Home Again

We are back in Winchester after an exciting couple of weeks.

After a peaceful night anchored at Fishers Island, we continued to have gloomy skies but otherwise favorable conditions for our trip North. Our first post-Fisher’s stop was Cuttyhunk, one of my favorite way stations in New England. Cuttyhunk is the southernmost island in the Elizabeth Island chain, technically in Massachusetts, but worlds away from civilization. It can only be reached by private boat, mail boat or seaplane, and feels like an old-time summer colony, especially when the population swells from two dozen in the winter to nearly 200 when summer comes. There are no land services to speak of beyond the library, a small general store, and an outdoor pizza restaurant (run out of someone’s basement with six picnic tables beside a pond.) Inscrutably, however, there is an in-water raw-bar in the form of a Boston Whaler that cruises the mooring field at happy hour each night with four enthusiastic college-aged students on board shucking local oysters and selling them over the side to visiting boats. You can also call them on the marine radio (Channel 9) to order fresh shellfish.

Another long day of sailing took us through the Cape Cod Canal to Provincetown. Our friends Dennis and Liz Whittemore, and their daughter Corrine, sailed their new boat Panache to Provincetown to meet us. We had a great time, with the girls swimming off the boat each day and all of us exploring local shops, restaurants, bike trails and beaches.

Provincetown is a very unique place, a ménage of cultures which include a traditional Portugese fishing community, a century-old artists colony, and a gay summer community, complete with drag queens and local favorites the Bare Naked Laddies (modestly clad in miniscule briefs, cowboy boots and ten gallon hats) strutting their finery up and down Commercial Street on warm summer evenings. Somehow the mix seems to work, and the result is a charming community with great seafood, many galleries and a fun evening vibe.

After a great weekend both boats set out to return to Marblehead on Sunday, a sunny, bright day with perfect wind. Almost an hour out, however, we hit a fog bank and visibility dropped to near-zero in a matter of moments. Since we were close to a shipping lane, we quickly deployed the radar and while this enabled us to avoid oncoming traffic, we were soon separated from Panache. After a quick cell conversation, both ships decided to return to Provincetown. It took a couple of days to wait out the fog, but we were glad we did when we had a pleasantl sail to Marblehead later in the week.

It was wonderful to see Marblehead harbor again after almost a year away. As always, we were greeted by nearly 1,000 sailboats that call the harbor home, and after a little searching we soon found our new mooring, right next to Valiant, an early winner of the America’s Cup and the inspiration for the manufacturer of our boat to call its company Valiant Yachts. Nice neighborhood!

So, we are now back in Winchester. Our house seems enormous after ten months on our boat and things are certainly chaotic as we unpack both from Serendipity and our attic. Amelia has taken out every one of her toys to play with, allocating only a few minutes for each. Every time I stop in town I run into a friend or neighbor, often several – a far cry from many months dealing with strangers at every turn. While the sense of community is fantastic, it is also a little disorienting, and I wonder if we can give up our wandering ways.

Another Bite of the Big Apple

This past week found us back in New York City, moored once again at the 79th Street Boat Basin. We arrived here after a 36 hour sail directly from the C&D canal, with an early morning departure to sail down the Delaware River and skip over New Jersey.

The weather reports were clear when we left, but in the early evening, off Atlantic City, clouds began to gather until a thunderstorm system descended like a black hand over our boat. We’ve had bad weather before, but this was pretty frightening as night fell and a severe lightening storm raged overhead. I grew even more concerned after we heard a boat a few miles ahead of us, the Monica, make a series of panicked calls to the Coast Guard seeking to report their position in case they capsized. Luckily, Dave had the first night watch, and tethered in, while I tried to get a little sleep down below. After being thrown out of bed twice by the waves, things calmed down a lot, and by morning we had dry weather as we breezed into New York Harbor.

After recovering from our overnight, we had a chance to take advantage of all that NYC has to offer, getting together with friends for dinners and drinks, exploring museums with Amelia, taking walks in Central Park, running along the Hudson River and taking in an Amelia-approved Broadway show (Mary Poppins). It really was the perfect NYC long weekend, made even more fun by our location right in the heart of the Upper West Side.

