October 24 Yorktown to Portsmouth 43 Miles

We were underway from 9:15 to 4 pm, and under sail except for the first ten minutes and the last hour after the wind died. This was quite a contrast from when we made the reciprocal passage in late may or early June 2012 when we had no wind at all. We went from a deep broad starboard reach to a more beamy port reach after the jibe, out in the Bay.
But first we were approached, fast, by an orange machine gun toting RIB. The Coasties aboard told us, politely,  that we must keep 500 yards distant from a vessel they were escorting. We barely saw it at first,  but it came up on our starboard beam with another orange dinghy escort.

Other VHF announcements to the world from the Coast Guard said that they would use force, including the possibility of deadly force, on  any vessel that got too close.

It was a clear cold brisk day out on the Bay. Lene resorted to MANY layers; me, a few less of them. we crossed a lot of water on banks that had depth in the teens before entering the deep water of Hampton Roads and later, the Elizabeth River, which divides Portsmouth from Norfolk. The Roads was the site of the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac.  This big guy passed us,

going slowly out. We were properly outside the channel, but not far enough outside to make Lene happy.





The water is deep here virtually wall to wall. And this area remains a center of Naval activity. We expected to see these guys,

but not the Battleship Wisconsin, which I had thought had been retired long ago. Note the nine huge 16 " diameter guns, each capable of hurling a one ton projectile 20 miles.

Once out of the Bay -- yes we are now south of Chesapeake Bay -- despite shaking out the reef and switching to the Genoa, we did not have enough wind and hence resorted to motoring.  We took the free dock by the Renaissance Hotel. No water, no electricity, no hands to help us with our lines -- you just get what it says, a free dock for the night - the same spot in which we spent two nights in 2012. It is across a little basin from the ferry that will run you over to Norfolk for $4 round trip. Luckily that noise and the resulting wakes stop at night.

Lene made a perfect landing and I rigged up the fender board to keep us off the pilings. We took a short stroll through town on Lenes successful search for coffee and met up with folks from four boats that are traveling together, and, since the canal is narrow here, with fixed times for lock openings they will be with us as well.  Back to our boat for a good home cooked meal. Here is Norfolk, across the river from our boat.

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November 24 27 Fernandina Beach FL to St Marys GA 6 8 N Miles

Yes, there should be an apostrophe in "Marys," on the north bank of the St. Marys River, but there is not. And yes, we have gone north, about three of the 6.8 miles, from Florida into Georgia.
We spent four nights at the end of the west dock of Langs Marina. Many of the boats elected to anchor out in the wide, roomy anchorage, though it is beset by tricky tidal currents and strong winds.

The marina is funky to say the least. Most businesses strive to modernize and offer the best and latest conveniences. But not Langs. The cruisers guides warned us to wear slippers in the shower rooms; they are not cleaned very regularly and are old fashioned. The electric towers into which we plug our thick yellow shore power cables offer electricity at only $3 per night -- if you can get it. Most of the towers, including those near us, do nor work and apparently have not worked for several years. This was inconvenient because it has been cold here and Lene would have liked heat. Help with our lines getting onto the dock? Sure; if your neighbors are about and willing to help.  There are some pretty nice boats here, power and sail, including, across the dock from us, a DeFever trawler operated by the founders and owners of the Active Captain website. But Langs is also home to some boats that look rather derelict. And as you can see in this picture of two felines concentrating intently of the bravest of the remaining birds, guano is not washed form the dock except by the rain.

There are some more beautiful birds here too.

We are about 1000 feet from the street. Another thousand feet brings you to Seagles hotel, saloon and restaurant, where the festivities are held.

Thirty rooms upstairs at $90 to $130 per night.

 Langs is priced appropriately, only $1 per foot per night.

We arrived on Monday and each evening there was more and more shared food with drink getting our stomachs enlarged enough for the major feast at 1 pm on Thursday. There is also a communal check in on VHF radio channel 69 each morning, chaired by Ann of s/v "Sea Tramp". Her husband, Lynn, runs daily or twice a day trips with his van to where ever you may need to go in the area, including the supermarket (Lene went three times!), laundry, pharmacy, dry cleaners, propane refill, eye glass repair shop, etc.
We have been hearing about "Thanksgiving at St. Marys" for years and decided to join in this time. And we are glad we did. Dean and Susan of "Autumn Borne" are known by everyone here, probably because Dean has helped most of them, but they especially befriended us and introduced us to a lot of folks who we will be meeting up with further south in the months and years ahead.

Lene flanked by Dean and Susan and, at the sides, by the crew of s/v "Summerwind". Lets face it: the others here are mostly all retiree snow birds, like us, who come from all over the US, though some of us live aboard year round and others revert to land bases when not cruising. Good folks with a common interest in our boats and in telling each other and listening to each others sea stories. For the feast, the townspeople provided the baked turkey and ham and the cruisers each provided a side dish, salad, stuffing, desert, etc., sufficient to serve ten. But most brought more and this was no hunger game.

