Left Hampton and Using Weather Apps

23 hours to Cape May.  Took the calm weather for one day mostly motoring.

Leaving Hampton in the Chesapeake.  Fort Monroe from the water.  (Note very calm waters)  There is a tunnel under the water here to go over to Norfolk and come out at Fort Wool on the other side.

Fort Wool

Nice day as we exit through Cape Henry and Cape Charles to the north.  Note the glassy waters.

We sailed north over night.  We encountered a million biting flies out on the ocean that happens at this time of year.   I stood watch down below looking at the instruments.  It was terrible.  We did have a 30 minute sail with the engine off - a wonderful quiet sail.  We motored into the Cape May Inlet about 9:45 am.
A bit rough.  Two rock jetties on either side.  Tide coming out.  Wind against the current.  I'm at the helm swinging around.  It was fun.

We checked in at Utsch's Marina at 10:30, just before the fixed bridge, that's before the canal that is a short cut to the Delaware Bay.  The bridge is 55' not the usual 65' feet for most sailing yachts.
   After securing the boat we immediately went over to the Lobster House for a nice meal.

We decided to explore Cape May a little by bike.  First, we stopped at a little fair for the arts in Cape May at one of it's famous historic homes.

We also biked down to Beach Avenue to a Show House (no inside pictures were allowed), another benefit for Cape May arts.  The show house was built in 1911.  The developers decided streets be made twice as wide as any of the other streets, house lots twice as large as any of the other streets, the houses at least 20' back from the curb, and that they cost at least $5,000.  This show house cost $35,000 in 1911.

 

Across the street is the beach.

A typical beach house in Cape May on the extra wide Beach Avenue.

Okay, okay we can't have too much fun.  Drew came back to the boat and built and installed a new LED light for the tachometer.

On Mother's Day we changed the oil.  Necessary every 150 engine hours.  We are at 135 hours and about to go 250 miles to Cape Cod (40 hours.)  First we have to remove everything from the aft cabin, all the cushions and bedding.  Here it is empty.

We put all the bedding and cushions in the fore cabin.  What a mess.

 You can just see Drew's hand replacing the oil filter.  Here's the supplies to pump out old oil and put in new.  It's a process and takes about 3 hours for us.  The marina takes the old oil for a small fee and recycle/reprocess it somehow.

Now to figure out when to leave sorting through all of the weather apps information.

Oh and Happy Mothers' Day to everyone.  Nice to hear from both my kids and all the grands.  Chris, I miss our walk at Arnold Arboretum on this day.


Mazu sleeping in while we work.

Weather Apps, Leaving Hampton, Cape Henry

Here is a list of some weather apps we use.  It is one of the pieces of information sailors frequently trade with each other.  Predicting the weather is critical to a good passage.

Windy, My Radar, Passage Weather, Predict Weather, Ventusky, Chris Parker ($$$), Pocket Grib Files

Everyone wants to avoid the rough passages.  A rougher patch of weather is described for "salty sailors."  We do not count ourselves in that category.  We are always looking for the ideal:  wind pushing us in the direction we want to go at about 90 degrees to the wind at about 15 knots fairly steady with waves no more than 2' to 3'.  Ugly weather is wind on the nose with steep waves crashing over the bow or wind causing the boat to heel over to the point water is coming into the cockpit.  Weather that rocks the boat so much we must hold on even when we're lying down in the aft cabin is not for us.   We try to avoid all but the calmest waters and winds which means we must motor a lot.  When we go out in nice weather we then need to be back into port before the next stronger wind comes up.  Looking for "weather windows" that last 2 to 3 days is hard to come by for our strict requirements of a comfortable passage.  I guess we have to say we'd rather motor than sail in winds that do not exceed 30 to 35 knot.  Honest sailors will tell you they motor 90% of the time.  All in all those excellent sailing moments are well worth owning a sailboat.

And we are off for Cape May this morning, a 24 hour passage that starts with light winds and grows to 20+ knots from the south as we arrive.

