past a large ray of some sort, with its wing partly exposed, we first thought it was a shark. Trough the night the radar again proved invaluable picking up numerous small objects that were likely small buoys with tells and flags that the next day we could plainly see in the daylight. In the morning the visibility was down to a mile or so but with up to a couple of miles by the time Block Island came to a sight.

 

Block Island is about 3 miles by 6 miles with a huge “pond” style bay mostly 30 odd feet deep and a couple of miles in diameter. Entry to the pond is by a short man made channel 15 yards wide. Once inside a pond we were amazed at the number of vessels moored at marina, tied up at moorings and anchored. There had to have been well over a thousand. From mid channel you could barely see any shore line at all for the number of vessels. By 16:00 we were anchored in 9 feet of water and over the side for a swim in the clearest water we had seen since being in USA although you could only just see the bottom. While there we many jelly fish, they were mostly small clear and of the non-stinging variety. Next day we decided to cycle the island by trying for the first time to take our bicycles in their bags ashore on the dingy. All went without a hitch and we spent a fairly worm day riding around the hilly island.  A short swim in the crowded and very hot beach, followed by lunch in long grass under a shady tree on a nature reserve a top one of the hills. We must be getting old as the lunch situation was far more enjoyable than the beach!  Back on board Sasha prepared the plan for the 25 mile sail the next day for Newport, RI. We checked the tide and current charts we find it ideal to leave early the following day.

 

The sail to Newport was idyllic, initially pointing fairly high but then squaring away as we entered Road Island Sound passed castle hill. This really is a sail boat Mecca. With two twelve meter yachts sailing passed before we even entered the bay proper. As we made our way to the anchorage there was a huge number of boats, 100s at least, attracted as it turned out by a folk music festival. Suddenly there was a call on VHF channel 16 “Great Circle calling Ednbal out of Melbourne Florida”.  It had to be someone we had seen in Melbourne, I answered a few times but no response.  Neither us knew any vessel called Great Circle, Sasha speculated that it may have been a Beneteau 423 that we saw go past as a couple who took interest in Ednbal in Melbourne were to take delivery of a 423 and lived somewhere in Massachusetts, we did not manage to make contact.  After the usual couple of circles to check depth we anchored in 20 feet. Ashore after lunch revealed more of the sort of thing we both wanted to see.  While still packed with people there was an atmosphere of relaxation and a feel of  a real sea pert rather than the pure tourist rip off feel of Block Island or even worse, New York.

 

Having heard so much about the local sea food and already spent time dodging lobster floats we decided to eat out – lobster for dinner. Lobster is sold by the pound and the waiter gives the info on the price for a 2 lb, 3lb or whatever you need. We looked down the apitiser list, several different clams were listed and something called Quahog. Without knowing what it was we just had to try it.  The waiter took our order of Quah0g and lobster but soon came back to say they were out of Quahog – a local favorite species of clam, so we ordered “little necks” (another clam) instead.  Maine Lobster have two very large claws and, for the overall size, a smaller tail that the Australian crayfish. The claw meat is sweet and tender but we found the tail to be somewhat ‘rubbery”.