Great Kills New York 40◦32'.641N 074◦07'.811W

Well our stop over for maintenance and general stuff is almost over. We actually moved from New Jersey Waterways on Saturday because it was too rough out there. We did not get the huge weather we were anticipating, although yesterday was spent in the fog all day long!

Today we went for a little walk into Great Kills. This is where we discovered that what they say about New York is true. Check out this parking Job.

As we were walking some other guy actually parked on the side walk, just in front of us! Oh well, this is the big city...well not really here.

There is still quite a bit of damage apparent from Hurricane Sandy around these parts. These poor docks are just completely gone, other than the pilings.











Not too sure what this gear system is for, but it is awfully big.

We are currently anchored in a mooring field and I must say, from afar it looks pretty nice.

The water however is completely disgusting in some areas.

Our count-down is on for Stephanie's visit, with only 3 more sleeps to go. We will be staying here for tomorrow and moving Liberty Landing Marina on the 12^th.  This is on Liberty Island, with a great view of Manhattan.  So really no major happenings for now.

Happy Mother's day to our Moms. We miss you both!  Happy Mother's day to all the other Mommies out there too.

Night all.

Our Sunset tonight 

Balloons and Fog on the Atlantic 40◦27'.832 N 074◦00'.571 W

Well we made what is essentially our last Atlantic Ocean voyage. Leaving the Golden Nugget Marina at 0527hrs, we had the New York Sky line in our sights by 1630hrs. When we left this morning, the sun was shining and the wind was dead calm, however about 1 hr into our travels, and 3 miles out from the shore line, a fog settled on the Atlantic and dropped our visibility to just a few feet.

At one point there was a fishing boat directly in front of us. We could see it clearly on the radar, about a ½ mile out,  but could not  see it by sight. Jim started to hail the boat on the VHF to ensure he knew we were there and could see us. He did not respond and he changed course, heading right for us! Jim hailed with a little more urgency in his voice, but still no answer. All of a sudden he popped out of the fog, heading right for us at 26 MPH. He was a few seconds from hitting us when he finally noticed. Despite the fog, he was close enough that Jim could see his face. Jim raised the microphone of the VHF, pointing at it and uttering a few choice words that I cannot put in print. Aside from this near miss, the rest of our day was uneventful. Somewhere around 1100hrs, the fog lifted and we could finally see a few miles all around.

This is about the time we started noticing the balloons. We did not count them, but I would guess somewhere around 15 or more where seen along the way. Apparently someone had a party yesterday and then just dumped the balloons off the boat.  Had I known we would see so many, I would have gotten the gaff out and started picking them up. Maybe we could have had our own little party!

Now although New York city is in our sights, it will  be 3 days before we are actually  in New York. We are currently in a place called Sandy Hook New Jersey, directly across the bay from New York Harbor. We plan on staying here for the next few days as we wait out another weather system coming through. There's not much to see on these New Jersey shores, so we will take the next few days to perform some needed maintenance and cleaning. To prevent from boring you to tears, I will not blog again until Mother's day. Since that is the case I must take the chance now to wish our baby Stéphanie a happy birthday. Her B-day in on Saturday the 9^th. Yes our children are only 5 days apart in birthdays. What can I say, August was vacation month!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY sweetheart. We love you and  we'll see you in 6 sleeps. Can't wait! 

I also want to extend a Happy Birthday to my sister Marie-Anne, who's B-day happens to be on the same day as Stéphanie. Love you too sis, and in your case, we'll be seeing you in a few weeks. 

Good night all 

More than Casino's but windy as "H. E" double hockey sticks

We had a lovely day in Atlantic City. We started our morning with a bike ride along the sculpture  trail. This is a 1.1 mile long trail that is lined with sculptures and really nice landscaping.  It is about 1 mile to get to it, so we rode about 5 miles today. It is really nice and lots of people enjoy walking it. 

After our bike ride and a little viewing of the sculptures, the marsh and the most productive wind turbine farm in the US, we made our way back to the boat and had a short visit with some other loopers.

After lunch we hopped on a Jitney and went to the famous Boardwalk. Turns out it's not all gone! The section I took a picture of yesterday was damaged by Hurricane Sandy, but the section behind all the hotels an Casino's on the other side of town is still in great condition. So the Jitney is a little bus (15 passengers) that runs between the Casino's on the marina side and the Casinos on the Boardwalk side.

We got off at the Taj Mahal, very opulent. We walked through the casino and right out the back to the board walk.

They entire area is lined by the beach.  I'm guessing we have been in the heat a little too long because we felt it was too cold to go to the beach but these people did not! Not however that they are basically the only people who thought it was warm enough!

