DON'T DO NOTHING STUPID!

Our new motto- "DON'T DO NOTHING STUPID!"  As we waited and worked to start this adventure, being in the 60 years plus category, we kept telling each other "Don't do nothing stupid!" Examples, like slip on ice, over extend our backs by carrying all the groceries, burn yourself on stove, and more recently-go out without a mask.  It got to be a running thing when we were taking stupid chances or being careless...(which I was..slipping on the ladder while we were on the hard,  shutting my finger in the car door and worst of all watch a side of our canvas sink in 35 feet of Fair Haven Bay when a gust of wind blew it off the top of our cabin roof) as we are out on the water it's even more important.

Ok, what the heck am I doing.  Haven't written as much as a letter in six years.  Crazy.  I know by now you guessed that we are back at it.  It took us a while but we built up enough money (and points with our family...our two "adult" children were less that enthused about us living on a boat last time) and now we are ready to cruise.  

Great timing right...2020...crazy Covid 19 time, crazy divided political time and us still to young to collect pension or social security.  Oh well, we like a little challenge..plus it is very easy to socially distance on an anchored sail boat, ignore all the bad news or at least limit our intake of news and hey we own our sailboat so no rent to pay. 

Getting ready. Our plan was for Jon to leave work around April 30 and for me to leave May 30...well then covid hit and our Marina yard wasn't going to open...should we still plan to go...hell yes if we have to ship the boat somewhere.  Well, the Marina did open so Jon left his job as an auto mechanic on May 15.  I worked in the office of the same garage and was involved in the PPP Loan, Grant. (Payment Protection Program)  I didn't finish work until late June.  In the meantime Jon was hard at work on the boat.  First he refinished the floors in boat..(eight coats of varnish...sanding in between each coat that had to dry for 20 hours...and by the way it was my job to clean the walls, the cupboards, the dishes when he was done.  It was worth it..just beautiful.  As long as Jon was in the sanding mood (lol) he sanded the bottom down to the barrier coat (he swore he'd never do it again after sanding the bottom of our 28 ft Cape Dory...well there he was in the biggest heat wave for central New York sanding a 36 ft hull until it was right)  Still in the sanding mood he sanded the teak on the rails, hand holds, the cockpit combing and applied a few coats of Cetol.  He intalled an inverter to charge our phones, flash lights, laptops....and a new chart plotter in the cockpit. The chart plotter is a B &G Vulcan 9 and interfaces with our AIS (automatic identification system).  He installed Navionics charts. We are quite happy with it.  Then it was on to the fun stuff like installing new dingy davits for our new dingy.   There is tons more that he did but I get tired just thinking about it. I will mention a couple of improvements not done by us. One was our shelves..done by Jeff in Fair Point Marina.  We got shelves in my galley cupboard, the liquor cabinet, under the navigation table and closed off the space in the v-birth.  It is amazing the storage we gained.  We also got sunscreens made by Josh at Sterling Custom Canvas in Fair Haven. 

  

B&G Vulcan 9. We are really pleased with how it interfaces with our AIS

                                                           

        

New shelf in galley 

 

Love how we can charge everything so easily    

  

READY TO GO!

We are waiting for a weather window to go down the coast of New Jersey. Jon says we are looking at about 10 days of south winds plus the remnants of Hurricane Laura that will blow through this weekend. I finally had time to figure out what my password was to blog spot...fortunately..I still have the same laptop I wrote on six years ago, so I didn't really have to.  We are anchored at Atlantic Highlands, NJ (that is right by Sandy Hook) after about 30 plus locks and a trek down the Hudson River.  The locks were not too bad, although, it was about 90 degrees everyday and we certainly burned our feet, didn't always sleep the best near the lock gate (either you were dreaming of going over the falls or awake because of the trains that run right along the canal)  But we had a secret weapon, our niece, Grace was with us.  I don't know about you, but 15 year olds are great...when they are not yours.  Grace remembered names for us, she called the locks like a pro, she fended off the walls, wielded a boat hook like a warrior and best of all she was not afraid to get her hands dirty and she loved to clean..(all that lock "smutz" gone!  She went crazy on the fenders with some soft scrub and good ole elbow grease.  Her motto "If I'm going to do a job, I going to do to do it right")  Every Captain in the Hop-A-Nose Marina wanted to hire her.. But she was ours and we paid her with pizza and ice cream.  We also got introduced to the band, One Direction, and all the boys solo work.  Our favorite it Harry Styles ....check him out...very talented.  We just had so much fun with Grace.  The week flew by.  I just wish we could have done some more fun things with her...but that will be for another trip.`

The Hudson River was a lot quieter that six years ago..we saw only one tanker a day and going through New York City on a Monday was surreal.  There definitely was less shuttle boats going back and forth and we only encountered two tankers coming into harbor.  We were actually able to look at Lady Liberty for more than a millisecond.  One of the best parts was texting with our daughter in LA so she could text her friend that lived before the Washington Bridge..her friends, Anne and Mike, took video, pictures and waved like crazy...just like we were waving like crazy...it was quite emotional..I felt like I was waving to my daughter who I haven't seen in over eight months. 

What Anne & Mike (Sara's friends) when we passed under Washington Bridge

                              

There was more pleasure craft than commercial traffic in the harbor

Lady Liberty as we passed her

In Atlantic Highlands anchorage we watched some fierce storms pass us and had a few days of 25-30 knot winds.  We watched Wednesday Night Races (twice). Made a couple of grocery runs  We have biked around the bay, with our newish Schwinn folding bikes and checked out the laundry mat situation and had lunch at a very nice outdoor diner-The Girls.  We took an Uber to the laundry mat (the one near the marina wasn't fit for man or beast) and besides meeting a very interesting ex-Secret Service Man (our driver) scored big as the liquor store was right next to the Tina Corner Laundry mat--three twelve packs of beer came back with us.  Our secret service Uber driver offered to show us around for free....guess he found us interesting too....or suspicious.

Cormorants, usually packed in right on break wall that we anchored next to.  Sometimes they sound similar to a walrus 

a paddle boat going out and coming in            

from our bike ride around the Bay trail

 Looks like we will be able to take off Friday, September 4 from Sandy Point.  They are calling for 10 to 15 west north west under mainly sunny skies.  We are planning to stop at an anchorage at Atlantic City then leave on Saturday for Cape May.  I'll update you then on our sailing around New Jersey and our anchorages.

Sorry this is a longer blog that usual.  It is just my thoughts and observations Please leave messages below so we know that some one is reading these.  Let us know what you would like to know about.