Thomaston to Baltimore Return.

 

September 1, and the new/replaced VHF radio is installed and reported as working.  George is in Florida.  Scott is in Canada.  I call an old Goffstown friend, Darrell Lockwood, to see if he wants to take a boat ride.  He says yes, of course.  Though a new resident to Maine and with plenty of unpacking left to do, Darrell was excited to go.  Having grown up around Buzzards Bay, we assumed that he had plenty of on water experience.  But, not since childhood and his recent, well used membership in Freedom Boat Club.  Nevertheless, Darrell makes the perfect crew member.  Smart, thoughtful, willing to learn and ready to take in whatever experience has to offer.  And, he could pick us up at the Portland Airport and drive us to Thomaston!

 

After some final tuning with the yard and provisioning for the passage we spent the night on the Lyman Morse dock and readied for an early morning start.  It’s the start of a chilly Labor Day weekend and we will eventually need to decide whether we are on a quick delivery or a leisurely Autumn Cruise.  But, first things first.  We have a date with Darrell’s wife, Maryanne, who is meeting us at Biddeford Pool Yacht Club for dinner. That’s about 35NM for us to a BPYC mooring for the evening.  We drop the dinghy and pick up Maryanne for a great home cooked dinner afloat.  Quite a chore against the fast moving current to get her back to her car in the dark, but we manage to handle it with the 5 hp Nissan outboard.  The dinghy lift can wait till morning.

 

Next day the “cruising” plan was an “easy” day from Biddeford to Gloucester.

 

  

We had a beautiful sail out of Biddeford toward Cape Ann.  This included a good twenty minutes of whale watching a pod of at least three who were breaching, tail flapping and even jumping head first out of the water.  A magical sight on a glorious day

 

Jumping head first!  An incredible sight!!

Lots of splashing.

 

 

No room in the City Mooring Field with the Gloucester Schooner Festival going on.  But, undaunted we anchored in a settled cove between Ten Pound Island and Rocky Cove for a quiet night.  So quiet for us, that none of us bothered to wait up for the scheduled fireworks.  Besides, the next morning was a long jaunt through the Cape Cod Canal to Onset.  That meant another 0600 start.   

 

Our morning out of Gloucester included a short Memorial Service for  Maryanne’s dad, Ed Murphy at N42°33.890 W070°40.347.  Ed was a Navy man, Sky Marshal, Undercover DEA agent along the eastern seacoast, Boat Builder and Jack-of-all-Trades.  He certainly was the kind of guy who could do, and in fact did, everything.  We had him on Endurance only once, for a day sail to the Isles of Shoals, but he was the type of guy you could cross oceans with.

Sunday afternoon was busy in Onset, but we managed a close-in anchorage and readied for the next day’s run to Block Island.  Tuesday was bright, clear and calm as we began our exit from Onset to start down Buzzards Bay.  In less than a mile though, not out of Onset even,  I thought the engine sound was not quite right.  I checked our stern - we had no exhaust water exiting.  That could mean we would soon be overheating.  We pulled out of the channel and quickly anchored in a shallow spot.  Assuming this was an easy task of replacing the water pump impeller (a task I had done several times before without trouble – foreshadowing here), I set to work.  It was early morning and even with the delay we could still make Block or Port Judith to anchor for the night.

 

Not so easy.  I could not get the impeller to budge.  I blew a fuse to the starter by arcing terminals with my vise grips.  I pulled out some of the rubber fins on the impeller.  I replaced the fuse.  At Darrell’s suggestion, we realized that it would be prudent to shut off the battery so as not to make the same mistake.  Then pulled more fins off the impeller.  Then realized that no progress was made.  So,…a call to Sea Tow.  And in the dead stillness of Buzzard’s Bay we were towed the short distance to Burr Bros. Boatyard in Marion, a place that we had used before and trusted completely. 

