Pat and Dave's Tips: Preparing for the Trip
People say, “Don't worry about having everything you might need before you leave. You can always get these things on the way.” It's not bad advice, but we found that it was difficult, time consuming and often very expensive to get what we needed. We used the free docks on the canals, and these were most often not close to shopping or laundry facilities. If there was shopping nearby, it was of the convenience store variety (expensive and limited). Taxis will take you anywhere, of course, but you will need big bucks in your budget for that (it cost us $50 for a taxi to/from shopping and laundry at Lock 20). Anchoring is still our favourite thing to do, but a dinghy ride in the dark over rough water just to get some first aid supplies is not appealing at all. So, we suggest the following things with regard to preparing for your trip.
- Bring as much first aid stuff as possible. It seemed as soon as we left Hamilton, we started having small health problems and first aid needs. We needed all the pain killers and band-aids we had on board. We also could have used an eye wash cup, since for some obscure reason, Pat got an eye infection (something she has only had about three times in her whole life). In that regard, it would have been helpful to have some antibacterial or antibiotic eye drops, too. Dave used our tensor bandage for his painful muscles, so we were glad we had one of those. On the whole, we wished we had followed through on our plan to have everything on board before we left – all the things suggested in the books on first aid for cruisers.
- We luckily had some things from the Vet for Dude. If you are bringing a pet, we have some more tips about this, so let us know, and we will send you our thoughts.
- Plot your entire trip before you leave. It makes it so easy each morning to simply open up your navigation software, and while your engines are warming up, you can zoom in on your course for the day. Dave plotted our entire trip right to the dock at the back of my daughter's house in Grand Cayman. This is a good place to give you our recommendation for which navigation software to use. We joined a website called Active Captain, and the site recommended Polar Navy software. It was $39.95 and well worth every penny. The software links directly to the Active Captain site, and you can get up-to-the-minute downloads regarding tides etc. We have found this super useful, but of course, a good Internet connection is needed, so it is not always possible. However, during the download, all information within a 60 NM radius is passed through, so you get everything you need even if you can't get on the Internet frequently. We love that we can do course changes in the moment and run independent lines of position. It will also navigate your boat for you when you connect your computer to your autopilot (we don't do this – we are too much on the control-freak side). You can also click on a sector light, and it will show you the range and bearings of the light in the appropriate colours. We love that we can export our course data in CSV format to Excel, and then, we can play with the times/distances etc. Chart transitions are beautifully seamless, and zooming in/out is simple. We also found that it shows many more anchorages than either Skipper Bob's book or the guide books.
- Do some research and determine how you are going to communicate with friends and family once you are traveling. Dave's daughter was in a car accident a few weeks after we left, and we were frantic trying to communicate with her and other family members. We had naively thought that we would just pick up a pay-as-you-go phone, and we would use Wi-Fi for email. Sounded simple and doable – NOT. Decent Wi-Fi is practically non existent unless you are willing to spend money on taxis to get you to a restaurant or other place that has free Wi-Fi. There are a whole bunch of pay-as-you-go phone services, but to sign up, it seems you need an American address, and a lot of them don't have International texting, or International text messaging is horribly expensive ($0.60 per message, in or out). Once on our way, without Wi-Fi, we weren't able to do any research, so we got stung badly. In Oswego, we took a taxi to Wal Mart and bought a Trac Phone with extra minutes. We managed to come up with a US address on the fly, and we were assured that the service would allow International texting, no problem. We were really pleased with our purchase – until we tried to send a text message and found out that we couldn't. We also couldn't take the phone back because we were no longer in Oswego, and Wal Mart expects the returns to be at the store where purchased. In any case, the taxi ride to take it back to the store would have cost almost more than the phone. So, we decided we needed to buy another phone. In Phoenix, we were lucky to have a local man willing to drive us to the grocery store and to a phone store, so we thought we better buy another phone that day. We chose the Verizon package because it has International texting – but each text costs $0.60 in or out. Ultimately, it seems that phone calls are the cheapest way to go. That's our tale of woe, and why we suggest you do lots of research before you leave and purchase what you need, if possible too.
Pat and Dave's Tips: Navigating and Traveling through the Canals
- All the books say so, and they are absolutely right, wear gloves for the locks. Everything is filthy,pl us you need to be able to get a firm grip on your lines.
- Be sure to have enough fenders (preferably old ones because they will get yucky and some may even break if the wind is strong). We used 4 on each side – seems like a fender every 10 feet or so is good. Also, it works best if your fenders can be easily and quickly moved back and forth along the sides. Once you are in the locks, it really helps to be able to move the fenders around to get the best advantage.
