ocean blue

Here we are in Chesapeake city. As I sit in the cockpit of our boat, I am surrounded by like minded travelers having just finished the sail up the Delaware Bay and have finally made it to Chesapeake City and the feeling around me is great. There is a buzz in the air as we meet boat after boat doing the same trip as us. Most of the couples and/or families we meet are doing this trip for the first time and some we meet are veterans, but it doesn't matter cause everyone is here and "living the dream".

As we sailed out of New York city and past lady liberty, it finally hit me..."Wow...we're really doing this...and this is the ocean that lay infront of us". A little nervous??? Sure. A little excited??? Definitely.
We waited a day for the right weather and made our way down the Jersey coast via the Atalantic ocean. We headed down the coast with a NW wind and we flew...we had a great first ocean sail. We saw schools of fish everywhere and were desperately trying to catch them from the stern of the boat (Mike has now spent a small fortune of fishing gear and has suddenly become Mr. Fisherman....it's quite funny). Anyway...we entered the inlet to a little fishing town to anchor for the night and found out what entering an inlet off the ocean was like. I don't quite know how to describe what it was like.


We had about 8 foot surf breaking on either side of the jetties and were breaking into the inlet and we had a swell pushing us in and the wind pushing us out...it was ummm...interesting. We made it though, and anchored for the night while about 20 knots of wind gusted all night, but all was well. The next day was pretty much a carbon copy of the next day except....the wind died 3/4 of the way through and we experienced a much calmer ocean, however with big swell (the southeast swell was coming from hurricane Helene, which was still 1200 miles off the Jersey coast, but her force was still bringing in the swell). It was a great day...my husband the fisherman was trying like hell to catch us dinner, but that night we had pasta...with no fish. We finally entered Cape May, just as the sun was setting. Thankfully we had a buddy boat ahead of us (Aunt Emma) that helped us through the darkening inlet. Cape May is the point the separates Delaware Bay and the Atlantic ocean and once here our next feat was to sail up Delaware bay. We took the next day off and enjoyed the lovely town of Cape May.
A huge fishing village that has catered to cruisers travelling via the cape may canal from the atlantic into Delaware bay. We had a great meal in the cape and anchored with some really great people and made the plan with another boat to leave the next day. 5:00am we were pulling up anchor ready to pass through the canal and enter Delaware. We had to leave early because we were told that if you time the tide, current, wind, waves just right...you'll never see your boat go faster. Hmmm...that sounded like fun. Well...travelling through the canal in the dark isn't a good idea, but we had to do it and our young eyes led 3 boats through safely. After that small feat we were introduced to 25 knot winds as we entered the bay...this was going to be an interesting ride. We had an uncomfortable, harry first 2 hours, but we were able to head off the wind a bit a before we knew it Meggie was flying. I don't just mean regular flying...I mean FLYING. At one point when a huge wave was carrying us and the wind was howling, and the current was maxing, I looked at the gps and we were clocking 10.3 knots. For those of you that don't know what that means...it means Meggie was going faster than she ever has and probably ever will. We had a double reefed main, reefed mizzen, and small storm jib up and we were blown away. Needless to say we had a great sail up the bay and entered the c & d canal and made our way to Chesapeake city. This is where I sit and write this in the cockpit of our boat, listening to the band on land play bob marley and enjoying watching the calmness of the Sunday night.
Well folks...there you have it...a very full detailed post of whats been happening. We're so pleased with Meggie right now, we can't really describe it. We gave her a good bath today and got all the crystalized ocean salt off and plan to anchor in Sassafrass river on the eastern shore of Chesapeake bay for the next few days and get some varnish and work done. Then it's off to Annapolis to hopefully find some work at the show.
As always...keep the messages coming as we love to read them.
Until the next adventure.
Kylie and Mike

Well....we've made our way down the hudson river from Castleton-on-hudson to Manhattan New York, NY. I have to say the cruise down the hudson was a pleasant surprise. Both Mike and I were thinking the hudson was a dirty, boring river with lots of debris we would have to dodge, but to our pleasant surprise the hudson river was stunning, with quaint little towns, beautiful homes and a mountainous views. We had a glorious sunny venture for the most part, and managed to find a great protected anchorage in a small town in Kinston, NY where we enjoyed a quiet night filled with a kazillion stars and great music and enjoyed a great meal which is why I love anchoring. There is nothing like finding a great anchorage that has good protection and great view and you can finally sleep soundly without having to worry about the anchor dragging.