 

But, it was Labor Day so we wouldn’t be able to see a tech until Tuesday.  Burr Bros. only had a dock hand and a launch driver working for the day.  They managed to find us a mooring knowing our predicament.  We had a nice walk about Town, an ice cream and a nice afternoon despite being skunked by Darrell in cribbage.

      SKUNKED!

 

The next day the tech arrived and had the same problem with the intractable (now embarrassingly near fin-less) impeller.  His plan then was to remove the water pump and take it into the shop to pull things apart.  Luckily, he had to return to shore for the right tools.  He came back with another tech and together they were able to get the nearly nude impeller out and replace it with a new one (of four) that I had on board.  We were good to go about 2:00 in the afternoon.

 

Oh, did I mention that the day before the launch driver asked if we had checked our sea water intake?  Maybe it was just clogged.  Well, that comment kept me awake for a good part of the night.  And in the early morning I opened the Sea Strainer … no water rushed out.  I took the hose off the sea water intake and…no water rushed out.  We then connected a hose to the anchor washdown pump on the bow and blew water into the sea water intake.  Guess what.  Sea water gushed out.  Turns out that process was easier than destroying the impeller.  Well, the impeller was a year overdue for replacement anyway.  

 

Darrell had the helm at night as we passed Block Island and its offshore wind turbines to 

the South.

 

 

We decided to run straight to Delaware Bay in order to stay ahead of expected deteriorating weather.  Back on that 200 NM delivery run.  We heard NOAA’s Small Craft Advisory for western Long Island that night and didn’t think it would affect us.  We are not a “small craft”.  And NOAA considers anything over 20 knots of wind merits a warning.  What we missed was the 15-20 foot waves off the Long Island coast.  We didn’t miss the waves, we missed the information.  The waves did catch up to us on our stern quarter all night and into the next day.  I remember telling Darrell that he was lucky it was dark, otherwise the waves might scare him.

 

We arrived relatively unscathed at the Lewes, Delaware anchorage (a Harbor of Refuge behind a huge breakwater) at about 5:00 in the morning.  That must have been Wednesday.  It was still pitch dark.  Damn these shorter autumn days.  We passed four (or more) boats at anchor and dropped ours for a well-earned respite.  Hmmm, you might be wondering, where is Tess???  Tess was delightfully below making lunch, or snacks, or breakfast or dinner; or maybe she was cleaning a wee bit right up until she could actually have been Helpful by taking a watch from Block to Lewes.  But, no.  On the few occasions Tess made it from berth to cockpit, the first order of business was to open the starboard panel and puke overboard.  Confirming the other stalwart crew were at least alive and apparently of sound mind despite the obvious reasons to doubt that, Tess then went back to the berth to lay flat on her back until the rise, fall, slip, wiggle, wiggle (and every fifth wave, Slam) passed.

 

A short respite though.  We were up and off anchor by 0930 and headed up, or rather across, Delaware Bay.  We tacked way too much trying to take advantage of the wind we had but were pushed back by the current and ebbing tide so made virtually no headway for the first 90 minutes plus.  While no longer puking overboard, Tess did have a few directed questions as to Why we were tacking over and over rather than just Getting On With It????   Finally, …. Giving it all up, we motored into it, ran through the C&D Canal in the dark (again) and dropped a 10:00 PM anchor in the Bohemia River in the northern part of Chesapeake Bay.

 

   

Friday was an easy sail to Baltimore.

 

 

So we planned a lunch stop meet-up with Darrell’s high school friend (remember these guys are in their post-mid-sixties now) Bruce Petrovick We set a rendezvous at Seven Foot Shoal where the Patapsco River (our route to Baltimore) veers off the Bay.  Well, we see Pegasus coming out of Rock Hall –a beautiful wooden replica of a 1930s era, junk-rigged ketch.  Nothing electric on this boat.  And certainly not over-powered engine-wise.  We were at anchor so I called out for them to come along our lee side and throw us lines so we could haul them alongside. Did Tony mention these guys are all 65+.  Not using radios or cell phones, they communicated by yelling boat to boat….effective as tacking up the Delaware yesterday…. SO…. Pegasus pulled ahead of us, their anchor went overboard across ours and they came along our windward side with a clatter and a (few) bangs.  They then drifted behind us (luckily they only had a rope anchor rode and we have a full keel, so they didn’t catch hold of our bottom) and came along out lee side.  One bent stanchion (theirs) but finally sorted out for a visit and brief lunch break.