For the record, I made blanched string beans with bacon, blue cheese and toasted walnuts, and it got eaten up by the throng.



With the town abutting the back side of the Kings Bay submarine base, the town is postered by these bumper stickers:

Every Day In Camden County Is Military Appreciation Day.




They have a Submarine museum

a block from Seagles, where I spent a few pleasant hours. There I met Mr. Treen, a naval electrician with 18 years of service in the submarine service, currently assigned as base photographer. He was doing a story on the museum.
I got to remembering my six day ride on one of our submarines, the USS Requin (SS-481) As Hammerbergs Anti Submarine Warfare officer, I was exchanged for the Requins weapons officer for the segment of our circumnavigation of South America from Montevideo to Rio in 1966. My biggest thrill: they let me dive the sub. I yelled "Dive!", scrambled down the conning tower as quickly as possible so that others could slam closed and dog down the hatch above my head before water started to flow in and then yelled the command: "Blow negative to the mark!"  This meant to release compressed air into a forward compartment sufficient to give buoyancy to the bow and thus level off the dive. And then the submariners, who knew what they were doing, took over again. I recall the palpable sensation of quiet after we were submerged; the crashing sound of the water while a surface boat slices through it was replaced by utter silence.

Tomorrow, a communal pancake breakfast (yes more food!!), a swap meet and then we plan to go east and a bit north to an anchorage off Cumberland Island National Park for a few days before resuming southward from the St. Marys area.

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May 23 24 St Michaels to Chesapeake City to Cape May 68 9 and 68 Miles

The first day of this holiday weekend John and I got underway at 7:15 after I water taxied Lene and the felines in their carrier to Johns car and we raised and secured the dink. And we docked at 8 pm. But we were not actually underway the whole time. We detoured into Annapolis after passing about eighty boat flying spinnakers, racing the other way, headed from Annapolis to St. Michaels. We stopped in Back Bay to fill the fuel tanks, which took an estimated 90 minutes of in and out and waiting on line for the fuel dock with only about 15 of those minutes for the actual fueling.
Our second stop of the day was when we run into the mud trying to enter the harbor on the south side of the C and D Canal, where I had stayed in 2006 on ILENE and last fall on sister ship Pandora. We backed right off the mud and tried to call the marina by phone and VHF. Finally, the person said, "I dont know if you can make it in now, near low tide, but hug the seawall on the left side of the entrance." This was not very reassuring. We had noticed a long high fixed dock with two or three small power boats tied up to it and a busy restaurant on the other side of the canal, less than a quarter of a mile back- Scheafers. Not seeing any sailboats there, I called to ask about depth and they said they had 20 feet minimum at the dock, which our depth meter later confirmed. But they "had to charge us their holiday rate", $2.50 per foot. The restaurant and bar were large and jammed with revelers. We had dinner there and the food was OK.  It seems the place burned down about ten years ago and has recently reopened. It is so easy to get in and out that this will be a place Ill return to, even though they do not have water, electricity or wifi.
Why did it take so long, you might ask. Well the tides were against us all day. We went down the Miles River from St. Michaels against the flood which turned to ebb when we rounded Bloody Point to go north up the Bay. Six hours later this should have changed but then we were confronted by water flowing toward us from the Delaware. Well we have had all-day good tides too, but not today.
John was great help all day, a knowledgeable cautious seaman.

His 28 S2 sloop, "Hearts Content" passed its survey the day before with flying colors. "The best maintained 35 year old S2 I have ever surveyed" said the surveyor. She was Johns friend for the last 25 years, but he also has a 22 foot power boat, "Dixie," and he was not using the sloop and has found her a good home. Second happiest bittersweet day in a mans life: when he sells his boat.
Next morning we continued in the canal starting at 7:15 and found favorable tide. Belt and suspenders, do you think:

No, just an optical illusion with the arch further away and the pretty suspension bridge that Lene drove over the day before in the foreground.
Once in Delaware Bay, the tide was an even bigger help and we made over nine knots until noon. Delaware Bay is a wide boring passage except when freighters pass you by. See bow wake.

