Maryland, Land of All-You-Can-Eat crab...

We made it to Annapolis! On the mythical Chesapeake bay! And got taken out for two dozen Crabs! That was it! Two dozen steamed, garliced crabdies, two pitchers of Yingling Lager and the three of us got those crabs as hammered as we got ourselves! So exciting! I guess crab is the big thing on the Chesapeake, where there are Crab Shacks all over. Our host, a single hander named Phil, had scoped out this joint the previous night, and the big blonde waitress welcomed him like long lost family, very homey place. Delicious crag, but next time we'll also order some rolls, or salad, or something that won't leave us with "crab-morning-breath". Isn't that nice?!

Yet, once again, my laptop just won't "go on line", so I have no pikkies for you all at this point, will post when I can.
We pulled out of NYC on a cool, hazey day. Sailed past the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Went through a field of freighters at anchor, huge black hulks just...sitting there! Then down Raritan Bay for Sandy Hook, intending on anchoring for the night, then continuing on to Atlantic City, O, Joy! But the wind really piped up and we needed shelter from a strong south wind. As we sailed down the coast of Sandy Hook, we saw a bay on the chart that looked OK, so we headed for it,. As we pulled around the corner, however, we saw that our depth-sounder was trying to tell us it was too shallow. About then, we saw a sailboat lying on its side on the beach, so after a strong case of the heebie-jeebies, we and made for a walled basin, further on at the bottom of the bay. It dawned on me right then, that the nature of our travelling was different now that we were in open ocean, no longer canals and rivers. We have to pay strong attention to the weather forcast on VHF, and must stay put during bad weather.
So after lying at anchor ourselves for two days at this place, Atlantic Heights, we had a weather window that showed it would be better to abort our previous plans to come in to Atlantic City and to make a straight shot right through to Cape May at the Delaware Bay, which we did. It was a 30 hour sail amd my first overnight passage.
We could see the lighted casinos on the edge of Atlantic city in the distance for 8 hours! I was the one to pass it, at sunrise. The open, bounding mane on one side, Soddom and Gomarrah on the other!
Cape May was absolutely packed with sport boats! We came in on my watch, and my tactic for collision avoidance was to go straight and let these big, uber-speedy boats pass us, which they did in large numbers. And close! So we don't really like the water around Cape May, and didn't get a chance to see the old town, too bad as it is highly acclaimed. Our lesson learned is this: Stay away from sportsmen's hot spots on weekends!
The long trip up the Delaware was neat, we saw a dolphin a few feet from our port side, leaping and playing. That made up for all the jack-asses at Cape May!
My learning curve had taken a nasty bend during all of this; not being able to see the towns we were passing through when the weather was rough or the anchorage just too far out, getting everthing wrong when ...well, when doing just about anything on deck! I was feeling menopausal, empty-nested and empty headed. I hadn't been off the boat for seven days! Yarg!
When we finally did get off the boat at Chesapeake City, my eyeballs were spangled with trying to see any kind of distance! I was tottering about like a tipsy miss! My mood didn't improve until we anchored, debarked and went strolling the fine streets of Annapolis.
So for the moment, we are well, the weather is absolutely be-ooo-tiful! Deep blue skies, deeper blue water, calm wind which is great for all the non-sailing we're doing.
The boat handled well during all this, sails remained intact, planks still holding, no leaks.
Our next destination is Elizabeth City on The Dismal Swamp. Cool, huh?

NYC, Day 3

Day 2 saw us do a few hard-core touristy things, including climbing the Empire State Building. Seriously, we took a 15 second (yes, 15 second) elevator ride to the 80th floor, then one almost as long to the 86th floor observatory and wowee! It's really true, if you haven't seen NY from there, you haven't seen it at all! Another shot of central Park(different every five minutes) and one of me seen at the Castle at Central Park. On day three, we saw the Metropolitan museum of Art, wonderful!

The Big Apple, Day One

These shots are proof that we made it this far! And still on a shoe-string budget!

We are presently moored at the 79th Street Boat Basin, a grand affair built in 1937 for the World's fair. We are a mere half hour walk to Broadway! How unusual to be this close to so much humanity and stil come home to our cozy wee nest, dinner on the table.