We did get a visit from one police boat (and an odd look from a second) checking that we weren’t “in distress”.  Anxious, but not distressed.

 

The send-off was just as chaotic.  Our chain was picked up by their anchor, so we let out all 250 feet of our chain.  Still, they swung toward us threateningly.  Pole off.  Fended off, Bruce hauling and hefting to get his rode in.  Somehow their old fisherman’s anchor dropped our chain and Bruce finished pulling up his rope rode.  Allby hand.  A real lesson for us.  Who knew we had it so good?  And, so easy.   As we began our anchor-up, Bruce was jumping across his deck to hoist his sails, by hand.  This guy is in shape!  

 

Back in Baltimore for dinner at Mamas on the Half Shell. Saturday morning BWI and Southwest had Darrell back to Maine for his grandson’s 2^nd Birthday and a family reunion.  For us, two days of reorganizing on Hickory Avenue for a quick flight to NOLA on Monday.  We would deal with the boat clean up later.

 

 

 

 

More Catching Up to Do.  Getting caught up here has taken a back seat (way back), to the seemingly endless planning, list making, shopping, boat chores, Salty Dawg seminars and fretting over logistics preparatory for leaving Baltimore for Antigua.  On a cold, wet and dark Sunday in Baltimore (thanks to Hurricane Ian), let’s at least get started.

 

Delivery to Thomaston.  August 8 George arrived from Port St. Lucie. On the 9^th Scott arrived from Port Dover. Clearly, my crew was used to living close to the water. This was to be our boat and crew shakedown for the 1500 NM run to Antigua in November.  We wasted no time in shoving off from Anchorage Marina for our delivery to Thomaston, Maine. In retrospect, we should have taken some time. But, the heat and humidity in Baltimore was unbearable and we wanted an ocean breeze to cool us off.  

 

The plan was a non-stop delivery of about 450 NM from Baltimore to the Lyman Morse Boatyard in Thomaston, Maine for some repairs and updates.  This would take us up to the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, down Delaware Bay and directly offshore past Block Island and into Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts.  From there, out the Cape Cod Canal past Provincetown and directly offshore into the St. George River whose headwaters are at Thomaston. 

 

Across the northern part of Chesapeake Bay and all the way through the C&D Canal to the end of Delaware Bay, no relief from the heat and humidity was provided.  By luck (?) my 2300 to 0200 Watch put me at the helm for the C&D transit.  Hot. Humid. Uncomfortable.  Even transiting the C&D at night was hot. And dark. Hard to stay in the deep water of the channel. And, when we exited into Delaware Bay, plenty of night time cargo ship traffic.  We were hailed by two ships coming out of the Delaware River and headed down Delaware Bay, but despite several attempts I had no response to my call backs.  I just stayed out of the way.  In the dark.  Thank goodness for AIS since it allowed us to see (with their icons showing up on our Chartplotter) and monitor all the big boat traffic and know their position, direction and, most importantly their CPA.  Closest Point of Approach.  Better than Radar since each ship’s name popped up on the screen and, when in doubt, could be hailed directly by name on the radio.  George later reported that transiting Delaware Bay in the dark night, the ships he hailed did not respond when called by name on the VHF radio.  Apparently, we were too small to worry about.  Or, so we thought at the time.  

 

Scott used his new phone to take some pictures of the night time Cargo Ship traffic in Delaware Bay.  His new camera had a fancy night vision or infrared feature that could capture great images in the dark.  The difference in clarity was amazing.