- Make sure you have enough lines as well. We had lines forward, at mid-ships and aft on both the port and starboard side. This made it easy to tie up to the sides of the locks from anywhere. For some of the smaller locks, and if it was calm, we found we could get by with just the mid-ships line.
- You might as well wear old clothes. We found that everything we wore got almost as dirty as our gloves and our fenders.
- Keep an eye out for debris in the water. It may have been the time of year we traveled the canals, or it may have been an effect of the hurricane, but there were a lot of tree limbs in the water. Even better, there were 50 gallon drums and old tires (complete with rims) floating by from time to time.
- Be able to identify the markers by shape as well as colour. When heading south, the sun is directly in your eyes, and it is impossible to see the marker colours. (Psst: red markers have triangular tops, and green markers have square tops - not that any of you need a refresher on this). For us, leaving late in the year, the sun was low in the sky and almost constantly directly in our eyes all of the time. FYI, along the Hudson as well as the canals, there were lots of white markers used in place of green. We encountered lots of markers in the canals with the wrong numbers, but this was likely because of the hurricane – they just needed to get the markers back in the water, even if they had the wrong numbers.
Now, back to the trip. At the end of our last posting, we were about to leave Waterford, New York to enter the Hudson River. On November 23, we took off for the Hudson and our last lock, Lock 1 at Troy, NY on the Hudson River. The Troy lock was awful. There were no ropes, only large pipes – too large to easily get a line around. We really had to struggle to get tied up. We were exhausted before the gates letting the water out were even opened. But we still rejoiced because it was our last lock, and we happily waved goodbye to the lockmaster. The wide and interesting Hudson River stretched before us, and our compass read due south, so what more could we ask for.
It took us 2 1/2 days to reach New York City, which was much better than we expected. About halfway through the first day, we noticed that our knotmeter (AKA speedometer, for landlubbers) was reading 8.5 knots. Since our usual speed at 1500 RPM is 6 knots, we were puzzled as to the increased speed. Duh! It was the current, of course, since the river flows south to NYC.
I thought this part of the trip might be boring, but it wasn't at all. The Hudson is a really interesting river. There are lots of old, quaint lighthouses right in the middle of the river, and oodles of things to look at on land, including the famous military academy, West Point. The river winds its way through the Catskill Mountains, and there is some really spectacular scenery. Here are a few pictures of lighthouses we thought were neat and West Point.
On November 25, as we started to get close to New York City, we began to get nervous. The “Big Apple” was going to be a challenge. First of all, the Hudson would narrow down, then we would pass through with Manhattan on the left and New Jersey on the right. We anticipated huge, towering buildings on each side, ferries whizzing past us in all directions, and enormous commercial vessels with tugs spreading shadows (and their wakes) across the water. That was just the Hudson River. Then, we would pass into the NYC Harbour with the East River joining the Hudson at the top, and all of the tour boats vying for position with the commercial traffic. Have you guessed that we were a bit intimidated?
Well, we did it! No problemo! I even had the helm when we passed right beside the Statue of Liberty and tucked into an anchorage behind it. Well, it wasn't that simple, really. As we were heading into the anchorage, the tour boats were all around us, and they don't pay any attention to pleasure boats. One of them came right up behind us – with us doing 6 knots and it doing about 15 knots. My focus was ahead, and luckily, Dave waited to tell me about it, or I would have panicked for sure. He said the tour boat came up about 20 yards off our stern! Sheesh!!
In any case, we anchored safely and took a short dinghy ride to the Liberty Park. Dude got a nice walk and we chatted with a few New Yorkers. Even though the anchorage was bumpy from the wakes of passing boats, and we noticed the mud stunk to high heavens when we lifted the anchor, only cruisers can say that they stayed overnight in NYC right behind the Statue of Liberty and didn't spend a cent!!
Here are some pictures we took as we passed by the George Washington Bridge, Manhattan, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. The pictures aren't that great – it was a gray, November sky that day.
On November 26, we were up at the crack of dawn. Today, the Hope would enter the North Atlantic Ocean for the very first time. We had the perfect weather for a trip in the ocean with a destination of Manasquan Inlet, New Jersey, about 26 NM and the beginning of our journey down the New Jersey Intra-Coastal Waterway. Before exiting NYC Harbour, we passed by the ferry docks and a whole mess of anchored freighters. Then, under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and out into the ocean. Here are some pictures of our last views of NYC.