Anxious to make miles towards home, we left early Tuesday morning and sailed down the Hudson, around the Battery and up the East River to Long Island Sound. We had a fantastic sailing day with strong winds and favorable currents, averaging over 7 knots, until the engine failed in the middle of Long Island Sound. After a little diagnosis, Dave determined that the boat was heeled over so far that, despite having a quarter tank of diesel, the engine intake was getting insufficient fuel. We refueled in Stamford, CT, and stayed overnight there, before continuing to Fishers Island today. And that is where we are, in a peaceful anchorage, ready for a quiet night before continuing north.

Back in Back Creek

We had a spectacular sail from St. Michaels to Annapolis and find ourselves, three weeks later, back in Back Creek (part of Annapolis where we spent November of last year). We’ve found that Annapolis is much livelier during the late spring and summer, definitely living up to it’s reputation as “America’s Sailing Capital.”

Soon after arriving here we were joined by our boating friends from Wyoming and spent a fun week together before their trip, sadly, came to an end. Together we had a chance to explore the restaurants of Annapolis, ranging from absolute dives (Dave’s choice – a Mexican café) to a fine French bistro (Tim’s choice and a real treat). Dave and Tim also took the kids into Washington to see the sights and to Baltimore for a return visit to the aquarium.

We have been docked at Jabin’s Yacht Yard, one of the largest boat yards on the East Coast. It is a very busy place, with boats constantly coming and going. We took advantage of our situation by having Serendipity hauled out for inspection (happy to see no damage from our 15 run-agrounds on the ICW) and some minor maintenance.

Our location in Annapolis also enabled me to return briefly to Boston twice. The first trip back was to attend my tenth Harvard Business School reunion. I co-chaired the event (an interesting job to do remotely over the past year) so had to be there to host. It was an incredibly fun four days of great events, with nearly 900 attendees, culminating in a spectacular gala at the Boston Public Library. I really enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with many classmates and old friends. I must admit it took me a full day of grooming appointments in Boston (hair cut, hair color, manicure, dentist, and dress alterations) to shake the salt off. The second trip was a brief visit for a training session at HBS; another fun opportunity to re-connect with colleagues. On both trips, it was a little strange being back in our big, empty house and walking the streets of our tiny town. It felt very odd after the wide open spaces we are used to, and gave me a little glimpse of some of the challenges we will likely face on our return.

Between trips, Dave, Amelia and I had a chance to do some more regional exploring. We rented a car and drove to Charlottsville, VA, so that we could see Monticello, Jefferson’s rural Virginia home. Touring his home (also his muse) gave us a chance to gain additional insight into this very interesting historical figure. We were also able to visit the University of Virginia (although we realize Amelia is a little young for college tours) and we drove back along Skyline Drive through the beautiful Shenandoah Mountains. After getting back, we also had an opportunity to spend some time with a former classmate, Logan Smith, and his family, who have taken up residence in Annapolis, and kindly shared their local pool and barbequeing prowess with us.

We are now waiting out some unfavorable weather, but expect to say goodbye to Annapolis tomorrow morning at 5:00 am as we sail out of Back Creek and continue up the Chesapeake Bay toward home.

Lovely St. Michaels, MD

We have had this spectacular view of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum from our boat for the past week. The museum, which features a variety of Chesapeake marine heritage exhibits including boatbuilding, lighthouse tending, fishing, crabbing and oystering, is located in lovely St. Michaels Maryland on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake. St. Michaels, a beautiful little town with many cute shops and restaurants, is also known as “the town that fooled the British.” During the revolutionary war, town residents hung lanterns from the treetops and tops of masts and then blacked out town lights, tricking the British into overshooting the town during a nighttime bombardment. Aiming at the treetops, the British missed the town completely, except for one wayward cannonball which is still lodged in a historic building here.

When we arrived mid week, the harbor and town were almost empty and we were able to anchor with only a few other boats in a well-protected inner harbor close to the museum. Then the Memorial Day weekend arrived and the harbor overflowed with arriving boats and people. As the anchorage filled with boats quickly and overflowed into several less-protected anchorages nearby on the Miles River, we became more acquainted with the politics of anchoring.