 

Without Night Vision:          

  

With Night Vision:     

I was on watch again at 0200 to 0400 as we exited Delaware Bay. Another convergence point for big ships exiting and entering.  Together with the multitude of lights from shore, buoys and moving ships, it was almost impossible to determine what was what and who was who.  Again, best to stay out of the way.  We were transiting Delaware Bay on the wider Easterly side, but as you pass the channel into Cape May, New Jersey (not an option for us since it is obstructed by a 50 foot fixed bridge) we needed to bear off to starboard to avoid the shoals on that side of the Delaware Bay Entrance.  Of course, that is where the big ships come in and go out, pilot boats hook up with ships to put Bay pilots on or off, and the Ferries between Cape May and Lewes, Delaware cross each other on their tight, straight line to the other side of the Bay.  Lucky to be there for such fun in the dark.

 

Once actually in the ocean things were pretty straight forward. And safer.  And cooler.  We were on a bee line into Buzzards Bay some 200 nautical miles away.  From Baltimore we always have a sense that we are heading North to New York and New England.  But, interestingly, from Delaware Bay the coast of New Jersey bends West and New York City is deep within New York Harbor.  Unseen except for the glow of lights.  We traveled as much East as North essentially (or eventually) parallel to the coast of Long Island.  And, once into Cape Cod Bay the coast bends even more severely as we enter New England, hence our trip would take us Down East into Mid-Coast Maine.

 

Once we reached the Buzzards Bay Light I had an exhilarating feeling of being “home” again.  Our home waters were familiar and we had plenty of experience here and knowledge of harbors, anchorages and services.  Nothing to it, right?

 

But again, I drew the Night Watch transit of the Cape Cod Canal.  The bright lights of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy on the western entrance were reassuring.  The train bridge was up (it usually runs at night to carry trash off the Cape) so we had no obstacles in sight.  And we were about to pick up a favorable current.  I was expecting a fast transit.

 

If the C&D Canal was tough, the Cape Cod Canal was scary.  It is well lit along both sides.  But the lights reflected off the water and often crossed each other so that it was hard to distinguish which light was real and which was a reflection.  And which side was which.  And the traffic.  A strangely lit vessel passed going in the other direction early on.  I only saw white lights approaching.  A tow, perhaps?  But it was moving fast.  I felt like I barely escaped its path.  No other boats were seen but the cars kept coming.  And going.  Brake lights.  Headlights.  On both sides of the Canal.  Were they Aids to Navigation?  Not if they moved like that.  And, finally, the Power Plant at Sandwich.  Before I realized what it was (though I was expecting it, I wasn’t expecting how it would be lit), it appeared as a gigantic array of multi-colored lights  a hundred feet high, and I couldn’t tell which side of the Canal it was on.  Dawn comes slowly when you are dim.  I finally realized that it should be kept to Starboard.  Forgive my zigzagging.  

But the sun came out in Cape Cod Bay.

Speaking of zigzagging, some astute follower of our Iridium Go! track noted our arrival in Maine with the following query: “It was pretty cool to track your course up to Maine and I can see you are now docked.  It looked like you doubled back at some point close to Brewster Massachusetts.  I was curious what prompted that?”

 

Well, thanks for your question, Paul.  And, thanks for asking us to own up to our mistakes at Sea.  Mistakes do happen.  And this was mine. 

 

What happened was - we usually run the motor at 2700 RPMs. At that rate we burn One Gallon of diesel an hour. Coming out of Delaware Bay in the middle of the night I saw that we were at 2900 RPMs. I thought nothing of it since we were making great time.

 

As we left Cape Cod Bay and we were almost to Gloucester (though a good 40 plus miles offshore) George (our resident diesel mechanic) explained that at 2900 RPMs our burn rate grew exponentially.  We were burning about One and a Half Gallons of diesel an hour. In other words, we ran out of fuel.  We were motor sailing at the time (about 1400 – that is, 2PM) and had to decide what to do.  Since the wind was about 10 knots at best and behind us, we determined that sailing to Gloucester (though on a slowish broad reach) or anywhere north (at almost walking pace) would put us somewhere after all available fuel sources were closed.  The fastest point of sail was to turn around and head back toward Cape Cod.  We did.  And, thanks to Scott’s tremendous sailboat racing skills, we had the best sail of the trip at 6 and 7 plus knots the whole way. 

