Day 1 – 6/21/14
We departed Deltaville, VA at 10:10 AM. The night before we set the lee cloths/boards and laid out all our safety gear. Sean and I applied Scalpomine patches, just to be safe, as we both have had some green experiences in the past and didn’t want to take any chances on this offshore jaunt. Sean woke at 0200 with some lower intestinal issues and hives (eek!). Not sure if it was the patch or something else (he thought maybe a food allergy) but by the morning, he seemed to be fine. Since we weren’t in a rush, we took our time getting out of Deltaville. Had a leisurely start; good breakfast, got everything stowed and talked over our plan of attack for the next 4 days. We discussed the watch schedule - I would have the 1800-2100 watch as well as the 0300-0600 watch – the golden hours, lucky me! J was to take the 2100-2400 and the 0600-0900 and finally Sean had the 2400-0300 watch.
As we got underway we confirmed that the fuel leak repair had, in fact, held and we no longer had a leaking issue – yay! The engine seemed to be running better after J scraped her prop and bottom. On the way to VA we were only able to get her up to 2800 RPMs but after a quick scrape she got up to 3400 RPMs and purred like a kitten. It is crazy how much growth had developed in such a short time. J dove on her when we spent time in Horseshoe Bend about 4 weeks prior and it was surprising to see barnacle growth, albeit small barnacle growth, develop in that amount of time.
As we made our way down the Bay we ran into more pods of dolphins. Nothing close to what we saw going into Deltaville, but we saw probably a dozen or so smaller pods. Seeing them never gets old! I feel like a little kid on Christmas every time I see them. It was pretty zany – if you were below you could hear them pinging the hull. The first time we heard it we had the engine running and you could hear it over the engine!
Our first day was a long one. We didn’t make it out the Chesapeake Bay until 9pm that night. The winds forced us to tack back and forth down the Bay, not allowing us to make much headway. As we approached the Chesapeake Channel - due to the boat traffic, lack of light, and point of sail - we opted to turn on the engine as we departed the Bay and went over the Norfolk tunnel. J gave the Bay a ceremonial mooning - he won’t miss the Bays shifty winds :) As we left the Bay we had to continue Southeast for almost three hours as J navigated the shoally shoreline. Then we were finally able to start making some northerly progress, cut the engine, and set ASSWOP by the time Sean took over at midnight.
Day 2 – 6/22/14
J and Sean had the first two watches. By the time I came up at 0300 ASSWOP was set and doing an awesome job! Talk about an amazing piece of engineering. Best upgrade to Tango, ever! My watch was pretty uneventful until the wind shifted and ASSWOP starting to struggle a bit. Before I could disengage ASSWOP the heads’l got backwinded and Tango started to go in 360 degree turns. It was bizarre. I didn’t have steerage and the only way we could maintain full sails was to be heading south, completely opposite of where we needed to be. J had to come up and give me a hand – it took us 45minutes to get back on course. No clue what the deal was but was grateful we were back on course and making progress in the right direction :) Other than that, my first watch was relatively uneventful and ASSWOP had no other issues.
As the sun came up the winds were blowing 15+kts, with gusts to 22 from the NE with 4-6 foot seas. We had some brisk sailing close hauled but were forced to tack to the ESE in order to make any headway to the NNE. For every two miles we made going NNE, we had to sail a mile to the ESE. It was a long day and we made slow progress. By night shifts we had only gone as far north as Chincoteague, MD. Unfortunately both Sean and I felt a little green pretty much all day. At one point we considered turning into Ocean City or Cape May but after thinking it over we decided to push on. I knew that if we went ashore we’d feel better for a day but then as soon as we went back out, it would happen again. Sadly the patches weren’t working as well as we had hoped. So, I broke out the arsenal. I had the wrist bands, the ear plug in the non-dominant ear and the ginger chews. No clue if any of them actually helped but luckily I started to adjust and acclimate to the motion; Sean wasn’t so lucky. Throughout the entire passage he felt a little green. The good thing is that neither of us ever actually took to chumming – no one wanted to relive previous offshore adventures.
Day 3 – 6/23/14
As I went into my AM watch, the seas had calmed as did the winds. As we passed Ocean City, MD a little after 0400 we were able to adjust our heading for a straight course to LI!
We saw more dolphins off the coast of Ocean City and Cape May and quickly learned that ASSWOP really prefers at least 10kts of wind to steer well. She maintained a decent course with 9kts, but anything under that she had a hard time. I'm not sure how much of this was ASSWOP and how much was our continuing to learn her ladylike idiosyncrasies.
After my watch I got my appetite back and had a craving for Ramen noodles. It’s been so long since I have had these but they are still just as good! They make for a great breakfast/post watch meal! I think I had them every day after that as well :)
We were sailing a NE course with ocean swells hitting our beam and forward quarter. We put out the poles and brought in 6 bluefish, aka the piranha of the Atlantic - all of which we tossed back. Wow, do they have some crazy teeth!! We also hooked something large enough to run out line on full drag until the line snapped. We have no idea what it was but it was “the one that got away.” We had another lure that was missing one of its hooks and had some significant teeth marks on its underside. Not sure what grabbed that one either, but whatever it was had some pretty large, sharp teeth and was strong enough to pull off one of the hooks.
Lunch underway was grilled turkey burgers and thankfully Sean and I both had our appetites. I was feeling good enough to go down below and make some pasta salad to be enjoyed by all for dinner that evening. Unfortunately we lost the wind in the early evening so we decided to turn on the engine to charge our batteries, heat our water for showers (an underway treat), and make some positive headway.