Historic Hampton Roads

Staying here in Hampton, VA a few days while foul weather passes and Drew makes and installs an LED bulb for the tachometer.  We also provisioned for the next leg to Cape May and Cape Cod.  We saw two movies at the Air and Space Museum Imax, one on Henry Blake, a Brit who traveled the Amazon 11 years as a naturalist in the 1860's and discovered 8,000 new insect species.  The days of the explorers.  And another movie, "Hurricane" on  the huge screen that dropped us in the heart of experiencing a full blown hurricane.  Very well done.

 Here we are on the top of the wall at Fort Monroe in Hampton, VA.

Our another outing we drove to Fort Monroe (2 miles away), a Union Fort built by Robert E. Lee at the beginning of his career.  His first days with his wife, George Washington's granddaughter, Martha Custis were spent here.

  It has a full moat.  Extremely well built and will be here a long time.  The Chesapeake Bay lies beyond the moat on the east side.

This is a completely walled in fort with three gates and a large parade ground with many buildings.  It is now private and restoration of the buildings is taking place .  As they complete restoration they sell or rent the houses and apartments. 

There is a chapel with Tiffany glass windows. 

The 100+ year old live oak trees are huge with spreading branches.

Docked at High Street Basin then motored to Happy Hampton - Gray days

Another 7 am start to reach Portsmouth, VA.  High Street Basin.  Calm as could be.  Several lift and bascule bridges and several boats moving together on the ICW.  We all wait for the hour or half hour bridge openings.  In this windless day it was easy to hold still and wait a half an hour. Windy days the pilot at the wheel wrestles with the wind to stay in one space and keep away from other boats.  This is Great Bridge Bridge, a bascule bridge.

 A few hundred feet and we go through Great Bridge Lock.  It's nice that the port side is all rubber otherwise we'd have to put down fenders.  There were about 6 ships in here.

Power boats radio frequently, "SV Shawnee, I'd like a slow pass on your port."
Most do slow pass but others zoom by causing a wake to rock the boat.  This boat slowed so there is very little wake.

Mazu as usual ducked into her dark cubby in the aft cabin for most of the day.  Occasionally she'd poke her head up and look around at the land then quickly return - sort of , "Are we there yet?"

On every marker  we saw a bird and most with osprey nests.  It's the season.

We entered the Elizabeth River.  This is the US Navy's home port.  The ships are overwhelmingly large.  There are many marinas to choose from, but we like the free dock at High Street Basin right in the middle of downtown Portsmouth.

We came into the basin passed the Elizabeth River Ferry that goes back and forth to Norfolk from this basin.  Drew was doing lines and I was at the wheel.  Shawnee glided into the dockside corner, but later they put  a ferry right next to our bow.  And Isle de France docked right behind us.  I was sure we would have a hard time getting out.

That night we walked 2 blocks to the historic Commodore Theater built in 1945, renovated in 1980s with beautiful, large murals.  It is a dinner theater with a phone on each table to call in food orders.  We watched the Avengers on the huge screen.

 

Before the movie we went to a bar to catch the pre-race TV coverage of the Kentucky Derby.  Everyone wore fun hats.

It poured all night, clears off the salt.  Sunday we took the Elizabeth River Ferry over to the Norfolk side (5 minute ride) to Waterside.  So many warships around.  Are all the ships with large cannons now obsolete since they use missiles instead?

View from the ferry dock.

Aircraft Carrier #78 with one jet.

We hopped on Shawnee on this cloudy day.  Hemmed in, we shoved out the stern, backed Shawnee to the middle of the basin and were clear of all the boats - amazing.  Forward throttle and off we went to Hampton.
  On the way we passed the boat that I aspire to own -- a jump on and go kind of boat.  It was sailing with practically no wind on glassy waters.

 After the US Navy part of Norfolk there is a huge commercial operation that looks like China holds a large area to transport goods.  It says China Shipping Line.  Even on Sunday cranes were in operation.

You can see how flat the water was.

We arrived at Hampton Public Piers to see a wonderful vegetable garden produced by the dock master, Tom.  We harvested some red lettuce.

 Cucumbers planted in a hay bale.

