HYC Cruise Days 2 and 3 July 26 27 Port Jefferson to Mattituck 29 Miles

Saturday night, Port Jeff Harbor was calm as a birdbath. PC Bruce later pointed out to me that the ferries run very slowly past the mooring field to avoid waking us.
Rain was predicted at about 11 AM on Sunday but it came at 9:30, fortunately while Lene and I were having breakfast in Toast. So it did not mar the funeral.
It was a hot day and I noted the strong wind from the west during the funeral which made it easy for Blast, North Star and Shanghai to make the eastward passage. Tively II tacked back to the Harlem and reported a peak sailing experience. Dan and Mary Jane have an imminent land vacation and could not remain with the fleet.
ILENE made the passage on Monday and the wind was not so great. We were underway from 9 to 2, motoring all the way and with the main up but not doing much good. Three times I put up the genny, but each time the wind soon veered too far directly in front of us, so it luffed and it had to be furled. Lene took the helm for about an hour and a half, while I went below.  Mattituck Creek is a scenic narrow twisty dredged passage to the basin where Strongs Marina is located. It reminded me a bit of the ICW, complete with shallow spots. Well we did come in near low. But the depth alarm that Selwyn Feinstein had programmed in for me at seven feet in 2006 beeped while we passed stretches as shallow as 6.3 feet, only about seven inches of water under the keel.
In Mattituck we missed Shanghai, because CJ and Jenny had gone ahead; we expect to see with them in Block Is. Bennett, with relatives, on "Ohana" also plans to meet us there.
Upon arrival on Sunday, the other boats here went shopping on Love Lane, Matitucks shopping district, enjoyed the pool and had a barbecue. After ILENEs arrival Monday we gave her a needed bath and filled our water tanks. We ran out, from the last fill-up in Washington DC many sailing days ago, and used bottled water to brush teeth and wash coffee cups. We joined the group at the pool and in the traditional Harlem barbecue.

Roasted meats and veggies and smores for desert. The wind ruffled the plastic table cloths that Diane brought along, but this was not a problem and as we dined the wind died down, letting the insects join us. Here is the fleet, from left to right (or from shortest to tallest) North Star, Blast and ILENE.

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March 27 29 Final Lay Day in Stuart Passage to Fort Pierce and Three Lay Days There 26 2 Miles

Lene had business to transact by phone so I dinked in alone and took the free shuttle to Westmarine to get a new dinghy painter and a new anchor snubber -- and got neither.
As to the painter, we do not tow the dink so a sturdier painter that floats (so as to not get into the boats propeller when we are in reverse) is not needed; we can simply use the one that came with the dink.
The need for a new snubber line arose because the old one was getting shorter and thinner. After being anchored for a long time during strong winds, it takes either patience with the marlinspike or just cutting off the last nine inches to undo the snubber where it is clove hitched to the anchor chain. This has happened several times and the line was getting progressively shorter. Also it was getting thinner, because of severe chafing. So time for a new one. You want this line to stretch so most of the lines we have aboard are not good for this purpose because they were made for other purposes, where you want the lines to NOT stretch. So Im looking at Westmarines selection of lines and -- wait a minute! I have an old soft stretchy nylon anchor rode. If I cut off a 25 foot length, this will work quite well with lots of line left for cutting off nine inches at a time over the next several years. But, I spent $100 on a good hardened stainless lock to prevent theft of the outboard from the dink.
Back at the dock, I installed the lock and hacked off another half foot of the tiller extender because it extended too far. The marinas bike took me the five minute ride to the local, less upscale Publix for two items Lene wanted.
Heading out back to ILENE, a terrible thing happened. In driving the dink at the dock, I bounced it off another dink into one of the concrete pilings, from which clam shells extended out like razors. WHOOSH! was the sound of the air escaping from a 1.5 inch gash, below the waterline in the port aft tube. Our almost brand new dink, wounded already! Are we destined to be cursed with dinghy problems? The dink can stay afloat with only one of its three tubes inflated, so is in no danger of sinking, but this was a most revolting development.
I hauled the dink up onto the Martinas dinghy dock and water that had entered the tube, which was quite flabby, poured out. The marina gave me a ride back to ILENE for the repair kit, sandpaper, and a pair of scissors to shape the patch into a diamond shape with rounded corners. You have to sandpaper both surfaces and mix a two part glue and apply it to the dink and the patch. I needed help in the form of tools from the marina office to open the two glue bottles. You have to use a metal or glass container to mix the two parts of the glue, hopefully in the correct nine to one proportions. the bottom of a beer can from a trash bin was the metal surface and its tab was the stirrer. I let the glue get tacky but not as long as the instructions called for, and slapped it into place as the first few drops of torrential rain hit. I let it cure for over two hours while reading in the Marinas clubhouse -- free popcorn!  Then I drove the dink back to the boat, without inflating the tube in question to full pressure. The instructions say to not pressure test the patch for 24 hours.  Well the patch did not fall off, but it has a fast "slow leak" requiring it to be pumped up each 24 hours. So we will try to have the job done by a professional in St. Augustine in a few days. My not so handy work:

The passage to Fort Pierce was not long. But with temperatures in the low 50s, a hard, cold 30 knots of apparent wind 20 degrees off the port bow made for quite a wind chill factor. (Yes, I know, I shouldnt be complaining to northern friends who have suffered a cruel winter.) But it makes us fear that we may have started north too soon. Anyway, hats, gloves and scarves were in order. Just a slog under grey skies. Not a peak sailing experience, in fact solely a motoring experience.

The Fort Pierce Municipal Marina has been redone since our charts were printed, after a hurricane took out much of the old marina. They spent a lot of money to build a series of barrier islands to prevent such damage. The new slips are almost ready for occupancy and we went to the remaining portion of the old, via a well marked but tricky new channel that is not on the charts yet. The tricky part is the current, which runs wicked strong N-S across the E-W channel. We had to go west but headed NW to "crab" through it diagonally. They put us starboard side to, on the outside "T" dock, opposite the fuel dock, so when we leave we make a "U" turn to port and our lines are set up for fueling.

The Marina is different from others in our experience in that a number of live-aboarders have cats rather than dogs. Playmates for our dynamic duo, but they grew up playing with each other, our pair get low grades in "playing well with others."

We arrived too late for the "biggest farmers market in Florida" but wandered through a large music festival on our way to the marina office: rock, blues, country, etc. Crowds were still arriving; we were serenaded that night. Normally, readers know, we explore a town and learn of its history, etc. But here we just hung out with friends. Janet and Mike, with whom we had dined on Greek food in Boca, invited us to their home for happy hour and took us to Publix on our way home the first evening there and to their home where Kathryn and Craig had come up from Boca to visit, the next. After this second happy hour we went out to the Second Street Cafe for dinner.

                          Kathryn, Craig, Lene, Roger, Mike and Janet

We hope to meet up with Janet and Mike in Oxford Maryland on our way home. Its amazing. We last saw them in Maryland in 2012 and Kathryn and Craig at her brothers wedding maybe six years ago. But put sailors together and the old bonds are re-cemented instantly-- a lot stronger than the two part glue fixing our Hypalon patch to the dink. Mike and Janet just moved into their new, large modern apartment facing east over the water on the fourth floor.

Rear view from entrance

We are amazed at how much home one can get here for such a reasonable price. If we were in the market for another home, we would be very tempted. We missed both of the distinguished visitors who were here with us: President Obama came to play golf and Jay Leno was in town for a performance with $85 and $115 tickets.

Front view, with Atlantic past the barrier island.

View to the left, with free anchoring where we will stay next time.

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May 27 29 First Three Days Home 0 Miles

John and I visited our mutual friend, former HYC member Nick, at the Hebrew home for the Aged in Riverdale, The Bronx, overlooking the Hudson. He has a nice single room with river view but we met him downstairs and had a pleasant time with him. Both John and Nick are retired carpenters and both agree that Nick taught John how to sail. We three will get together later this summer with some other current and former Harlemites and take Nick out for a day on the water. John left me in Manhattan and drove back to Maryland while I got picked up by Steve (who took us for a powerboat ride in Florida) to my first meeting of the Book Group, at the home of former Harlemite, Jim, in Chatham NJ, for a lovely evening with To Kill A Mockingbird.
I visited ILENE for about three hours by subway to pick up some things, clean and scrub out the refrigerators and empty the bilge. I also planned to "pickle" the water maker for winter. Winter is a long way off you might say. Well the water maker is a great tool for remote places where fresh water is difficult to obtain, but a burden in that it requires that it be flushed out for three minutes every five days. I can do this either by visiting the boat, or by leaving the electricity and fresh water pump on, in which case it will do this every five days, automatically. Another thing: It needs non-chlorinated water, the type it makes, for the flush. We have taken to keeping city water in the port water tank for our own use, and making non-chlorine water in the starboard tank for flushing. This also means changing the source of water to the fresh water pump to be from the starboard tank when we are about to flush and back again after the flush. A nuisance, and it means we use the water from only one of our two tanks. So this summer, when city water is available everywhere we plan to go, we have decided to shut down the water maker. This requires propylene glycol, the pink antifreese [My computers keyboard requires me to substutute as "s" because its key for the correct letter is broken] we use in the fresh water system and heads. I have to buy two gallons of the stuff, so another visit is needed -- in the next five days -- to do this job, and others.
I also calculated the mileage, dock to dock, for the nine planned passages of the Harlems 2015 cruise to Block Island and consulted with PC Bruce, who laid out the itinerary. Next step is to figure out what time the tide is favorable on the days for each of those nine passages, especially at the eastern exits from Long Island Sound, where the currents run wicked fast. I contacted (1) Barnacle Buster to set up a bottom cleaning schedule and to enlist him to fix the prop rattle by adjusting or removing the Spurs line cutter, and (2) my insurer, Pantaenius, to reduce the geographic scope of our coverage, now that we will not be going south of NY for the next few years.