Our first trip in the ocean was, happily, quite uneventful. It was a smooth ride, and the scenery was interesting. We had, of course, heard of the Jersey Shore from books and newspapers, but having never seen it before, it came as a surprise. The entire coastline from NYC to Manasquan Inlet was sandy beach with beautiful homes and low-rise hotels. It was quite extraordinary. The beaches are very deep, and the houses are set well back. We have since learned that the entire coastline of New Jersey and Delaware are like this. This is definitely where “the other half” live. In fact, many if not all of the homes are summer-homes only; the owners live elsewhere in the winter. To us, it was “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”, I can tell you. I'm sorry, we have no pictures – we were too busy ogling!
When we entered Manasquan Inlet, we were a little intimidated by the plethora of small fishing and pleasure boats. We felt big, and clumsy trying to maneuver in the small inlet. As well, the depth is shallow and essentially non-existent in some spots, so we had to keep a close watch on our depth meter. We did manage to find our way to the anchorage, but first we had to pass through a bascule bridge. Now, this was an experience, and since we were bascule bridge virgins, we called ahead to the bridge master to get reassurance. Luckily, he was gentle and understanding, and we were able to squeeze through the opening without damage. Bascule bridges are essentially lift bridges, but they are narrow and low. This one was called the Glimmer Glass Bridge (neat name, eh?), and it is one of the narrowest ones on the New Jersey Intra-Coastal Waterway (NJICW). Here is a picture.
We anchored in a small bay surrounded with pretty New England style homes all with their own docks. We dropped the anchor and as usual, the boat swung slightly away. Dave motioned for me to back up the boat a little, and I tried, but the boat wouldn't move. Guess what – we had run aground. We had a good laugh once we looked down and could see the top of our anchor sticking out of the water. Here is a picture of our anchor in the water. You can easily see the anchor ball and the chain, but look closely, and you can also see the top of the anchor shaft out of the water and the outline of the top of the anchor just under the water.
It was a nice, soft mud bottom, and we were sitting flat on it, so, we decided to just wait for the tide to come in rather than try for another anchoring spot. It worked out fine, and it was kind of fun to feel the water lift us up about 3 hours later.
The next day, as the old song says, “the weather outside was frightful.” In this case, it was the weather in the ocean, outside the Waterway, so we decided to continue down the NJICW. At least we would be able to keep moving since the Waterway is quite sheltered. We anchored in Little Egg Harbour on November 27. Here are some pictures of typical houses in towns we passed along the way.
On November 28, we were in Atlantic City. It looks pretty much the same from the water as it does from the land. Great big hotels and casinos, lots of lights. There is one difference when looking at it from the water; you can't see the desperate and often sad-looking people trying to score the big one. Both of us are too cheap to gamble away our money, so we didn't try out any of the casinos. We played cribbage and went to bed instead. Currently, I am up one game on Dave, but he has skunked me twice. We might have to start “gambling” with toothpicks soon.
Oh, but I almost forgot. As we were entering the channel to our anchorage in Atlantic City, we ran aground. Then, we ran aground again in the channel itself. A boat passed us, and the captain yelled out that we needed to go inside one marker and outside the other. Okay, but the “markers” were merely long sticks with no green or red, and no way for us to know. I guess this was a case of needing to have what's called “local knowledge”. Anyway, we managed to run aground a third time as we tried to anchor. I guess this was a case of needing to have “local knowledge”. Oh sorry, I said that already.
There was really no problem with running aground except that we forgot our generator was on at the time. Dave will tell you all about our generator woes.
After Atlantic City, the Waterway becomes very interesting in a different way. The narrow but well-marked channel winds through a dense, grassy swamp-like area. This time of year, the grass is brown but in the summer it is all a lush green , the channel opens up into large lake areas, but the channel itself continues to be narrow and winds its way across the lake each lake. It is odd to be in a lake area about the size of Hamilton Bay and be forced to follow a narrow channel. Below are some pictures of the grassy areas and of the lake areas.
We also saw lots of wind surfers and some using a kite or para-sail. Occurred to us that this was another activity that did not need to be added to our bucket list. Here are some pictures.
We found a gorgeous anchorage in Sunset Lake which is very well named. Note the following picture.
We needed groceries, so we dinghyed to shore and went to a local restaurant to get directions. It was not open, but the owner came to the door and asked if he could help us. We must set off a “need to help these people” alarm because he immediately offered to drive us to the store AND come back to pick us up when we were ready. Who ever said Americans aren't friendly!!
On December 2, we pulled into Cape May around noon; it was only about 2 hours south of Sunset Lake. We needed water, so we decided to treat ourselves to a marina stay. It was a lovely marina with piles of gorgeous sport fishing boats and a fabulous condo development. Here are some pictures.