Since anchoring is free and dock space in the St. Michaels marinas is about $130/night for a boat our size (more for larger boats), many boaters prefer to anchor in the harbor and go ashore via dingy. Accordingly, space in our well-protected anchorage was highly desirable and attracted a seemingly endless stream boats looking for room to anchor. Some with anchoring experience realized there was no more room to anchor safely but others were anxious to get to town and didn’t consider the consequences. From a the friendly people on a nearby sailboat, we learned about doing the “Chicken Dance” on the bow of our boat (standing up with a stern expression and hands on hips with elbows out and waving) to ward off boats that try to anchor too close. When the Chicken Dance failed to work, the next step was to loudly say things like “You’re NOT thinking of anchoring there are you?” and then to getting the bumpers out to ward off the inevitable collisions with other boats swinging at anchor.

We only experienced one collision, which was more comical than damaging. The boat in question had an odd anchoring technique (careening around the anchorage rapidly in reverse), bypassed us, and then immediately ran hard aground, reversed again and hit another boat and then ours. Observing their lack of experience, we had dangled large bumpers and managed to avert serious damage when they hit us. They, in the meantime, had hung out a teabag-sized bumper which was useless. Red faced, they moved on to a marina where the dockhands were able to help them properly secure their boat.

Sailing in the Chesapeake Bay has been truly wonderful, with great winds, scenic shores and wonderful places to visit. It is also incredibly popular, and it is fun to watch the wide array of boats and ships that ply the waters here. We look forward to more sailing and exploring in the Chesapeake over the next few weeks before continuing our adventure north toward New England.

Hanging out in the Chesapeake

One of the last things to do before leaving “the Ditch” near Portsmouth Virginia is pass through some locks which connect the higher-level Chesapeake Bay waters with the lower-level ICW. While holding our boat’s dock lines in the lock and waiting for the water to rise, I noticed a sign with mileages to various destinations including “Jacksonville Florida, 750 miles” and “Boston, Massachusetts - 720 miles”. This drove home the fact that we are, in fact, well over halfway home.

We’ve spent the past two weeks hanging out in the lower Chesapeake Bay, visiting Norfolk Virginia for a few days (a nice surprise, I expected a town which was primarily industrial but it turned out to have a lot of interesting neighborhoods and history). We rented a car and visited Colonial Williamsburg, which is a town-sized living history museum, did some sailing on the Chesapeake and anchored for three days in lovely, quiet, Mobjack Bay. With nowhere to land our dingy nearby (all of the shorefront is privately owned), a local homeowner took pity on me and invited me to use his dock so that I could come ashore for a run. He then suggested a running loop which was nearly three times as long as the “about three miles” he said it was, but I guess he felt guilty for his misdirection because he circled twice in his pickup truck to make sure I was ok. The countryside in this part of Virginia – which I now know rather intimately – is lovely, comprised of historic plantations, pastoral horse farms and quiet roads.

We are now in the delightful town of Urbanna, Virginia, population 600, which pretty much shuts down except on weekends, so things have been very quiet. This has not been a problem, since driving rain and high winds have kept us boat bound for two days. Yesterday we braved the elements at Amelia’s insistence to go out for pizza and celebrate Mother’s Day. This turned out to be an enormous mistake because, as we ate our pizza, we watched through the window to see a hurricane level storm develop. The proprietor was kind enough to drive us back to our marina but we still got thoroughly soaked. We all have a little cabin fever and are looking forward to the storm moving on tomorrow so that we can spend time outside our boat and even go somewhere.

We plan to continue exploring the Chesapeake over the next few weeks including visits to Oxford, Cambridge and St. Michaels on the eastern shore before visiting Annapolis at the end of the month. Along the way, we hope to rendezvous with our boating friends from Wyoming, who plan to explore some of the same waters for the month of May.

"Nothing but fun. . ."

Earlier this week, cruising up the ICW through Myrtle Beach NC, we gave Amelia a choice about where we should stop and spend the night. She could select between two places where we had stayed on our way south: the nice resort with the extensive pool complex or the outlet mall with a low amenity dock. To our great surprise, she chose the outlet mall over the pool and when we asked why, she told us that she remembered it and it was “nothing but fun.”

She was right, of course. There we had a chance to visit a traveling zoo with baby tigers, walk the bridge across an alligator-infested swamp, ride the flying horses and stop for pizza and then ice cream. From a six year old’s perspective, a perfect afternoon.

