NYC and Heading South
- Jimmy Lee
- 12 minutes ago
- 6 min read
Friday, September 5 – Wednesday, September 10
155 nautical miles (NM) / 178 statute miles
This week featured an epic anchorage and moving south back towards Chesapeake Bay.
Port Washington to Manhattan
Friday, September 5
20 NM
We had a leisurely morning waiting for acceptable current for our motor to New York City. We weighed anchor about 11 am and left Port Washington behind. Port Washington was a great stop with everything the cruising sailor needs (including a train to the Big City if you need it).
As soon as we turned the corner into Long Island Sound you can immediately see the skyline of New York City. Within an hour of our cruise, we left Long Island Sound for the last time and entered the East River to begin our drive by of Manhattan.
Drive (float) by of Manhattan
As stated earlier, we waited for a while before leaving the anchorage to have a more favorable current in the East River. There is a location called Hell Gate which is notorious for strong currents. Even though we had good current pushing us through, we wanted the current to reduce a little bit since currents can, and will, spin your boat around if you are not careful. At one point we had 3.5 knots of positive current which added to our normal 5.5 knot speed had us moving at 9.2 knots. That may not sound like a lot, but it is for us. The water does roil in some areas and sets the bow in odd directions. If we had not waited, we probably would have seen over 5 knots of current and that might have been a bad time.
The trip along Manhattan was very iconic with view of the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, and the United Nations. All with an uncountable amount of buildings as a backdrop and an uncountable number of boats zipping in and around Utopia. We went under several bridges including the Brooklyn Bridge.
Our Night Anchorage behind the Statue of Liberty
Even before we left the East River we could see out into New York Harbor (where the East River and Hudson River meet at the tip of Manhattan) and where our hopeful anchorage was. Once into the Harbor it was a chaotic situation of ferries, recreational, and tour boats, barges and and lots of jet skis. Our AIS screen was a jumble of targets, and we had to change directions many times. When we could, we made a bee line for the Statue of Liberty and took several pictures of it and Quest II since we were moving together. They even took some cool pictures of Utopia! We then tucked in right behind the Statue and dropped anchor for the evening. It was an awesome spot to stop Utopia for the night with the NYC skyline on one side and the Statue of Liberty on the other. After night fell the boat traffic abated and we had a fairly peaceful night at anchor.
Please note that we took a lot of photos of this trip so we added a link below if you want to see more of our trip through New York City.
Manhattan to Sandy Hook (Atlantic Highlands)
Saturday, September 6
18 NM
We had morning coffee in the cockpit and then were underway at around 8 am. We wanted to make a somewhat fast departure since weather will be coming this afternoon, and we wanted to get set on our mooring ball early so we can at least go to land and stretch our legs before we cocoon ourselves back into the boat for the evening. It was neat seeing Manhattan fading into the background as we went under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (separates Lower New York bay from Upper New York Bay). The trip from New York to Sandy Hook Bay (Atlantic Highlands is the community) was a short 3-hour motor in low wind and was quite warm.
We were on our mooring ball before noon and went to town with Cam and Denise for lunch. After that we went back to the boat and had a quite rainy night. It should be noted that the New York skyline is still quite visible even from 18 miles away.
We originally were going to leave around noon the next day (on Sunday) to head to Cape May, New Jersey, but we decided to stay an additional day since 1) It was still rainy and 2) It appeared leaving on Monday would be better conditions for the passage.
Sondra was feeling a bit poorly on Sunday and it was raining off and on until after lunch. We did preparation for our passage, and I ended up going on a walk with Cam and Denise after lunch when the rain stopped.
Sandy Hook, NJ to Cape May, NJ
Monday & Tuesday, September 8 & 9
117 NM
Since this was not an overly long passage we did not need to leave too early on Monday. We did have a goal of arriving near daybreak since the weather was going to be deteriorating during the day on Tuesday.
We slipped our mooring lines in light winds and sunny weather around 11 am and raised the sails. We expected a fully downwind sail so we went ahead and set up our whisker pole so we could unfurl our genoa already polled out.
We rounded Sandy Hook and began our trek south. We motored sailed in light winds for several hours while we made water with the water maker. (side note: we have avoided making water over the past few days due to poor water quality around NYC). After a few hours we had enough wind to sail so we shut off the engine around 4:00 pm and then on again around 6:00 pm due to fluky, light winds. Most of our sailing was done with with all three sails.
After sundown, the winds began to build again and at around 8:30 pm we cut the engine again and it didn’t come back on until we arrived the next day.
The winds continued to build throughout the night from around 11 kn to begin with to around 25 kn when we arrived the next morning. There was a weather system in the Atlantic and we tried to stay close to shore (3 miles) our entire trip since wind speed was probably another 10 kn stronger when 10 miles further east.
We reefed slowly through the night by first taking in the stay sail, then rolling up some of the jib (genoa) and then reefing the main. By 5 a.m. in the morning, we were running on reefed main alone and still going 6-7 knots over the ground. That was putting us at arriving just a hair past sunrise which was perfect. I should note that the sea state was building throughout the night and went from 2 feet at the beginning to 5-foot rollers from the port quarter (from behind on the left side). The rolling from this direction tends to make a wallowing that tosses things from one side of the boat to the other. Needless to say, we had some cleanup to do once anchored. It was certainly rolly, and later learned that the National Weather Service issued a Small Craft Advisory for the Atlantic early that morning.
We dropped the sails as we approached the Cape May Inlet. It was rough coming through the inlet due to strong current coming from the side and we were being set to port (left) so we had to steer a course that looked like we were going to hit the right side of the seawall but in reality were shooting into the inlet, right in the center. Like magic it went from a rough ride to a nice smooth river cruise within about 30 seconds. Baxter was pleased with the immediate change in sea state.
Our anchorage was just a short ride around the corner of the harbor, and we dropped anchor around 7 am. As soon as we did a bare minimum to buttoning up the boat, we immediately took a nap then started the real boat cleanup at 10 am. The winds were significantly building so we stayed on the boat the remainder of the day doing boat chores and cleaning up the boat.
The only interesting thing that happened that day was that our perfect anchoring spot between two boats turned into an uncomfortable spot since the currents rip through the areas and switch direction every 6 hours or so. We realized around 2 pm that the boat next to us was sitting much different than us (due to boat shape and amount of anchor rode) and we were getting too close to comfort for us. So, we pulled up anchor and reset about 500 feet away in a more suitable location.
Our time in Cape May
Wednesday morning the winds were still there but a bit diminished, so we braved the elements and dropped the dinghy and went into downtown Cape May to relieve the cabin (boat) fever we were feeling. We had lunch with Cam and Denise and then walked around the town. It was a very charming, small town with a large number of Victorian Houses throughout the community. The winds died throughout the day and when we returned to Utopia in the afternoon our anchorage was getting downright pleasant.
So tomorrow we begin our trip up the Delaware River toward Chesapeake City, MD. Stay tuned!
Our latest video covers our time in Newport & Cuttyhunk:
Post # 25-37
Link below for previous post (#25-36)
Comments