 

While Scott sailed us back toward Cape Cod, George and I examined our fuel and engine issues.  The Racor Fuel Filter was full to the top with water picked up from the bottom of the fuel tank.  Uh, oh.  This could be a disaster.  If water managed to get into the engine we would have a real problem needing a serious engine overhaul.  But, the engine just stopped cold.  It did not sputter.  That could be a good sign.  We removed the secondary fuel filter on the engine itself.  It was half-full of water.  Get it?  Half-full!!  That means that there wasn’t enough water in the tank to reach the engine.  Hurrah!  Disaster avoided.  

 

We switched the Filter Boss manifold from Racor #1 to Racor #2 and should be good to go.  Once we had fuel again.  I explained to George that our first ever fuel issue was in the Alligator River heading South in the ICW to Florida years ago.  In addition to being walked through the Algae Un-Clogging Process by Sea Tow via phone (there is a picture of the dead mouse-looking obstruction in our October 16, 2010 blog entry), it was suggested that I cut a quarter-inch off the fuel intake line at the bottom of the tank.  This would, presumedly, help guard against picking up water and crud at the bottom of the tank.  This, I did.

 

George suggested that we look in the tank.  What we found was more water.  Scott and I used a hand pump to get another quart of water off the bottom.  Luck was with us.  Though I note that in addition to my 2900 RPM miscalculation, the water intrusion was likely the result of my failure to fill the fuel tank when the boat was winterized the previous Fall.  This would have prevented the well-known problem of water condensation forming in the tank as it cools and heats over several months of inactivity.  Lesson learned?  No, I knew what the right thing to do was.  Lethargy, yes.  Is there any cure for that?

 

We attempted to hail Sea Tow on the VHF Radio with no response.  Finally, we tried the Coast Guard to advise them of our situation and plan.  No response.  We switched to a hand-held radio.  That approach reached the Coast Guard and they relayed our request for a tow or fuel to Sea Tow and we were able to reach Sea Tow by phone as we sailed closer to Provincetown. 

 

SeaTow met us off the northern point of Provincetown at about 4:00 with 15 gallons of fuel.  And they told us that the only source of fuel in Provincetown would close at 6:00 but required us to be at the fuel dock by 5:45 in order to get fuel.  I called myself and was told “no exceptions” and we would need to wait till morning. 

 

Well, P’Town was about 2 hours away at that point. But we motored on at 3100 RPMs (we had 15 gallons of fuel to waste) to try to beat the clock.  Down the long arm of the Cape, the long turn toward the harbor and the long slog inside the harbor toward P’Town itself.  When about halfway to the P’Town breakwater at 5:40 I radioed the marina and (as innocent sounding as I could – and hoping they didn’t recognize me as the guy who was told “no exceptions”) I told them that we were at the breakwater and asked if the fuel dock was free for us to take on fuel. They said yes.  And at 5:55 we tied off and took on 80 gallons of diesel in our 140 gallon tank. 

 

We were off the dock by 6:10 and back on our plan.  We did not reach our turnaround point off Gloucester until about 11:00 PM.  But, we sailed all morning and into the afternoon on a great run toward Maine. 

 

In short, the unexpected “emergency” was not really an emergency (we could have sailed anywhere - though slowly). It was a great test of our crew cohesiveness, good sense and flexibility.  George and Scott claim that I did it on purpose just to test them.  In any event it was intended as a shakedown cruise for our November sail to the Caribbean.  And, we all learned this and several other lessons that will suit us well next trip.  So we hope. 