As the day wore on, the wind came up strongly, with about 35 knots and gusts to 45 showing on our meter, (though I sense that it reads about five knots too fast). So we had only the small jib and were beating down the Bay. The tricky part was rounding Cape May. The outer passage is a long way around some shoals, which would have added about the miles to our trip in rough weather toward the end of the day. The inner passage saves those miles but put ILENEs port side only about .2 miles from the beach with those big winds and the big waves they created trying to push her onto the beach. We had furled the small jib to gain control over safety for this part of the passage. John wanted the more cautious longer passage, as had part of my crew in 2006 when we did this in calmer weather. We have pictures of the beach with its lighthouse taken from this in close route on this blog in June 2012, on a rather calm day and had done the trip in the opposite direction last fall. Today we were too busy for pictures. it was a two person operation. John steered or to be more precise, controlled the autopilot and watched the waves. One of them sent a spray of water up over the boat soaking him completely. My job wasq operate the InavX on Lenes Ipad, while crouched in the companionway, to protect it from the spray and shade it from the sun. I directed, for example: "Turn right ten degrees." It was like instrument flight rules or sailing in thick fog. I directed our course from the electronic chart, around shoals charted as little as nine feet deep, keeping us in water at least 13 feet deep, without looking up to see where we actually were or where we were going. It was scary but we made it.
Once around the Cape, we turned more north toward the two stone seawalls that mark and protect the channel entrance into Cape May Harbor from the Atlantic. It seemed that we would be surfing down waves barreling directly into the harbor so I turned toward the beach for a practice run in that direction and ILENE seemed to handle it well. In the reality, however, the waves were at about a twenty degree angle from the channel and our passage between the seawalls was relatively easy. We anchored near the Coast Guard Station in about ten feet of water off the green side of the channel with sixty feet of snubbed chain. We were one of about six boats there, each far enough from the others and protected from the SW winds by the land mass of the Cape. John was a bit nauseous, though more from nerves than motion sickness, I think.
We were in by 5:30 and after a breather it was time for dinner. I have tried to get John to try foods that, while within his vegetarian practice, were different from his routine. Tonight we shared his food. I sauteed and steamed some veggies, fake chicken strips and onions, mixed them with whole wheat pasta and dressed it with soy sauce and grated cheese. Pretty good, and it better be because the leftovers is tomorrows dinner too.

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Deember 8 24 Slow Steady Progress But There Is a Lot Left To Do

Three visits to ILENE for a total of 14 hours during this period.  I lowered the chain from the boat to the ground, loaded it into a yard cart, and from there to a cardboard box in the cargo area of our mini SUV. An estimated 200 pounds, but easily movable, a few feet of links at a time. A few days later I drove to Jersey City and located Nicholas Galvanizing, in a thoroughly industrial area by the Hackensack River. Its staff slid the box off the back of my vehicle onto a wooden pallet to be moved by fork lift. The chain should be nice and shiny and protected for another 16 years soon after 2016 starts. While in Jersey I enjoyed a delicious, leisurely, Thai lunch in Berkely Heights with Jim, formerly of s/v "Aria", who is now sadly too disabled to sail. He gave me three excellent sailing books including Nigel Calders maintenance bible.
On the first of my three boat visits I also took most of the three bladed feathering propeller off its shaft, to be sent to its manufacturer, PYI, on the west coast, for refurbishment. Before going, I watched PYIs how-to video -- four times -- took notes and called the company to speak to the demonstrator, three times. But he demonstrated the disassembly of a shiny new prop and the video left out some pre and post steps. The parts are held together with ten Allen Head bolts. These are locked in place with tiny cut-off half length cotter pins inserted through holes in the sides of their heads, which pins were encrusted in place with layers of paint. By use of the scraper, ice pick and needle nose pliers, the pins came out. Also, I knew that unlike his model, my prop was loaded with heavy grease because I had pumped it in each year through zirc fittings. So I had a lot of rags and paper towels and Fantastic to get the grease off and into a plastic bag. And after the end of the video, the props central hub has to be removed by first removing two rods that hold a locking bolt on the tail end of the shaft in place, unscrewing that bolt, which required no tools, and then sliding the hub aft, off the shaft. The bolt removal was accomplished during my second visit, and that is when I ran into a problem for want of a tool that costs several hundred dollars but that I needed to use only once: a prop puller. But I met with Fernando at the boat to plan a big job that he will do with me: sanding off and spraying on primer and two coats of Awlgrip paint to renew the dark blue decorative boot stripes around the boat, just above the water line. Fernando did excellent work in repairing ILENEs stainless steel and fiberglass which were damaged by a hit and run at the mooring one night in the fall of 2013. In addition to telling me that the bottom is not ready for barrier coating but requires thorough sanding, a lot of sanding, he put me onto the man who does the diving work and other work for many folks at the Huguenot, Brian McCauley, who was present and who has a prop puller. The job will take only ten minutes and of course I was prepared to pay for his services, but he said he would just leave the tool under ILENE, so I could do the job myself and would pick up his tool later -- at no cost! Thanks Brian!
On my third trip the tool was there but I had to loosen the Spurs line cutter to fit the forward end of this tool at the forward end of the hub. This required a spraying of penetrant and then heat from the heat gun, but was accomplished and then the puller did its job, easily. Here are the pieces of the prop, except the bolt, at home, awaiting shipping.

