Monday, 7th October, 2019

The New Jersey coast is likely to be the toughest part of this trip.  It’s 120 nm of sandy beaches with limited harbors.  And the harbors that do exist often have warnings about entering with strong winds and tides, which could restrict safe times to enter.  And the prevailing winds are from the SW, so we could expect to be beating, which is our slowest point of sail. 

So we were initially happy to see Northerly winds in the forecast for the next several days, which would mean we could manage longer distances and reduce the total time to transit the coast.  

However, the forecasts are now calling for NE winds up to 40 knots, with waves up to 14ft!  That’s a little too much “good” news!  We’re staying put here for a few days. 

The new “good” news is that the forecast is calling for the winds and seas to tail off, but still remain N or NW or even W by Sunday and Monday so we still may have the opportunity of making a fast passage along this stretch of coast.  Of course forecast’s change, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on them this week.  Incidentally W winds would be perfect.  It would put us on a reach, a sailboat’s fastest point of sail, and the winds would be coming off the land, so the seas would not have time to build up and would be relatively flat, what us sailors call a weather shore. 

We’re on a mooring inside a well-protected breakwater, with a launch service to take us to shore in the strong winds, our wind generator is providing us will all the electricity we need, and Atlantic Highlands has plenty of amenities – restaurants, pubs, grocery, laundromat and even a casino – so we’re just going to enjoy a few days off and may even get rich!

We took our bikes ashore and went for a ride along the Bay Shore trail before stocking up on groceries. 

Amazing Grace arrived here a day before us, and we met up with Noel yesterday.  Noel and Annette live here and graciously offered to help with transportation or anything else we need.  They are also heading south and waiting for more reasonable winds.  I suspect another meal out with them is in our future.

Sunday, 6th October, 2019

Teresa woke at 5:30am for a pee, Ron checked the tides and forecast again and decided that 5:32 would be a good time to leave before the 30 knot gusts arrived.  So Teresa didn’t get to go back to bed.  (Sorry Teresa!).  We set off in the dark and motor sailed out of the East River.  After about an hour, dawn broke and we had a not unpleasant motor sail to Atlantic Highlands, 40° 25.203N 074° 01.820W.  We filled up with fuel and water and had a delicious Ham ‘n Eggs brunch, happy to be in harbour while the winds steadily increased all afternoon. 

Ships Log: 6808.3, Trip, 16.3, Trip Total: 132.1.

Saturday, 5th October, 2019

On the way through the East River towards Manhattan is a stretch knows as Hell Gate.  It was originally named hellegat which is Dutch for “bright passage”.  However, currents run so strongly here that its now called Hell Gate.  So we left at first light, (about 6:30am) to ensure that we’d get through with a fair tide.  And with following winds, everything worked out well.  At the end of Hell Gate, Amazing Grace caught us up and proceeded to Atlantic Highlands to wait for the forecast Northerly winds, as we had discussed the previous night.  We continued a mile up the Hudson river and picked up a mooring at Pier25 Marina, 40° 43.629N, 074° 00.839W, right on West Street in downtown NY city. 

After a walk along West Avenue to Battery Park we returned to Quinita and prepared some appetizers for our guests, Marcel and Angela, who were shortly to arrive via the launch service.  We met Marcel in Amsterdam back in 1990 or thereabouts and hadn’t seen him for maybe 15 years.  And this was the first time we had met his lovely wife Angela.  Marcel works for Spotify and obtained some passes for us to visit his high rise office.  Spotify have the top 15 or so floors of the building and Marcel took us to the 72^nd floor.  On a beautiful sunny day the views were spectacular. 

They then took us to Le District, where we had dinner.  Le District is a very, very upmarket version of the eating places often found in shopping malls, serving gourmet French food, wine, beer, etc.  Very nice!

Back on the boat, we checked the forecast for tomorrow’s trip to Atlantic Highlands, (due south of us).  The forecast was for S 10-15 gusting to 30 in the afternoon.  So an early start would be required. 