In a way, she is right about our entire trip as well. What we thought would be a family adventure with a little pina-coloda-on-the-beach thrown in has actually turned out to be more like an extended vacation, with all the good and bad of a long family road trip. Our boat is our station wagon, the ICW is Route 66, and the many roadside attractions are just along the waterfront.

We are now in Morehead City, NC, just outside Beaufort (pronounced “Bow-fort” unlike its South Carolina cousin Beaufort “Bew-fort”). We have been told by fellow boaters that the Bridge Tender in Beaufort, SC, who opens the bridge for passing boats, will not respond to boats that call on the radio until the correct pronunciation is used. We didn’t have a problem so we must have done it right.

Today, we are on our way to a beautiful little town on the Pamlico Sound called Oriental, NC, where we are looking forward to improving our docking score from the “judges” on the Bean’s front porch. We may even be featured on the Town's Harbor Webcam at www.towndock.net.

Doing the Charleston

Charleston is full of history, having played significant roles in both the American Revolution and Civil War. The Civil War (also known locally as “The War Between the States” or “The War of Northern Aggression” to some) started here in Charleston when the Confederate troops attacked the Union troops at Fort Sumter and took over the fort. They held the fort for most of the war, thereby controlling access to Charleston harbor, then the richest port in the US. Amelia and Harmony, her friend from Wyoming, had a great time last week exploring Fort Sumter and seeing a reenactment of Confederate rifle tactics.

The next day, we visited a preserved plantation and learned about the planter economy in South Carolina and why it led to pressure for southern succession. At the time of the Civil War, seven of the ten richest Americans were South Carolina plantation owners. By the end of the war, most of the plantation owners’ wealth had been lost. Charleston has been a wonderful classroom for learning about history, geography, economics and natural history. We have taken advantage of the many opportunities to interest and engage our daughter, and even learn a little ourselves in process. One of the dockhands who moonlights here at the Charlestown Maritime Center, where we have been docked for over three weeks, is also a professional historian and re-enactor. Several times Amelia has prepared lists of questions for him (Why did the British wear red coats? What did the King think about the Declaration of Independence? Why was it against the law for slaves to go to school?) which he patiently answered.

Charleston is also a really fun town with beautiful restored homes and gardens, fantastic restaurants and wonderful harbor views. We’ve had a chance to see a lot of it during our three weeks. Our marina is well located, just steps from the aquarium (we bough a membership and have gone many times) and a short walk from downtown and the historic district. The lawn adjoining our marina is also used as a special events space, so there is a wedding or event here nearly every weekend evening. This is a little noisy, but means that we’ve also been able to sample the best of local bands from the privacy of our boat. Amelia has taken to dancing on deck to the ones she likes best. Earlier this week, guests at a rehearsal dinner at our marina – the bride was from Charleston and the groom from New Jersey -- were given sweatshirts that read either “North” or “South” in big block letters. The party proceeded to have a North vs. South baseball game. So I guess that with a little time and perspective even historic conflicts can be put aside.

We were thrilled when our friends from Wyoming sailed directly from the Bahamas (three days and two nights!) to join us for a week, and their company made our time here even more fun. We rented cars and all went to Savannah, another great southern city, for an overnight visit. Harmony and Amelia had a great time exploring, visiting the aquarium together and having sleepovers. One of Charleston’s more practical attractions has been its well served airport, enabling me to easily fly home to Canada for a few days to help out with my folks. My dad is recovering well; my mother is still in the hospital and likely to remain there for some time.

We arrived in Charleston after a slow slog up the ICW from Vero Beach in Florida, punctuated by a short visit to Ferdinanda Beach (it’s claim to historic significance is that the town was run by pirates for several decades) and a magical visit to Cumberland Island, a beautiful barrier island accessible only by boat and preserved as a national park. The island has many armadillos and herds of beautiful wild horses, and we had the opportunity to get close enough to get a good look as we hiked on the beach.

This week is race week in Charleston, and also the week of the local in-water boat show. There are many beautiful sailboats racing in the harbor daily, and watching them sail has made us yearn to be underway. We are a little sad to leave beautiful Charleston, but look forward to the next stage of our adventure as we continue our trek north.