I have also taken out four of the smallest pieces of the cabin sole, and done two of them, the ones that collar the mast. I sanded them down on the sides to make them a bit smaller so they will fit better, let them dry thoroughly and applied two coats of spray-on low-gloss polyurethane to their sides and bottoms, to seal out water, which drips from the mast boot, making this a damp area, and finally, lightly sanded their top surfaces, and applied the plastic paint. It looks good, so I can now do the rest of the cabin sole, piece by piece.
Also, the new teak flagpole, to which I had previously applied many coats of varnish, is finally complete: I got a 5/16th inch Phillips head bolt and after first using the Dremel tool to grind a flat spot on the side of the chrome plated brass base into which that bolt goes to hold the pole in it, I drilled a hole through the base at that flat spot,  and into the wood. A snug fit resulted, but removable, so that the new flag will not get torn to shreds in storms. And pole and flag will not be blown away again, as the combination did during a windstorm in Fort Lauderdale last winter.

I had two other ashore days in addition to the day of the drive to New Jersey. One consisted of about six hours at home on the computer and phone. In addition to learning from PYI about the prop disassembly, I called three potential sites for this winters Harlem winter excursion. The US Merchant Marine Academys Museum at Kings Point, directly across Long Island Sound is not available this year. The other two candidates were the National Lighthouse Museum, a short walk from the ferry terminal, and the Noble Maritime Collection at the Sailors Snug Harbor, about a ten minute bus ride from that terminal on Staten Island. After reading as much as I could and talking with all three places, I spent a day on Staten Island checking out both sites for that I have now called "The Harlem Yacht Clubs Fifth Annual-ish Dead-of-Winter, Out-of-Clubhouse, Salt Watery/Maritime Learning/Social/Dining Excursion".  The Lighthouse Museum is planning a major expansion over the next couple of years so I decided to wait until it is complete. For 2016 The Noble Maritime Collection is the winner and the event is being offered with an additional attraction -- two optional free boat rides -- on the Staten Island Ferry! For those who prefer to drive, it requires getting to Long Island and then crossing the Verranzano Bridge with its $15 toll, though parking is free.
The Noble Maritime Collection is a little gem of a museum located on the site of the Sailors Snug Harbor, formerly an old age home for destitute, family-less, worn-out seamen. The Snugs, as residents were called, were offered a comfortable somewhat spartan free ride. I have characterized it as a way station on their route from their life at sea to Fiddlers Green. Ciro, the Associate Director, opened the place for me on a weekday, when it is normally closed, so I could scope it out to describe it to the Harlemites. More on this place after Sunday, February 21, when the excursion is now scheduled. Ciro also put me onto Blue, a nice waterside (to the Kill van Kull) restaurant less than a quarter mile away, where the dining portion of our excursion will take place, at prices that are comparable to those at the Clubs dining room.
I checked out my friend Bobs blog: SailPandora. When I left him in Hampton, VA he was excitedly planning his cruise to the Caribbean. But a delayed start due to weather and then possible mechanical problems early on the route to Tortola forced him to divert to Beaufort NC; he had lost the availability of his crew and the good weather and was compelled to change his destination to Florida and the Bahamas, where he has been the past two seasons. He did find friends to help him jump the boat from Beaufort to Florida and is now back in CT with Brenda and family before rejoining Pandora in the first days of 2016. As a man of my own passions, he likes to have new horizons in his sights. Currently he has an application pending with the US Government for a permit to visit Cuba. He is applying under the journalism category and has submitted his blog as the journal in question with the hope that the government reviewer of his application has a sense of humor, because he injects a lot of humor in his postings; would that I could be so witty. He also hopes that the reviewer is a sailor who can understand the difference between beating into the wind and letting it push you from behind; due to the prevailing winds being almost always from the east, he prefers a clockwise circumnavigation of Cuba, departing from the Bahamas and returning to Key West. However, the regulations seem to suggest that at a U.S. registered boat he can only visit Cuba leaving directly from a U.S. port, without a stop in another nation. I sure hope Bobs plans work out.

And speaking of plans, I also spent some time learning more about ILENEs proposed summer cruise to the Bras Dor Lakes at the NE end of Nova Scotia. The SCCAs journals include one account of a voyage to Nova Scotia from Mount Desert Island, Maine, in 2002. Old, but while the shoreside amenities may have changed, the waters and rocks do not change that fast. The 18 foot tides of the Bay of Fundy, which we experienced on our voyage to Eastport, Maine in 2013, do not extend to the ocean or Atlantic side of that Province, where six foot tides, comparable to those at the Harlem, prevail, I am told. And  the distance from Northeast Harbor in Mt. Desert Island to the check-in town in Nova Scotia is 165 nautical miles, which I compute as about 24 hours at 6.5 knots. So an overnight sail is in order. With tidal currents running swiftly around Nova Scotias SE cape, its a passage that has to be carefully timed and on a good weather day. I think we can get nearly a month in Nova Scotia between our scheduled arrival in Maine in late June and the beginning of the Corinthian cruise in Mt. Desert Island starting July 25. My mate is not yet totally committed to this summer float plan

(the other two crew members do not have votes) but I am continuing to plan for Nova Scotia and my gal usually comes around once she can see the fully thought out plan with enough safety lay days to avoid problems. Wish us luck, both Pandora and ILENE.