My first watch from 1800 to 2100 was uneventful. It is very bizarre to see glass out on the Atlantic. No swells, no wind – just calm… We were under power for 16 hours so none of us slept well on our off watch periods – the engine was way too loud to be able to sleep.
Day 4 – 6/24/14
Still under power for my second watch and now we had absolutely no wind. While I didn’t have wind and swells to contend with, my watch proved to be interesting with other boat traffic. I had one ship to starboard that seemed to be approaching but it didn’t show up on our AIS and didn't respond to VHF when I hailed it. Apparently they didn't feel like talking. With no moonlight, just pitch dark skies, it was very difficult to see what direction they were heading. I am not a fan of boat traffic at night, especially when you can’t tell what it is, tanker or fishing vessel, or where it is going. We have a little reference chart showing light configurations but sometimes it’s hard to tell what you’re looking at. After a while, the sun started to come up allowing me to see that there wasn’t anything to be nervous about as we had plenty of distance between us and were not headed on a collision course. Along with the sun came some ocean swells. We were getting tossed around quite a bit and with the lack of wind, our mains’l was flogging all over the place. When J came up to relive me we put in a single reef which helped to stabilize us a bit. Before we left Maryland I ran out of time and was unable to sew the new slides on the trys’l. This would have been a great opportunity to use that sail as it is of a thicker grade of Dacron than our mains’l and can take more abuse. With the beating she took, I’ll be doing a thorough inspection of the sail once we get to port and finishing the trys’l will be done before we head back out.
By early morning we were 39 miles off shore and hoping for more wind as the day progressed. By mid-day we were able to sail a broad reach and use our whisker pole for the first time. It’s a bit of a pain to set until you get familiar with it. We hope that as we continue north that we’ll get additional opportunities to use it and get more comfortable with it.
We spent the afternoon sailing and fidgeting with the whisker pole. I was still feeling pretty good so I went below to make some dinner and do some dishes. I was pleasantly surprised that I had no problems. I think it just takes me a day or so to acclimate.
Once you are more than 25 miles off shore you are allowed to discard dunnage overboard, with the exception of plastic. Since our trash bin was getting pretty full, I went through our trash and tore into small pieces all our paper products, I took the tops and bottoms off of the metal cans and I filled any glass containers with sea water and it was all tossed overboard. It’s an interesting experience to be tossing trash overboard. Somewhat unsettling actually…
For dinner I made artichoke chicken and had used marinated artichokes in small glass containers. I set aside one, then washed and dried it, and put in one of our boat cards with a note that said “If found, please make contact”. We’ll see if it makes its way to a distant shore – it would be pretty neat to hear from someone.
As my first watch approached we decided to alter course from a broad reach to a beam reach and stow the whisker pole. With little experience using it, I wasn’t comfortable being topside by myself with it deployed. If I had to make changes or take it down I would have had to wake J to help and, with the lack of good zzz’s the night before, I didn’t want to disrupt him. We figured it was just easier this time around to stow it. As my first watch came to an end we were off the coast of LI – whoohoo! Although, it was a bit bizarre to look at the chart and see Patchogue, NY; which isn’t far from my family, but still far from our destination :)
When J came up at 2100 to relieve me, we looked at our course and the winds and determined we could either maintain our current heading only to have to turn up later and potentially motor for 6hrs to get to Montauk, Pt, or we could turn up now and run wing and wing. I wasn’t thrilled about running wing and wing, especially with a rolling, following sea in the pitch dark with only one person topside. But J said he wanted to at least try it so I stayed topside and helped him adjust sails. Adjusting for wing and wing can be tricky, even in day light with little swell. We got the main over and were trying to set the preventer but the boat started to get tossed around from the swells, the boom was flogging and lines were everywhere and J almost got tied up in the main sheet – it just wasn’t a good combination. So we quickly 86’d that idea and decided that it wasn’t worth it. We fired up the iron genoa and altered coarse for a more direct route to Montauk Point.
As I took over for my second watch we were getting pretty close to Montauk Pt and we wanted to make sure we timed our arrival to reach the Point during daylight so I slowed her down a bit as we made our approach. While coming in slower would allow us to time our approach it also meant we got tossed around a lot more. This would have been another great time to use our trys’l for stability instead of using our main. Thank goodness our mains’l is being replaced soon as this trip definitely took some life out of her. Due to the seas and being under power we couldn’t use ASSWOP and our auto pilot would have had a hell of a time in the swell so I hand steered the whole watch. Talk about a long watch!
We rounded Montauk Pt and made our way up to Fishers Island where we planned to anchor for a day for some much needed R&R before heading down the LI Sound to Port Jefferson, NY. Navigating through Fishers Island proved to be interesting, especially when you are not familiar with it. The waters are riddled with rocks so you have to keep a watchful eye as to where you are going.
We decided to drop anchor in West Harbor. We dropped the hook at 1030, almost exactly 96 hours from the time we left Deltaville, VA. It was a cute and quaint little harbor area, well protected from the southerly winds. There were no facilities on shore, so we didn't bother to deploy our dinghy, just remain on Tango and catch up on some sleep and let our bodies readjust to a world with less motion. We had initially planned to only stay a night, but some thunderstorms were forecast for the following day, so we decided to take two days. It worked out well as we all needed the recovery time.
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