We are here for a few days while we await ideal weather (low waves and south winds) to sail/motor 3 days up to Buzzards Bay and Cape Cod.
  The Air and Space Museum is next door to this marina where an Imax theater has 3 different short movies.   Loaner bikes are available to get groceries and RX.  We'll rent a car Wednesday.  We can visit nearby Fort Comfort, a Union fort during the Civil War in the heart of Confederate country.
  It's 58 degrees here in Virginia and 65+ in Bangor, Maine.  I like the idea of getting home to nice weather and real spring.

Moving on up the ICW - River Dunes, Oriental, Bel Haven anchorage, Tuckahoe Point

After a couple of nights at Morehead City Yacht Basin repairing the auto pilot we headed out for one of our favorite places, and some feel it is the number one spot to stop, River Dunes.    We started up Adams Creek and just before the Neuse River we went aground in 4' of water.  The interesting thing about going aground on the ICW is that the bottom is mostly soft mud.  We simply plowed through it back over to the channel where it was 7'.

Our boat buddies for this day included a boat that carries its dinghy upside down on the davits.  Good idea to keep out water from big waves.

Along the way I decided to wash all the salt off Shawnee while we motored on the very calm waters.  With our water maker there is no need to conserve water.  I still need to power wash the furling gear to really clean out the salt.  A heavy rainstorm could do the same thing.

We did sail a little on the Neuse River.  See the line where the different winds hit the water.

 We arrived at beautiful River Dunes with sauna, steam bath, hot tub, pool, coffee shop and exquisite taste over all the buildings in the community.  However the rates have increased to $2.25/foot.  The owners created a destination spot for family reunions, weddings and summer homes.  Everything here is top quality and beautifully done.  Their restaurant was closed so we went out to dinner with another couple to M +Ms in Oriental using the loaner car.

We really did sail for about 2 hours Wednesday on our way to Belhaven, a tiny town with two good restaurants, Tavern at Jack's Neck and Spoon River. We anchored out in the harbor.
Shawnee at anchor and Tweety at the town dock.  We rowed in rather than move the outboard off the stern rail.  Good exercise.

One of many southern houses that have enormous wide staircases gracing the front of the house.

We used our trusty anchor app. An alarm goes off on the phone if the boat starts to drag on the anchor.  This is a picture on the Ipad.  The colors are the track of the boat moving around the anchor from wind or currents.  The app is called "Anchor."We ate at The Tavern at Jack's Neck. 

Surprisingly we awoke early for a fairly long day on the ICW headed for Tuckahoe Point, Georgia Bay Anchorage.  We traveled through the Pamlico River to the Pungo River to the Alligator River canal.  It is hard to find a protected place that is deep enough to anchor off the ICW channel.  This little bay or cove is a good anchorage for the night.  Two other boats stopped here as well. It's so quiet.  A fabulous sunset.

Friday morning we rose at 6:15 am, no easy feat for Mr. Drew.  Mazu did go on the bow  and then retired to her usual starter spot at my feet.  I usually am at the helm and Drew is raising the anchor or getting the lines ready.  We usually do about 50 miles a day at about 6 miles per hour.

We continued on the Alligator River and sailed up to the Alligator River swing bridge.
Just to prove to you that we sped along at 7.3 k, a good run with the motor off.   The upper left corner shows the speed on Navionics.

The swing bridge opening.

Sailed up the Albemarle Sound to the the North River -  here's a boat buddy.  It's usually pretty lumpy with swells rocking the boat.  Thank goodness for my Transderm patch.

 The bromeliad continues to blossom.

Our destination, the famous Coinjock Marina, famous for their restaurant with prime ribs.  We passed on the crowd and went to Midway on the opposite side.

 The crowded dock with 20 boats tied up stern to bow.

Midway is an old Marina ($1.50/') that no one will buy from the elderly owner.  Mazu had lots of room to run around.  Only 5 boats over here.  These are popular marinas because of the location.  After a full day on the ICW they are the only option.

After a walk to the Veterans Park we had our very nice dinner aboard - surf salmon and turf steak.

Tomorrow- Saturday, we will motor 50 miles to be in Portsmouth, VA, hopefully tying up at the Basin downtown.  I am happy, so happy to be moving.

Watching Netflix "Longmire" series.  Also watched DVD "Life" narrated by Oprah Winfrey.