Ships Log: 6,792.0, Trip, 15.7, Trip Total: 115.8

Thursday, 3rd October, 2019

Yippee, we had E/NE winds today so we decided to go for a longer trip to Manhasset Bay, 40° 49.747N 073° 42.714W, 37nm away.  We left at 7:30 and arrived at 2:30pm, having had mostly 15-20 knot winds behind us all day.  Funny, when you’re beating and the winds are up to 20, you wish for them to decrease to 15, but when you’re running and they’re at 15 you wish for them to increase to 20!  The seas were pretty big again, but they’re much nicer to handle when you’re not bashing into them. 

The only downside of the trip was that it was cold (50°F) and rainy and with the tailwind, we weren’t protected from the weather as we usually are.  We arrived cold and a little damp, but pretty soon had some hot soup and crackers for lunch followed by hot chocolate. 

We’re now 1 day ahead of our provisional plan.  However, we’ll use that day up with a day off tomorrow, because (a) there’s a small craft advisory with 30knt winds in the forecast and (b) we need to arrive at our next destination (Manhattan) on Saturday so that we can meet up with our long lost friend from Amsterdam, Marcel. 

There was another catamaran, Amazing Grace next to our mooring in Westerly owned by Noel and Annette.  They headed south towards Norfolk, VA the day before we left Westerly, and we caught up with them here.  We had an enjoyable dinner with them ashore at Le P’tite Framboise and another aboard Quinita on Friday evening. 

Ships Log: 6,776.3, Trip: 32.4, Trip Total: 100.1

Wednesday 2nd October, 2019

A pleasant day’s sail today, at least compared with yesterday.  The forecast was for westerly winds, and so we opted to head for Mt. Sinai Harbor on the New York side of long Island Sound.  Although further than we had planned, with westerly winds we had a hope of fetching our destination on one tack – a big advantage over tacking back and forth.  Of course, it didn’t quite work out like that.  We had one long leg that took us to the NY coast, and then we had to start tacking.  At least we were only being bounced around a little by the infamous Long Island Sound chop.  Towards the end of the trip, the winds dropped and we ended up motor sailing.  Then, 2 ½ miles from our destination, the wind suddenly died, as much as to say, “you don’t need me anymore”.  Well another hour’s worth would have been nice. 

We picked up a mooring in this very crowded harbor, 40 57.74N 073 02.40W, and cleaned up the boat, just before a shower which provided a very nice rainbow. 

We took the launch ashore for a walk on the beach.  At 6pm in October there were still several people on the beach – mostly swimmers about to pack up.  Not too surprising since we noticed on our boat instruments that the water temperature was 80°F and it was a very warm and humid day. 

We returned to the boat and Teresa served Fettuccini Alfredo with roasted chicken breast.  Very impressive - oh wait, it was warmed up leftovers from a meal out before we left Westerly.  Still very scrumptious though!

Ships Log: 6,743.9, Trip: 35.0, Trip Total: 67.7

Tuesday 1st October, 2019

We’ve cut the chord at last and are on our travels again – towards Wilmington, NC. 

We were beaten up a little today.  We were hard on the wind all day with seas getting bigger and bigger and winds starting at 15 knots and getting stronger and stronger.  We should have reefed earlier and ended up putting in 2 reefs in 30 knot winds.  As a result of us reefing, the winds then calmed down, and we ended up in slop with big waves and not enough wind to power through, so the last 3 miles were not very pleasant motoring. 

But we made it to Westbrook and Safe Harbor Pilots Point Marina, 41 16.27N 72 28.23W.  Very nice and so it should be at that price!  Anyway it makes a change being on a dock with unlimited electricity and water and easy access to shore facilities. 

We took a little bike ride into town to buy milk and explore.  It sure is nice not having to lug the bikes ashore in the dinghy. 

7pm, dark already but we have a pretty sliver of a moon to look at.

Ships Log: 6,708.9, Trip Total: 32.7

Sunday 29th September, 2019

Since 2017, we’ve had a seasonal mooring at Frank Hall Boatyard in Westerly, RI so that Teresa could spend time with her mother in her last years.  Time on the boat has been limited and so was blogging.  We’re now ready to move on and have decided to sell Quinita and focus on more distant travels in upcoming summers.  The plan is to sail to Wilmington, NC where there’s a much bigger catamaran market.  And we’ll also get a “last hurrah” on our final big trip.