So after walking for a few hours, we hoped the Jitney again and back to the boat we went. We will be leaving early tomorrow am. Probably around 5:30 or 6am so I better end this and make my way to the hot tub for a relaxing soak before going to bed. 

Atlantic City 39◦22'.689 N 074◦25'.629 W May 5th

We made the uncomfortable trip to Atlantic City. It was rough with beam waves hitting us once again, but Ocean waves are a bit more spread apart so it is a little easier to take. Jim tacked into the waves back and forth to make our ride a little more comfortable but we still rocked and rolled for the majority of the trip. Fortunately it was a short one by our standards and we were all tied up to the docks by 11:30 am. Also fortunate was the fact that it was not as foggy as it was the last time we were here. That makes a big difference when you's coming in.

2012

2015

Coming into this town, you cannot help but think of the 'Under the Boardwalk' song, except that now, the board walk is gone.

Our home for the next two days will be the Golden Nugget Hotel and Marina which makes for a very different night view than what we have become accustomed to!

So we will be staying here one more night as we await favorable conditions on the Atlantic Ocean. Predictions for Thursday are quite good. Tomorrow we will go check out the sights a bit more, although it is mostly Casinos and well ... we really are not gamblers so hopefully we get to check out something other than a casino!

Night all

Happy Birthday Shawn from Cape May NJ 38◦57'.016 N 074◦54'.642 W

Happy Birthday Shawn from Cape May NJ 38◦57'.016 N   074◦54'.642 W

We're in Cape May New Jersey and our trip down the Delaware was very uneventful. The current and tide gave us a slight push for most of the way and we made it here in good time, Somewhere just before 7pm. Most Marinas close at 5 pm so we just anchored off the Coast Guard station last night. We were so close, we could have reached out and touched the Coast guard cutter. This particular station is where they train all the enlisted Coast Guard newbies and we were awoken by their early morning drills today. Very army like in terms of training. 

We could here this chorus of "sir yes sir". 

Sunset over Cape May Marina 

Today we made our way to Miss Chris' marina to get some provisions and wait out the weather. Our next crossing is three miles out on the Atlantic Ocean, next stop Atlantic city, and we need favorable winds to make it there unscathed. We arrived at the Marina around 10am and settled in, then after lunch we went for a ½ mile walk to the grocery store. Once again that is US miles! Which means it was more like 1.5 miles, but the exercise was good. We needed quite a few things today so we opted to walk and grab a cab back vs riding our bikes. Seems simple enough right? Wrong! We got out with our cart heaping and called 3 cab companies, nobody could come get us. So we called the marina and asked if they could come pick us up. "Would love to" says Bob, "but I am on a charter right now. I'll be back in 1hr." Shoot, what now. I am not too shy, so I noticed a nice man just getting into his car. He seemed familiar, I think I saw him this morning. So I explained out plight and asked if he would be so kind as to bring us to the Marina. "Sure" he said, "it would be my pleasure" As we get in his SUV, he tells us he actually works for the competing marina right across the street. That's where I saw him! Jim and I had gone for a little walk over there before lunch! He then proceeds to bring us on a tour of Cape May. Just a quick tour he says, so I can orient you to the town, where the beaches are and some main attractions. His name was Mark and he will forever be ingrained in our memories. He spoke highly of our Marina Manager, despite being the competition. He told us great stories about Cape May and very obviously loves his town.  Mark works for South Jersey Marina and tonight I will post a comment on Active Captain regarding the best Marina I never went too!

Cute light house along the way

So despite having had a tour of Cape May and it's many attractions, I unfortunately did not have a camera with me, so no picks of the great sights, one of which was the summer time White house! Apparently 5 successive presidents came here to spend their summers,  staff and all!

We had planned on staying here a couple of days, however the weather for tomorrow calls for favorable winds for our next leg and it's the only day this week that it will be favorable,  so we are off at the crack of dawn- Coffee pot set to start at 5:45am. We are not too devastated, since our current slip had us sitting on the bottom again. It's not the first time we were subjected to this situation, however it is the first time that our bow is on the bottom of the waterway, while our stern is still floating. 

The dark blue line is the water line -the light blue is usually under water

This particular position makes it really difficult to open the fridge door, because the boat was tilted so far down at low tide, that stuff in the fridge was actually sliding off forward off the shelf!

Nighty night all. 

States are just flying by. 39◦34'.946 N 07◦529'.035 W

We've left Virginia and Maryland behind us. We are currently in Delaware, although this was an unplanned stop, and by tonight we will be in New Jersey. Whew, I'm tired just writing about it!