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January 19 Coconut Grove to Pumpkin Key 24 8 Miles

We had first feline drama last night: It was dark. I opened the cafe doors of the companionway to let the cats in but Alfie didnt come. So flashlight in hand I walked around the deck, opened the stack pack (a favorite Alfie hiding place by day) and checked atop the canvas, under the helm seat and in the dink. No Alfie. But then we heard the first of her cries and they were from behind the boat. So I swept the water with our strong flashlight, but no Alfie. Time for the 2,000,000 candle power floodlight, but we had trouble hooking it up to the cigarette lighter socket and stretching out the cord. Time to lower the dink and search for Alfie in the water behind the boat (where the current would be taking her. But her cry was not the powerful piercing "Im in trouble" scream, but rather her petulant mewl. Lowering the dink takes me five minutes -- Ive timed myself -- perhaps longer in the dark. Lene has now started whimpering and I asked her to please stop because such is not useful.
Before actually completing the lowering we found her. With the possible fuel flow problem that morning, I had advised Lene to take the hand held VHF radio that morning: "Just in case -- so you can call for help if you need it". It was in the little compartment in the bow of the dink created by an aft opening hinged padded seat there. I had forgotten to take it out when hauling the dink up that evening and the lifting lines run across the opening edge of the seat, making it hard to lift the seat once the dink is raised.

But I had gotten the seat up enough to reach in with my hand and retrieve the radio, for use the next day. And the seat was left raised -- just enough for Alfie to squeeze herself in. But with lower footing on the inside of the cabinet, she was not strong enough to get herself out, without help. She craves small spaces. What a relief!

Today we were underway for about five hours and I looked forward to a good sail because except for two dredged and charted channels, one a quarter mile long and the other a mile or so, the water was open. Shallow at 8 to 11 feet, but open. But though I put up sails as soon as we cleared the Dinner Key Channel, the wind did not cooperate, until the last half hour, a time when one is always eager to get the passage done. The wind was from behind us and too light to move the boat at a reasonable speed.

Pumpkin Key is a roundish lump of an island on the ICW side of the Keys, just off the northeast end of Key Largo. No services or shore activities, just a hangout place for boaters on the go.

 There are about ten boats here, mostly power, with plenty of swinging room. The water is ten feet deep all around, and we have 60 feet of snubbed chain out and do not expect heavy wind tonight. All of the boats are on the south side (lee side) of the island; the other side becomes the anchorage if the winds come from the South.
The Keys are stretched out in a mostly east-west direction with just a bit of southing as you head west for Key West. There are two routes to Key West from Miami: one way is the ICW route which is north of the Keys, in the Gulf of Mexico. It has many marinas but is quite shallow, too shallow for us after this point. The alternative is called the Hawk Channel which runs south of the Keys in the Caribbean/Atlantic. It is called a channel because there is an off shore underwater coral reef running parallel to the Keys. Hawk Channel is deep enough and wide, ideal for sailing, if the wind cooperates, but has few marinas or anchorages along the way. From here we expect and hope to be mostly separated from the wake-making power boats which prefer the ICW route.
There are several passages by which one can switch between ICW and Hawk. Our plan for tomorrow, subject to weather, is to go through Angelfish Creek and the Hawk Channel to Rodriquez Key, off the other end of Key Largo  -- before reaching Marathon, which is a rest station for cruisers, the next day. The only potential problem is that some books and folks say that Angelfish Creek is too shallow for ILENEs 5 8" draft. Others say we can make it if we go shortly before the high tide, which is scheduled for 8:10 a.m. tomorrow. And the entrance to the Creek is only about a mile away -- I already have it loaded in as our next waypoint. So we plan to leave at daybreak. And we will check in and let you know how it went, in our next post -- either from Rodriguez or Marathon.

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April 23 24 Wrightsville Beach to Beaufort NC and Lay Day There 80 5 Miles

Underway from 6:45 until 4:00, outside in the Atlantic. Raised main in the harbor, because we were motoring directly into the wind. Then a brief two minute torrential downpour, a right into the inlet and another right outside put us on course for Beaufort. A straight shot at about 60 degrees for 69.1 miles across a good part of Onslow Bay, which is an 80 mile crescent from Southport to Cape Lookout. Out came the genoa and we were doing fine, on a port beat. But the wind was veering very slowly to the right, forcing us a bit more and more off course, not that this was dangerous: thousands of miles of the Atlantic were to the right. But then the winds came up strongly. The clinometer measures us while heeling 39 degrees.

