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.