The next day we left Kingston only to find ourselves back at the town dock as we couldn't see a thing once we got into the channel due to an old friend called fog. So we waited it out and managed to head out against the high tide and work our way down. We are new to tides and tidal currents, so for those of you who know Meggie, you know she isn't the fastest boat built and doesn't like to motor so when you put a tidal current of sometimes 4 knots into the mixture, it's sometimes a very slow go. So needless to say, we try and catch the ebb (which is low tide heading out to sea), and when we catch the low tide at the right time we can really cruise and really cruise fast. However, the tidal current is very strong right now so timing is everything.

We made it to Manhattan with the help of some crew we picked up in a fantastic little town called Nyack. Our nephew Harry was aboard Meggie as we (unfortunately motored...not sailed) under the George Washington bridge and into the mooring field on 79 th street. We've had a couple of very soggy days in NYC, but managed to do a bit of sightseeing and went to the museum of modern art and have had a fantastic time with our hosts Martin, Gigi and Harry. We've been eating like crazy, because how can you not when you're in Manhattan. We woke up this morning to beautiful glorious sunshine.
We had forgotten what sun was I think. So currently Mike is attempting to surf on Long Beach and I get to go shopping with Gigi...but not too crazy, everything we purchase needs to be justified as to why it is taking up space.
We continue to meet great people and are fortunate to be in the 79th street boat basin as there are a few boats there heading the same direction as us and we can therefore travel together which is always nice, especially when you're entering the ocean for the first time.
Well...I have to go...the big city is calling and there is lots to do and see. As always, we love the comments and love to hear the news about whats happening with everyone's lives, so keep them coming.
Until next time (which by that time we'll be in the ocean)....
Adios
Kylie and Mike
ps...Sept. 22, 2006. We're in Cape May now and will head up Delaware Bay tomorrwow...I have a whole other page of stories to tell, but will have to wait until next time.

It's been awhile, I know. Since our last post, we finished sailing lake Ontario, took our masts down, had a visitor, motored through the erie barge canal, entered the hudson river and have just put our masts back up.
Lake Ontario was a bit of a chore. We waited for favorable winds, but they never came, it was east wind everyday. We listened to the radio with the hopes that the monotone radio guy would say "south west wind blowing 15 knots", but instead all we heard was "flood watch from Ernesto, east winds 20-25 knots gusts up to 30" and of course our heading was 90 east. Not so good for us. So the winds actually weren't that bad it was just the waves we had to deal with, so we got to Rochester and waited a day for better weather, and slogged our way to Oswego. Oh...and we got great news in Rochester..

CONGRATULATIONS TO JASON AND TERA......WELCOME BABY AJA JANE TO THIS WORLD......

Ok...so once in Oswego, we took our masts down and headed south. My mom was lucky enough to spend a rainy long weekend with us aboard a demasted Meggie in a very very small town called Minetto with 1 bar (that we didn't go to as it looked like an old house that someone put a neon sign in and called it a bar), but even though it rained the WHOLE time and we were confined to the small cabin aboard Meggie, we had a great time and lots of laughs, which is what it's all about.
After our goodbyes, we headed south until we came to a crossroad (or river) that led us east all the way to Waterford, NY.
The NY canal system is basically just a river with locks along the way. The canal is very easy going and other than steer, we had to keep an eye out for debris.

The river experienced high flooding in June which led to the closing of many locks and fortunately all were open as we traversed. The damage to the locks was minimal, but the grounds and buildings around the locks were severly damaged.The river reminded me of different things...sometimes I felt like we were in the movie deliverence, and other times it was so beautiful you would think you were in the amazon river. I would periodically say "Mike...there's a croc...look out." or "I think I see some hippos over there." Let me just say that it's a LONG river and yes...I think I may have gone just a touch crazy some days. It's funny the things you think of when you have hours and hours to do nothing...and it's really funny the songs that get stuck in your head. I had skip to my lou stuck in my head for 3 days...how crazy!


Anyway....we made it to Waterford, where we were smack dab in the middle of a tugboat roundup celebration with about 30 tugs, so we stayed for a day to give Meggie a rest and to regain some sanity and be amongst other humans, before finally heading SOUTH.
So from now on our heading is south and only south.
We're now sitting in the Castleton-on-Hudson marina finishing up the last few jobs that come along with raising the masts and then we'll make our way to NYC and should hopefully arrive by the end of the week and spend a few days with Mike's brother Martin and his family.
So we'll keep you posted and don't give up on us even though I may be a bit tardy with our updates.
Keep well everyone, and until next time....
Kylie and Mike