Coming your way within weeks will be a statistical compilation of the 230 days of our winters cruise: passage days, miles per passage, total miles, nights on anchor-mooring-dock-or at sea, number of ports visited and how many times in each, how many were new first-time ports for ILENE, average number of lay days per port, how many lunches and dinners off the boat, etc. Yes, I am a confessed compulsive quantifier. I have done this following our prior long cruises. You could do it yourself if you were so inclined -- or should I say possessed) based on the data in the posts of this blog.



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HYC Cruise Day 5 July 29 Noank CT to Block Island RI 21 Miles

Calm conditions grew windier in spots between our 9 am departure and arrival at about 1:30. Blast passed us as usual. Our sails were up but not helping much. Tide was helping though. We heard from Bennett on "Ohana". He had left the Harlem at about five pm the night before and motor-sailed through the night;  he was only a few miles behind us.

When the winds filled in and strengthened we turned of the engine and sailed the last hour, including through the cut into the new harbor of the Great Salt Pond, making 6.5 knots. Maybe not the safest way to enter a crowded channel but thrilling. 

We were fortunate enough to capture an available chartreuse mooring, about fifteen seconds after a departing boat dropped its pennant in the water. And Ohana rafted to our port side.
Here is how the rest of the fleet is arranged in Block: North Star and Shanghai are on their anchors, and Blast is wedged into a tiny dock space at Paynes Marina. Good job Ernie!

Ohanas dink is not holding air so we used mine and efforts to find the hole have been unsuccessful so far. I took Bennetts three guests (niece Laura, her husband Rolo, and his son Chris) to shore -- to get snacks. While there we met most of the crew of Blast, after their lunch at the Oar. Then I took the three of them across the pond for a beach landing, so they could walk across the narrow spit and swim in the ocean from the beach just north of town.

A problem: while landing the three folks in the small surf,  the dinks painter got caught on its prop. When I put the motor in forward, it shut down. And I couldnt tilt the engine up to unwrap the painter from it because its ability to tilt was constrained by the painter. What to do: row! But lets just say that inflatables do not row well, especially into a stiff wind. If you put your back into it, the pads holding the oarlocks are likely to rip off. So Im making about two inches per stroke and have the best part of a mile to go. Plan C: hitched a tow from a friendly power boater with wife and small dog in his dink. When we got to his boat, about a third of the way to ILENE, and secured the dink to his boat with my spare line, he cut the painter with his knife. We were then able to tilt the engine, unwrapped the line from the prop and I was back in business! Back at ILENE the new painter was  installed.

The crews of ILENE and  Shanghai, with Bennett, went to shore for dinner and wandered to the restaurant at Paynes Dock. Food pretty good and not expensive. Waitress very friendly and helpful. And then the folks from Blast serendipitously wandered in and so there were nine of us.  No one goes hungry on a Harlem cruise.

Roger, Bennett, Marty, Ghennie, Ernie, Camille, Lene, Jennie and CJ

It was a windy night with high winds predicted for tomorrow so Shanghai elected to stay another day with the fleet.

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August 20 to 29 One Goofed Up Day and Five Day Sails 23 75 Hours

We goofed up one day by believing the weatherman, who had predicted a 90% chance of rain. This was the evening before so Lene called her four high school classmates and adjourned the sail in favor of the rain date in early October. We should have waited until the morning of the day in question to check the weather. By then the prediction was only 15 percent and in fact there was no rain. Oh well; no use crying over unspilt rain. Lene and I went to the Met and saw some great art and this not-so-great but iconic American painting, The Jolly Flatboatmen, by George Caleb Bingham.

Sue and Seth

had won a ride on ILENE at a charity goods and services auction. They brought along his sister Val and her husband Steve. Sue and Seth had won the ride about four years ago and brought their kids that time. This time they also brought a bountiful, delicious and healthy lunch and they are oenophiles so we all had a good time.

We were out there for 5.5 hours, but only in the last did the wind come up, to make sailing fun and they had the joy of helming as we tacked back and forth across Eastchester Bay. The longer part of our time together we sailed at about two knots or motored. I kept complaining about the lack of wind but they were having a ball, just being out on the water.