Our next posting will describe our Delaware and Chesapeake leg into Norfolk, Virginia which is the beginning of the Intra-Coastal Waterway to Florida.
Great Quote: “I've learned age is a very high price to pay for maturity.” -Anonymous
The 'techy' side if this posting will be short but not sweet.
We were so pleased that the cooling problems were solved at Ess-Kay, and for the most part they were. Sadly, the quick fix on the header tank didn't hold and it leaks as good as ever. So, header tank needs to be pulled and resealed. A job that will wait until we pull the boat unless it gets to be catastrophic. I'll do the work myself but do not want the pressure of having to do it in a hurry in case I find something else during the process. The consequence of that decision consists of checking the antifreeze every morning and topping it up. If you're thinking we must go through a lot of antifreeze the answer is yes and no, depending on how you look at it. The way the bilge is laid out, anything spilled under the engines stays under that engine until it reaches a couple inches. So, every morning when I do my engine checks, I pump the antifreeze out from under the engine, strain it, and put it back in the tank. Not a lot of fun but solves the problem, doesn't pollute the waterway and saves buying yet more antifreeze. I sure will be glad when it is fixed though.
Funny how things work out. We both were nervous about the water depth in the Jersey Intra-Coastal.
While doing that run there were numerous calls on the radio for Tow Boat US to come out and drag folks off a shoal etc. Might know, WE run aground going into an anchorage at an inlet.
Just to back track a wee bit. We'd run most days with electricity supplied from the house batteries. Sometimes, we'd then have to run the generator to charge things up, cook dinner, heat water etc. To help alleviate some of the “at anchor run time”, we'd run the generator during our cruising thereby affording us a nice quit time at anchor. As Pat mentioned, the generator was on when we ran aground at Atlantic City. I like to say, no harm no foul, we backed off in every case and carried on. I can't. The major consequence of running aground was plugging the raw water intake to the generator's raw water pump and heat exchanger.
You may recall that after our last experience, we installed a flow alarm that can only be described as tempermental at best. In this case, it elected NOT to go off. When we finally made it into the anchorage I thought, why can't I hear the generator? I knew the answer, just didn't like it! Opened the engine room hatch to be greeted by great clouds of hot steam and antifreeze everywhere – again! Check the JB welded joint and yes, everything was melted away. Not happy. Nevertheless, using parts from a spare whale pump, parts from the head that was to go into the forward cabin, and yes, yet more JB weld, we created yet a whole new fitting. This was a work of art, seriously, a thing of beauty. Has to be, there was nothing left of the old fitting to repair. After manufacture, both Pat and I tried to pull it apart, stress test it etc – tough as nails. Very pleased.
Installed the new part but before starting up the generator to verify the fix decided to make sure no sand etc. remained in the waterline. Used some precious amp hours to charge the compressor and blow out the lines. OK, let's cross our fingers and fire this thing up.
She started just fine, new part didn't leak. Why did I smell exhaust? Why did I hear running water?
Just bloody lovely, this time when it over heated it didn't just take out the fitting; it took out part of the side wall of the water lock. The side where, if you're lucky, you can almost get you finger on it. Not the side you can see. That would have been too easy. So, no generator. Called a few places for parts or even a whole new waterlock, no luck. Asked about anti-syphon valve – not stocked, could be ordered but would be a few days. No generator. Decided we'd just use the wee generator and cook on the BBQ until I can either dream up a fix or get a new part.
One of the things we did do though that worked out well, was we finally put our mast back up, stack back together and the canvas up. Was a bit if a struggle but between the 2 of us, with Dude barking encouragement, it only took a few hours. Time for a rum.
I feel I should say something about Wi-Fi as there are all kinds of opinions about what does, and does not work. On board, we have: Linksys Wi-Fi adapters; Engenious Wi-Fi router; 5 mile Wi-Fi and the Wi-Fi built into the laptop. If there is a signal out there, by golly we can find it!
So......... there aren't a lot of signals. Most of what you do find are secure, many that are not secure still require a password once you connect to the network and even those that are not secure and don't require a password are flakey at best. For example, at the Canyon Club Marina in Cape May, great place incidentally, they supply Wi-Fi, no security. Hmmm, doesn't want to connect no matter which system I try. Wander over to the office, laptop in hand. What gives says I? “Oh, ya, it's kinda flakey the guy says. Sometimes it works and sometimes not. Try using the sales team's Wi-Fi connection or sit under the antenna at the office, sometimes that helps”. Lovely. At the end of the day, if the Laptop likes it, ok. If not, we wait until we can get to a place where it does. Enough said.