The first picture is taken from Nyack at 20 miles, sky scrapers just coming into view. The top right is yet another farmer's market, on Broadway, if you please. More corn, Mr. Hammerstein? Then comes the 79th St. Basin, the Geo. Washington Bridge, James, Caroline & Jocelyn just before Time Square. Then the Reservoir at Central Park.

Jim says the Big Apple is much cleaner and more calm than he remembers as a boy visiting NYC. Even among the 10 mil that live here, we didn't really feel the "crush" of humanity that can plague a big city.

We basically walked around on night 1, saw many beautiful buildings, almost all apartments. Day 2 had us picnicking in Central Park, then to the Guggenheim Art Gallery. The park is stellar and the Gallery is very interesting. The building was covered with a scaffold, so we couldn't really see this unusually shaped, spiral wrapped beauty. The main show was Richard Prince, not really my cup of tea, but glad we finally saw it.

The Beautiful (no, Really!) Hudson Valley

We are presently anchored off the town of Nyack, New York, see top left picture, just 20 miles upstream from The Big Apple. We have been travelling slowly and comfortably at around 19-20 miles a day. The weather has been just incredible! Sunday night, we were anchored off some lonely stretch of the Hudson River, having dinner up on deck after dark, wearing just our scivies! The temperature was 80F and the sunset was an argument between good, pink twilight and bad, evil clouds of thuderous tumult. We lived!
Some of the real estate along this river is pretty spectacular, rivalling Newport, Rhode Island and its "Millionair's Row" Some beautiful castles, wide open river, interesting boat traffic. The Hudson Valley itself is just plain beautiful. The trees are starting to turn, making for lovely hillsides and rock faces. Lotsa tug/barge traffic! One tug even had a "Toodle" pipe, lovely church-organ sound.
As for the boat, we put the mast up at Castleton, NY, and took her for a spin the next day. She sailed well with just the main up, the day after, Jim finished installing an inner stay, so we then flew a jib. Not nearly enough wind, so we abandoned that, but the rigging sure looks great!
From Cape Vincent to Waterford we were able to tie off on free (love that word!) public docks. From there on in we've been anchoring in good muddy bottom. Betcha didn't know that having a muddy bottom could be good, huh?
Will put up some pikkies when I bring the laptop ashore next, until then, tah-rah!

Waterford, New York, Southbound on the Hudson River.

We have just finished the first two legs of the NY Canal System; the Oswego & the Erie. After a two day stop, we will start down the Hudson River, named after the same Henry Hudson that accidentally dicovered that pesky bay that prevented him from ever reaching India...did you know the poor guy was mutinied and set adrift in the Hudson's Bay?

Anyhow, Waterford is quite pretty. Most of the buildings are in good shape, as opposed to some of the poorer towns we saw on the way down. The severe flooding that damaged the NY Canal system two springs ago must have nailed their poor coffins shut. Some towns were dead on their feet and that flood knocked right down. We chatted with one lockkeeper about how his lockstation fared. He lost his lockhouse and much of the dam. Work had been underway to rebuild the dam, on Lock#10, one abuttment was almost done when the water swept the it and one other away. Alond the way, you could see which locks were still being rebuilt after the flood and which one were untouched. The unharmed ones were all freshly painted and looking great. The damaged ones looked as though they were putting off repainting until all the work was done. There was still a lot of work to go!

Anyhow, we're starting to meet more people now. Along the way, we met but did'nt get to know other boaters because they were in such a hurry to get south. We, however, are taking our time and visiting the areas we are in. Now that we are in a common rest and fuelling up stop for boaters, they too are taking advantage of the two free days dockage, so they have time to shmooze. Most are seasonal boaters who still have houses, cars and mortagages to get back to. Others are out for the two or three years sabbatical from work. Still others have gone no further than their two week vacation will take them. We've met only a few other couple who are out there permanently, like us.

Life has been very relaxing and quiet. As soon as I feel tired of that and need some fun, I figure I'll crawl out from under this rock and start being more friendly toward other boaters. I think I've depressurized from owning and operating a very busy cafe and am getting ready to start focussing on what I'm doing!