The effect is more dramatic than shown of the clinometer.

We "buried the rail", i.e., water was rushing over the side deck on the leeward side.

So we furled the genoa, put a reef in the main and put out the small jib. Normalcy and safety restored. When the wind diminished a bit we were at a slower speed. Our objective was to be on our dock before night fall, so we turned on the engine and motorsailed. At one point we were pushed so far off course that it was time to tack. Then, instead of being pushed to the right of where we wanted to go, we were being pushed toward the left. As the wind continued to veer or "clock around" to the right, we were able to change course to the right, two degrees at a time, until our course over the ground matched the bearing to the Beaufort inlet.
We met two interesting boats in the inlet, a tug going in and a shrimper coming out.

Beaufort Docks is the municipal marina of Beaufort, with a large,friendly and knowledgeable staff. They gave each of us a wooden nickle, good (with a dollar for a tip) for a free glass of wine at the restaurant/bar of the marina. I had the house red both nights because Lene does not drink. Their showers are not fancy or spacious but clean, with lots of hooks, seats and plenty hot water. They provide a quality wifi at the docks. We used their courtesy car to get a propane refill at a fish store. And also, a delicious fresh flounder that the store fileted for us and Lene cooked that night. We also got groceries. and fresh engine oil for the next change. We each got haircuts from Rachel of Enchanted on the Lane. A mechanic came over to try again with the engines intermittent rattle and did less but charged more than Leo of Jekyll Island -- nothing, except he gave his opinions.
Our other diner was at a restaurant called Queen Annes Revenge, its food adequate. It was named after Blackbeards pirate ship, that sank just outside the inlet through which we had entered.
The North Carolina Maritime Museum had a good exhibit on the recovery of the remnants of that ship along with pirate life generally -- free admission.

There is also a lot there about commercial fishing and outboard engines, but the best part of this museum was about what they called "indigenous boats." These are boats built of locally available wood and designed to do the work needed by the local population and the water conditions they are likely to face. It started with dugout canoes with the best explanation I have heard on how they are created and ended with the sharpies, a type of flat bottomed fishing boat first built in New England but modified and popular in NC waters. They had several full size boats and models in the display. Worth a lot more time than the two hours I had for it.
I also had taken a stroll through the historic town, three blocks by ten blocks in size along the waterfront. Strip shopping malls and other attractions and probably some lovely suburbs are outside of this historic area. Front street is at the waterfront, its business side full of restaurants and shops and, across the small park area to the right, the marinas docks. The kitties did not enjoy it here as much as they had hoped to because a man on our neighboring boat is allergic to cats and was not pleased when he discovered Alfie exploring his cabin. They had to remain aboard.

Old placarded homes, are on the other streets.

The Allen Davis house of 1774, picture above was used by General Burnside in the Civil War but it did not say which side he fought for.

A historic triumph for this rural town was when the Railroad was built here, allowing inland produce to be shipped to market. The Depot remains beside where the tracks used to run

and is now a civic meeting place with a museum including this recreation of the RR office. Both the Railroad office and our barber reminded me of my maternal grandfather who was a barber when young and retired from the railroad office when he got older.
As sections of the Atlantic coast of Florida have been nicknamed the gold, treasure and space coasts, Beaufort and several surrounding towns now call themselves the Crystal Coast. Someone told me this was because the Atlantic water is so crystal clear.
In 2012 we anchored out off the docks here and did not go ashore. We made up for that oversight this time. From here on until Norfolk we will be inside.

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December 22 24 Three More Lay Days in Velcro Beach Zero Miles

The Vero Beach Art Museum is quite good for a town this size. The highpoint for me was an exhibit of the history of Haitian art, led by docent Phoebe.

She told us how the native artists were given materials and opportunities -- but without any training, classical or otherwise -- to develop their own natural, primitive art forms. This was done by a conscientious objector to WWI who fled there. We were told the history of that blighted nation from its colonial days under the French, its slave revolt, and a series of despotic rulers with occasional harmful US interventions, plus more than its share of natural disasters. All of this history plus the voodoo tinged Catholicism is captured in the art.

And having purchased a steel barrel-head based wall sculpture of gekkos by a Haitian artist in Swansboro, NC, we were pleased to note several works of this genre in the show.

The Mckee Botanical Gardens was less thrilling. The place had its heydays in the 30s when it also featured a zoo and was quite popular. Having been closed for decades, it was reopened in the 90s and provides a very pleasant oasis of quiet solitude with not very much labeling of the trees. McKee specializes in water lilies.