It's funny how one day you can have so many pictures you have to pic and choose to compress it and other days you need to search for ideas. Well Yesterday was certainly one of those days. We left Annapolis with Chic and Barb and made our way to Chesapeake City. However, as is often the case, the plans had to change. We got to the City docks and found they were under construction, so we went to the anchorage and found it was packed so full, we could not find an area where we could swing on the hook for 150 feet all around, sooo next option was to continue through the C&D Canal and find somewhere on the other side. It was getting late, but we did not have much choice. We left Barb and Chick behind,  (they had reservations in a marina) and off we went. We did not arrive in Salem river until around 7pm and that made for a long day.

Along the way, we passed a few bridges, namely The Bay bridge 

and two St-Georges bridges, the East and West. 

We weaved through fishing boats. At one point I counted 91 on the water in front of us and probably an equal amount behind us! 

Every dot is a fishing boat

And then there are the birds who like to pretend they are crab pots. These are seagulls who sit in the water but spaced out just enough, and in a straight line none the less, so that they appear like crab pots. I'm positive they laugh as we weave to avoid them. In sunny skies, it's really hard to tell from a distance what exactly is bobbing in that water.

We also passed a packed, and I mean packed, mobile home park. From our vantage point they look like sardines all lined up!

Anyway after landing in the Salem river, quick dinner and then we started to research the tides and currents in the Delaware River. This is a long process for us because the data changes as we go down the bay and we need to time our exit to get the most push from the tidal current, without bucking the wind in an opposite direction. Anyway, long story longer, by the time we finished this, I was too tired to post, so y'all get it this morning. As it turns out, we cannot leave here until around 11 am to get the maximum comfortable trip to cover the next 50 miles. We therefore won't be arriving in New Jersey until 7 pm tonight. Long days, but hey! What are you going to do. Reminiscing again, but the last time we did this stretch of water, we had to leave at 4 am to get all the conditions in our favor (wind, current and tide). We were doing great time and were so excited that the ride was going so well and then, somewhere about ½ way, both our engines conked out in the middle of the shipping channel and it took 3 hrs to get a tow boat to come get us since there's not much around the Delaware bay. So let's hope that's not what's awaiting us today.  

Oh last but certainly not least, it is our Son's 29^th B-Day tomorrow. Happy birthday Bud. We love you and wish we were there with you, but we will be soon. I guess I now have to stop using the line "I am 29 and holding". It is a devastating blow, but from now on when someone asks my age, I will be "39 and holding" well at least for the next 10 years!

 For now, have a great day and hopefully I will post tonight.

What state is Washington DC in?

What a day! We rented a car in Annapolis and made our way to Washington. We only spent the day, but could have easily spent a week there.

The white house 

I love museums and the Smithsonian has 19 of them! We actually only hit one, The Museum of Natural Resources and even then, we barely scratched the surface of what it had to offer.

We took a trolley ride through Washington and saw all the major sights, along with some lovely chatting with the tour bus drivers who are very knowledgeable. However there  were a lot of sirens going off today, and specifically as the tour operator was telling us all about Washington DC's location. I wanted to know if it was in Maryland or in Virginia. He told us that it straddled  both states originally, but since there was no need of about ½ the land, they gave that back to Virginia, but then the loud noise of the sirens blocked out everything else.  We found out later that Washington is neither a city, nor a state and it does not reside in any state. It is a federal district all onto itself. It's land is unique in all of the states. In fact it would be against the law for it to become a state according to the constitution! Very interesting stuff. Unfortunately for Washingtonians that means they have no representatives in the senate.

All of this aside, we got to see all the monuments and there are many in Washington! 

And then spent several hours in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural history where we saw so many things I cannot hope to include it all in this blog.  I will however tell you that I saw Giraffes, Zebras, Tigers, Hippos, Rhino's, Leopards and Koala bears among many, many others. My sister Cécile just got back from South Africa and she saw all of these, but she had to endure a 36hr flight to get there and I have no idea how long the flight home was. 

We got to see them all with only  1hr drive. There is the small detail, that she saw live ones and I saw stuffed ones, so granted there was a bit more excitement on her part!

We also got to see the Hope diamond. OMG that is one honking diamond.

Last but not least we got a little Canadian pride as we saw two displays that warmed our hearts. The first is the display of the undersea rover hanging in the Smithsonian and the second was the Canadian Embassy which is the only embassy that is located in the heart of Washington. All other Embassies are located across the Potomac River.

Tomorrow we head towards the C& D Canal and on that note, I shall end my blog and wish you all good night. 

PS. 12 more sleeps