Next time it was five hours with Peter, who was one of my three companions on the eight day Virginia to Tortola run at the beginning of this blog in November 2010. Best wind since we have gotten home in May. It is getting closer to September when stronger winds come into Long Island Sound. We sailed off the mooring. I started and ended with the small jib but put out the genoa for the long tack which took us about a mile past Matinecock. We were doing over seven knots with a peak of 8.3. On the way back, on the starboard tack, we were overpowered and going a bit slower and so shifted back to the small jib which was plenty in about 18 knots of apparent wind. We tacked our way up Hart Island Sound on the way back. A lovely day.

There were ten Old Salts, including Frank, Morty and Clara with me on ILENE and six others on Ohana. Wind not as strong as the day before but plenty to have a fun sail, deep into Little Neck Bay and thence back and out part-way along Hart Island. Three hours underway. Scenes of merry noshing on ILENEs mooring after the sail.

I had dinner with Mike and Sandy and Morty and Clara at the Alehouse, a very inexpensive restaurant on the island, which features $2 Pabst Blue Ribbons. Lene, who went to a wedding rehearsal event nearby, picked me up for the ride home.

Lene came with me when we took out Stan and Susan, newbie sailors who we visited in Great Barrington last month, and will see again on the Labor Day Weekend. No photo; my bad. They had wanted to spend "a few days" with us on and from Key West, but I think it is best for people who have never sailed before to try a day sail first rather than potentially trap themselves (and us) in an experience that is not everyones cup of tea. And now they want to come for a few days in Maine next summer, which will be great; but they have not yet experienced sailing because we motored essentially all the way, due to very light winds. After the prior two sailing days I had thought that the annual July-August doldrums had ended a bit early, but alas, no significant wind. Stan and Susan, who dont know better yet, were very happy on the water.
I had a moment of horror near the end. Auto was steering and easily, north from off Stepping Stones generally toward our mooring. I had busied myself with coiling the lines and putting the sails away. In other words, I was not looking where we were going. When I finally looked up, I saw where we were  --  we were inside Big Toms triangle and headed for its center. And it was quite a low tide, near the full moon. WOW!  I ran back to the cockpit, grabbed the wheel out of autos hands and spun the boat sharply 180 degrees and got us out of that terrible triangle ASAP. The water was still ten feet deep when this happened but if I had not looked up for a few more seconds, we would have had a hard grounding on unforgiving rock. Pay attention, Captain!
The last hundred yards to our mooring there was less than six feet of water at points, with the depth sounder sounding off as we approached. No harm done. We enjoyed dinner at the Club; Thanks Stan and Susan.

The last of the five sails in this period was with Lene, Sheila, Dee and Jeff. All have sailed before and all except Dee on ILENE.

I picked them each up in Manhattan and again we suffered from the lack of wind, though there was a bit, and it did come up nicely (to 15 knots) for the last of our 5.5 hours off the mooring. As we had done the day before, we went into Manhassett Bay to near Louies. Here is a selfie by Jeff, though not smiling for some reason, because alas, your photographercaptain was asleep at the camera switch. At low tide, with a full moon, the water was only 5 4 deep for the last 100 yards to the mooring so ILENE cut a four inch deep groove in the soft silty mud. Dinner again at the Alehouse before driving our guests to their apartments.

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HYC Cruise Day 9 Sunday August 2 Stonington CT to Westbrook CT 29 Miles

ILENE got underway at about 9 am, half an hour before Ohana was arriving back at City Island. After a few hours of sailing, it was motor sailing the rest of the way for Ohana.  The wind was too light for ILENE to sail as well, and what apparent wind there was came directly in our faces. So ILENEs main was up but just to prevent rocking.
We passed a green 30 foot sloop with sails up, headed east, going nowhere, with Towboat US and the Stonington Police at her side. Later we heard that the owner had reported a slow leak and the Coast Guard demanded slow speeds from passing boats and discussed with TowboatUS that they were having trouble finding a facility willing to take responsibility for the boat.
The tide was very strong and favorable for the best part of the trip and ILENE got into the Brewers dock in Brewers Pilot Point Marina at Westbrook at 1:15.
The only other Harlem boats here are Blast and North Star, which both passed us. Not a good photo, sorry,  but they were going too fast for my camera to warm up!

I have learned that North Star is a "Rhode Island Lobster Boat", not that any lobster boat has ever had such elegance, but she is based on the lines of such a working boat.
 We all said goodbye to Marty and Ghennie who have departed for home from Blast, picked up by daughter Darrah with two of the grandkids.
This Brewers marina is pricey, $4 per foot, but friendly and efficient with lots of extra services such as free wifi, free electricity, a nice pool, courtesy car rides and free propane for the community barbecue grills.
I got a ride  to West Marine to get a replacement halyard for ILENEs burgee while Lene shopped for provisions.
I then tested out the pool. Dinner involved shared foods grilled on the barbi.

Camille, Dianne, Bruce, Lene, Ernie and your Fleet Captain, as photographer; we are down to six but reinforcements are on the way!

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