Our cruising life this past month is not following our
typical pattern. Once we arrive in Newport the focus is on
family and plans for our son Bryan’s upcoming wedding. We do take a little time off for several bike
rides along Newport’s incredible Ocean Drive, we
tour the Elms, another of Newport’s restored
mansions, and enjoy the annual classic boat race and parade that take place
right off our anchorage near Fort
Adams.
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| The stately Elms, another of Newport's impressive mansions |
We are in a hurry, though, to get south to the Chesapeake. Tropical weather has a knack for fouling up
plans, but this year we seem most fortunate as there is nothing threatening on
the horizon. We dash down the length of
Long Island Sound in two days, transit New York City
on a favorable current,
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| Coming into New York City - it is much easier on a boat than in a car, as we discovered a few weeks later. |
and set off down the New Jersey
coast for an overnight passage, again accompanied by biting flies – perhaps
this is a New Jersey
thing. We arrive in Cape May and are
immediately beckoned by friends from several trawlers to join them on a tour of
Cape May’s Happy Hours. Sleep deprived, we
follow along as our group bikes through the town stopping at pre-selected
watering holes. The moral, trawler folks sure know how to have a good
time. We get a few hours of sleep and
pull anchor at the unheard of hour of 2 am to begin the trip around Cape May
and up the Delaware River. Why would anyone leave at such a ridiculous
hour? Because, timing the currents in the Delaware
and subsequently in the C&D
Canal is essential to a
pleasant trip. We really nail the
currents this time, sometimes seeing up to three knots of push, and pull into
Still Pond in the northern reaches of the Chesapeake
for a well deserved night’s rest. The
next day it is an easy hop down to Annapolis.
Our time in Annapolis
is dedicated to boat projects and some serious cleaning. After a couple of days at a mooring ball, we
move down to the South River and a dock. Give us water, electricity, and a rental car,
and it is amazing what can be accomplished.
In the span of one week, the boat is scrubbed inside and out. Cupboards are emptied and cleaned; woodwork
is wiped down in an attempt to rid ourselves of this summer’s accumulation of
mildew. Topsides are waxed, the cockpit
cleaned of our collection of dead flies and assorted remnants of summer happy
hours. We touch up some varnish work. The canvas is removed, cleaned of mildew,
restitched, and restitched again by a professional as we discover all of the
thread has rotted out in the UV. (Moral – all canvas that will see tropical UV
should be stitched with Gore-tex thread.)
The interior cushions and rug are steamed cleaned. And finally, after inventorying all our
supplies and provisions, we restock for the winter, filling every conceivable
spot with what we assume are necessities. There are always some miscalculations,
though, and I suspect we have enough toilet paper aboard for several years.
Exhausted, we depart for Narragansett, Rhode Island, this time by rental car. Beth and Bryan are to be married on September
21, and we leave several days early to stock our rental house and tie up last
minute details. It is interesting
driving inland of the path we so recently took along the shore. Names on the Interstate signs remind us of
the coast we know so well. It is a
wonderful extended weekend with family arriving from all over the country. In our free time we enjoy taking them to
sights we have enjoyed during our cruising – no one from our family is very
familiar with the New England coast. One day we head to Boston with the grandsons (ages 3 & 6) to
visit the New England Aquarium and go whale watching. The tour company we choose claims to see
whales 99% of the time – we managed to be the 1% exception. The day is beautiful, though, and we enjoy
the cruise out of the Boston
Harbor and on to the
Stillwagen Banks. Another day we take a group over to Newport to see what lurks there in the post
season. Luxury sailboats and mega-yachts
populate the harbor as they undertake preparations for heading south to the Caribbean.
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| How about this beauty, getting a few touch ups before the trip south |
Saturday dawns with questionable weather for
the wedding. We chew our nails and
fortunately the cold front doesn’t pass through until well into the night. It is a spectacular early fall day worthy of
this special celebration. The vows are
exchanged overlooking Narragansett Bay, and we
dance into the night with the sound of waves nearby.
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| What an amazing setting for a wedding! |
The overnight rain clears by mid-morning, and
we take the ferry over to Block Island to bike
around this beautiful island. The summer
crowds have left, and we often have the roads to ourselves. The grandsons enjoy riding on tag-a-long
bikes through the hilly terrain and hiking down the steep cliffs to a placid
ocean.
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| The cliffs on the south side of Block Island |
It has been an incredible and
memorable weekend.
We drive back to Annapolis,
and put a few finishing touches on the boat.
We are now in the final days of the America’s
Cup Finals and what better place to watch these exciting races than in Annapolis, also know as “a
drinking town with a sailing problem”.
For three afternoons we head over to the Boatyard, a well know sailor
hang out and watch the races on their widescreen TV’s. Each day it gets more
crowded and rowdy, and by the final day I find myself squashed into a corner
while Burt is pinned on the other side of the room. The crowd is electric and by the time Oracle
has crossed the finish line, we are all close to hysteria. Who knew that watching sailboat racing on TV
could be this exciting?
We leave our comfortable dock, a real treat for those who
are almost always at anchor, and head 15 miles south to the Rhode River
and the site of this year’s Seven Seas Cruising Association’s Annapolis
Gam. Two years ago, when we attended our
first Gam after leaving the Great Lakes, we
knew no one. Now we are definitely part
of the cruising community and greet so many friends that we have met traveling
both north and south. This year we
welcome Andrea and Mike Ogline who have just arrived from our home club in Sandusky to begin their
own sailing adventure on the east coast. The Gam features educational seminars
and an assortment of social events, and the weekend passes in a blur. We move further south to meet up with some
cruising friends that have spent the last month in Baltimore. Our two boats are the only ones anchored
along the Strand at Oxford,
MD. We share some dinners together and bike around
this charming, historic town.
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| Cutts and Case is a boatyard that builds classic motor and sail yachts - the launch in the window, Foto, was restored here. Originally, it ferried Rosenfeld, famous for his black and white sailboat photos now preserved at Mystic Seaport, on his shoots. |
And we just
sit on the boat enjoying the beautiful and peaceful setting. At this point we need an opportunity to
decompress after such a busy month.
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| Exuberant at anchor for sunset on the Tred Avon River, Oxford, MD |
But, decompression can only last so long, so we return to Annapolis. It is Boat Show Time and for some lucky
reason, we are able to snag a mooring ball just off the Naval Academy
and the Boat Show venue. The Power Boat Show is first and from our mooring we
watch the last of the big power boats jockey into their docks. This will be the antithesis of our Oxford
experience – crowds and noise will surround us, but location is everything, and
we are prepared to spend the next ten days immersed this boating mecca. We will finish up a few
projects as necessary supplies and contractors are close at hand, work the
opening morning of the sailboat show at the SSCA booth, do a little shopping at
the show, meet up with friends, and just enjoy the carnival atmosphere before
we begin our migration south.