These pads, with raised rims, are 18 inches across.

Two beauties: Lene with orchids

"The Old Man" having fallen, is a life source to other plants

Pink powder puffs is what I call these

I got ten times more questions about this Maine tee shirt than about any of my other shirts. Seems everyone who has ever been anywhere in New England wants to strike up a conversation. Maybe its the large font size.
We had lunch at McKees Cafe and used two buses to get back to ILENE where I polished more stainless,
Our last day here involved a bus ride and .8 mile walk to a movie theater to see Birdman and Wild. Admission for seniors $5, refillable popcorn $2. Our first movie since NY. I liked Wild better; it involves one persons trek of the Pacific Rim Trail, and i somehow identified our boat camping with that long-distance camping experience; no I have not given the plot away.
And we had to buy a new boat hook because the old one now lies on the bottom, after the metal pole slipped out of its rubber handle under strain. Dinner was at Riverside Cafe, about 3/4 of a mile by dink. I love commuting by dink and the live music was nice but the food, unremarkable.
Oh, and you havent heard me whining about how cold it is. Thats because we have have gone from three quilts over the top sheet to zero and opening hatches to let in cooler air.
And ever since St. Marys GA, freight train whistles have been our companion most every night. South Florida was developed as a result of the railroad built by Flagler and freight trains still run along the coast.
Six nights in one place is a long time for us.

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July 11 24 To The Departure on the Harlem YC Summer Cruise

Two days of shopping, cooking and enjoying a dinner at our house. Not a sailing activity except that Bennett and Harriet was one of the three invited couples.  Menu included a cold stewed stone fruit soup, salade nicoise and a linser torte ala mode. And all was delicious; if I do say so myself.

We spent a four day weekend up in the Berkshires during which the only remotely watery related item was during the second half of the Alonso King Lines Ballet Companys performance at Jacobs Pillow Dance Theater. The work was called Biophony and the "music" consisted of the recorded sounds of wild creatures from around the world. The third of the eight sections was called Mare Nostrum (Our Sea, I think) and was danced to the sound of "Ocean waves, humpback whales, fish and killer whales."  A stretch to relate this to sailing but its all I have.

A day of work: featuring the plastic cockpit enclosure panels, which were fitted together with snaps by Junior of Doyle Sails. I have left the aft three panels attached and rolled up at the top of the bimini, out of the way and ready to roll down. The two forward panels, which hang from the connector between the bimini and the dodger, together with that connector, are rolled up and stored in the aft cabin. I also topped off the seven batteries which drank about a quart of distilled water and made arrangements to get the lettering for the "licence plates" for the dink. And some cleaning -- four hours total.

Lene and I sailed one lovely Sunday afternoon for about three hours with Christine and Heather, the young women who were with us in Miami last winter, followed by dinner with them at the Club where I came to appreciate how talented our caterer is. I hope we Harlemites can eat there with guests often enough this summer so Anne can make a living. We actually only sailed back, having motored to off Sands Point where the girls went for a dip in the sea. I did not lower the dink but loosened the band cinching it securely against the ILENEs stern so they were able to climb the ladder and slither up into the boat from the sea from under the dink. This worked fine in moderately calm waters though I do not think it could be done safely in big seas.

I went to the Club for the Old Salts event both Wednesdays, but the first of them we were confronted with the strong threat of rain and no wind. So while I enjoyed the food and the camaraderie, there was no sailing.

 But the other Wednesday was a peak sailing day, clear skies, little traffic and good winds in the teens from the NW. I sailed with Richie, his brother, and three of their friends, while Mark sailed four of the regulars on "Deuce of Hearts." And everyone came over to IWe went out into the Sound to the far end of hart island. And everyone came over to ILENE for the after-sail libation. This was our largest outing of the summer so far -- eleven participants. I will miss the next two Wednesdays, being on  the Club Cruise.

The last day before that Cruise I sailed with Anne and her friend, Janet. I tried a new experiment in dragooning crew or lets call them sailing companions: I put up a poster in the gym in our apartment house (300 apartments) offering a sign up sheet for free sailboat rides. I was taken aback at the underwhelming response and next time will do a better job of advertising. But we had a great afternoon in much the same wind as the Old Salts enjoyed, but a little less of it. My new friends were content to not experience the effect of the genoa so we moved slowly and they had a good time. I would say that we "beat" up Hart Island Sound except that beating somehow suggests stronger winds; so lets just say we "patted" up the Sound, and around. Some wine and then dinner at the Lobster Box because their hearts were set on lobster, which was not on our clubs menu that night.

The Friday before the start of the Cruise was devoted to packing and transporting and loading the stuff for sixteen days away-- including the kitties and their stuff.
Well needless to say, we forgot a few things, including the Wifi device needed to right these blog posts. And the Club wants one per day for the Cruise if possible.