 

We arrived in Thomaston at 5:30 PM on Friday without further incident.  The lost day for fuel was forgotten as we approached the rock and pine covered islands of Mid-Coast Maine.  And the narrow, lobster pot filled St. George.  The river is actually quite wide, but most of it is a huge mud flat at low tide.  Important to stay in the channel.

 

 

Best of all we were met at the dock by Tess, hot showers and dinner at the Thomaston café.  After dinner Tess went back to her Bed & Breakfast (a real Inn, not an Airbnb!) and we went back to the boat for the night.  I was quick to bed, leaving a bottle of rum on the table for my intrepid crew.  Despite the rum, we were all up early for the crew to wash the boat, and me to clean the interior.  Tess arrived once we were done, we dropped all the laundry off in Rockland for someone else to deal with, and we headed to Brunswick for lunch and Scott’s afternoon flight back to Canada.  Then we moved into the gorgeous B&B that Tess had found.

 

 

Sunday was a Site Seeing Day in Camden, including a hike to the tower overlooking Camden Harbor.

 

We had to wait until Monday to confer with the Boatyard on our work list:  Radar cable extension, new through hull to service the Air Conditioner and Water Maker, shaft and prop zincs and grease, bilge pump float switch replacement, solar panel control swap out (for warranty repair or replacement), and – wonder of wonders – VHF Radio swap out (for warranty repair or replacement).  No wonder no one answered our radio transmissions.  The radio wasn’t transmitting.  We agreed that the solar panel fix was secondary so we could wait for it (to be shipped to Baltimore for us to swap out ourselves).  But, we couldn’t leave Maine without a working ship’s radio.  It had to go to California and wasn’t expected back for two weeks.  George flew back to Florida.  Tess and I drove back to Baltimore.  We would return when all was done.

Next Up:  The return from Thomaston.

 Tracking is now available.

Check out our Tacking Maps from PredictWind via the Iridium GO! and SPOT.  We are now in Thomaston for some touch up work before heading South.

 Sailing onward...

Our last post was in July 2014.  That was a long, long time ago.  Much has happened.  Endurance went on the hard in Baltimore in July 2014.  Our first grandchild, Hattie, was born in New Orleans in June 2014.  As a result, we moved to New Orleans for Hattie's first year.  Then Cletus was born in Baltimore in September 2015.  We moved back to Baltimore.  And Jack in New Orleans in August 2016.  The result, Endurance stayed put for three years while we moved between grandkids.  It was great (and still is)! 

2017 and 2018 did get us back to New Hampshire for the Summer Seasons where we were based out of Kittery Point Yacht Yard.  And in the Winter of 2019, Endurance headed to the Bahamas and, after a great trip down the ICW with Alison as our Chef de Cuisine, was based out of the Abacos.  But, the return to Baltimore was fraught with issues.  The things needing attention, fixing or replacement was a growing frustration.  On arrival, my first words were "I'm ready to sell".  Instead, Tess insisted on a renewed commitment.  We sailed to Lyman Morse Boatbuilding in Thomaston, Maine for a fairly complete re-fit.

Despite Covid, we were able to spend the Summers of 2020 and 2021 sailing out of Camden, Maine.  The bays and anchorage of Maine were empty that first year as everyone else was quarantined at home or restricted from traveling State to State (as New Hampshire residents we were welcomed in Maine).  But, the Summer of 2021 was packed with tourists and sailors.  Everyone who was ever invited to spend a night aboard Endurance came to Camden to spend time with us.  We often felt like we were running a Bed & Breakfast (& Lunch & Dinner & Lobster Bake) but we had a great time as things got back to "normal".

This Summer of 2022 saw little sailing and much planning.  That plan is a November 2022 sail to Antigua and a Winter in the Caribbean.  If all goes well, we are (or at least I am) looking toward the ARC Europe Rally to Portugal via Bermuda and the Azores in Spring 2023.  We will see.

In the meantime, we have new sailors in the family and are enjoying it all.

Hattie.

Cletus.

Jack.

I think that we will all grow into it.