But we were there in the early evening and I was pleased to sail with Mike and Sandy (Old Salt regulars) and their niece, Alissa, aboard "Pas de Deux". We did no worse than and of the other ten boats that circled slowly near the starting line. This is because after a delay to wait for some wind to come up, the race had to be cancelled. But no one seems too upset by that development:

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August 10 to 24 Not Much Sailing

We began by going to a lovely wedding of friends daughter, out on Long Island.

Lene, Lianne, Ellen and Rudy

Then came Lenes successful surgery: laperoscopic removal of the malignancy in her left lung and her return after two nights in the hospital. We were very lucky to have such a good outcome due to an accidental early detection.

There was also a membership meeting at the Harlem YC to discuss our need for an assessment to pay for mistakes of the past such as forgetting to pay the taxes we collected and the need to come up with not just the taxes, but  penalty and interest as well. Self inflicted wounds caused by volunteers who are human and hence fallible. Been one; done that. The more important issue was how to create a mechanism to try to insure against repetitions of such debacles. Creation of a new position: A designated Pain In The Butt Officer who will have a calendar of dates when payments and license renewals, etc. are due and whose sole function will be to bug the other members of the Board and demand to see that the checks (taxes, payroll and insurance) and applications (occupancy, fire safety, etc.) are written.

And a visit to Fran, in Western Connecticut where a smaller boat was involved.

Mendy in the bow; can you see his muscles?

Also, I worked about thirteen hours during three days on many small projects involving electrical, carpentry, plumbing, sanding and varnishing. Ill spare you the details.

And there were three days of sailing though short ones, totaling only about eight hours.

1)  With Bennett, bringing his boat, fresh from the repair of damage caused by a close encounter with a rocky bottom, from Barrons Yard, on the other side of City Island, back to the Club, but with a sail through the channel off Kings Point and to Throggs Neck, about two hours, in light winds and smooth seas. A pleasant day.

2) With the Wednesday afternoon sailing club (formerly and sometimes currently called The Old Farts). This group assembled automatically and organically in prior years but has had a rocky start this season so I organized this outing, the second one this year. While still not a success, we did get nine folks out on two boats for a couple of hours. With me on ILENE were Richie, who no longer owns a boat, Rhoda, and Alfred and Leona. The latter two are older, averaging in their higher 80s,  and while Alfreds ability to steer, learned in German waters before WWII, is unimpaired, his ability to see is not as good and I had to stand close while he was at the wheel to get us back on course. Leona had great difficulty in the transfers between the launch and the boat -- knee problems -- and actually hurt her arm on the way off. Sorry Leona. Both great sports and Alfred will be back. The other vessel was Brian and Angelas "Debut," a Bristol. With them were Morty and Clara. The G&Ts were supplied by Alfred and Leona after two hours of sailing in light winds to the east coast of Mamaroneck Bay and back.

3)  We sailed in the Clubs 60th (or so) running of the Sidney J. Treat Regatta. Lene steered, our nephew, Mendy, did most of the winching and Rhoda and Lloyd helped out as well.  But we are the scratch boat and have to finish far in front of the other boats so our time after PHRF handicap correction, will still have us as the winner. Specifically we were assigned a handicap of 87 compared to the others in our division, which ranged from 123 to 234.  And the upshot is that of the five boats that finished (out of six that entered), we were next to last in actual time and dead last after corrected time.  So I guess I better explain why we lost. These are the reasons, not excuses. The biggest problem is that due entirely to my fault, we were way out of place and did not get to the starting line until about two minutes after the race started. In a race that lasted less than 43 minutes, this is a deadly sin. Another thing was lack of crew training and practice. Mendy is very strong and very willing, but I had not trained him so I had to tell him what to do which slowed things down.  The last reason other than my mistakes was the nature of the wind on race day. In very strong wind I can use ILENEs small jib, which is self tacking, making the tacks and jibes very fast, i.e., we do not lose much speed. But in lighter wind, as on race day, the power of the big Genoa is needed and to tack or jibe with it, one has to furl it, do the maneuver and then let it out on the other side, which in such a short race takes ages. For long distance ocean racing, where a tack of gybe might be needed every few hours or even every few days, the loss of a few minutes per maneuver is no big deal and ILENE can do well. Every boats handicap is computed based on the performance of other boats of the same model in all kinds of races. These results are averaged out. In strong winds ILENE will do well against her handicap but not today.
After the race we took a long loop into Littleneck Bay before returning to the Club to congratulate the winners. ILENE has won Club races but this was not our day. Nevertheless, a good time was had by all.

For a more interesting post than this one, Google: "Sail Pandora" for an account by our friend, Bob, of his sail on a 180 foot luxury yacht out of Newport RI.

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