“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” Maria Robinson
July 5, 2017, Thursday
We took the train to Grand Central Station to spend a fun-packed day in the city. A stroll down Broadway, lunch at Trattoria Trecolori, entertainment at the Gershwin theater and a walk in Central Park.
The Broadway play Wicked is hilariously funny and extremely thought-provoking. It powerfully shows how the reaction of people to news can change the course of history. What a clever twist on the Wizard of Oz. Loved it!
July 4, 2017 Wednesday
Flying on Walkway Over the Hudson
Happy 241st Birthday to the USA
July 2-3, 2017 Sunday & Monday
The last two days we enjoyed a drive thru beautiful Connecticut and the sites around Poughkeepsie and Hyde Park, New York. At Poughkeepsie we had an inspiring walk at Walkway Over the Hudson State Historic Park, the walk included a walkway spanning the Hudson River. At 212 feet tall and 1.28 miles long, it is the longest, elevated pedestrian bridge in the world.
Next, we visited Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site which includes Springwood, the birthplace, lifelong home, and burial place of the 32nd President of the United States, our only four -term president. The two-mile walk down Roosevelt Farm Lane to Val-Kill certainly gave us a strong sense of Eleanor Roosevelt’s love of nature and simplicity. Val-Kill was Eleanor Roosevelt’s main home from 1945 until her death in 1962. This site originated as Val-Kill Industries, a social experiment designed to provide local farmers and their families with necessary crafting skills to supplement their income. Mrs. Roosevelt championed social welfare and civil rights and her Val-Kill Industries experiment was a prototype for the New Deal programs of President Roosevelt. It was to Val-Kill that John F. Kennedy went to seek Eleanor Roosevelt’s support as the 1960 Democratic nominee, she consented only after he agreed to make civil rights part of his platform.
Unfortunately, the Vanderbilt Mansion is undergoing exterior reconstruction which took away part of the grandeur but still is an excellent example of a gilded-age country place, illustrating the political, social, and cultural changes that occurred after the Civil War. The Italian Garden is stunning.
A note about the word kill, which we see everywhere; Val-Kill, Fishkill, Peerskill. It comes from the Middle Dutch kille, meaning “riverbed” or “water channel”. The term is used in areas of Dutch influence in the Delaware and Hudson Valleys.
After all this touring we needed a bit of nourishment, so we stopped at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) which has four restaurants where students learn by doing. We were headed for Ristorante Caterina de’ Medici, regrettably it was closed due to the holiday weekend. We refocused our pallets and enjoyed the wonderful meal at Apple Pie Bakery Café which serves excellent soups and sandwiches. Some famous chefs that went to the CIA: Anthony Bourdain, Cat Cora, Rocco DiSpirito, Richard Blais, Grant Achatz, Michael Symon, and Marcel Vigneron.
At the end of the day, the gorgeous setting and architecture of Marist College drew us in. Built in 1929, Marist College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college. We had a great time talking with students fishing off the pier and watching the large gaggle of geese playing along the rock edges of the Hudson.
June 30 – July 1-2, 2017 Friday – Sunday
Rick’s phone died, buried at sea, and we are waiting for delivery of his new phone. Since we will be here for at least a week we have rented a car and are enjoying the rich heritage of the area.
New Croton Dam which has a stunning spillway that is part artificial and part natural. Built in the late 1800’s, the dam supplies New York City 19 billion gallons of water, about three percent of New York City water system’s total storage and provides the public access to a beautiful park and hiking trail.
USN Blue Angels soar the skies at the New York Air Show, an amazing event. On our way home we visited West Point, the oldest continuously occupied military post in the United States. We were astonished by the beauty of the buildings and scenery. At Trophy Point, a scenic overlook of the Hudson River, there is a collection of cannons that were captured from early American history wars and pieces of the huge chain stretched across the Hudson to prevent British Ships from continuing further up the Hudson. This is where Benedict Arnold, at the time commander of the fortifications at West Point, betrayed his country and rowed out to a British warship to defect.
June 29, 2017 – Thursday
We awoke early this morning and left our Statue of Liberty anchorage shortly after sunrise. It was a little early for the incoming tide but we were anxious to get started and thought the traffic through New York would be much lighter early in the morning. Two-foot waves were at our stern most of the day with a fair share of four footers thrown in just for kicks. Rick and I were both busy watching for ferries, commercial ships, and recreational vessels darting in and out of the terminals and at the same time trying to take in the sites along the Hudson. The pictures below record or trip from New York to Croton-on-Hudson, NY.
June 26-28, 2017 Monday-Wednesday
Monday, June 26: With a positive weather forecast, we opted to take the Atlantic Route up the coast of New Jersey to New York. It was positively glorious to be on the blue water of the Atlantic Ocean again, where we saw many seabirds, dolphins, whales, fishermen, and vessels of all types.
Our first stop, Atlantic City famed for its boardwalk and beaches, convention center, and casinos. Our marina, Farley State Marina/Golden Nugget was about two miles from the boardwalk, by the time we walked to the boardwalk, down the boardwalk, and part way back up our poor feet were begging for a rest so we caught a Jitney back to the marina.
Atlantic City Boardwalk was the first boardwalk in the United States (1870), is sixty feet wide and just over six miles long, currently the world’s longest wooden walkway.
The Atlantic City Convention Center was home to the Miss America pageant from 1929 until 2004, and has hosted celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Dean Martin the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, among many others and contains one of the world’s largest musical instruments, a 33,000-pipe organ. During World War II the center, known as Boardwalk Hall, was used as a training facility for the U.S. Army, soldiers could be seen marching down the boardwalk and conducting mock beachfront invasions on the beautiful beaches.
Tuesday, June 27: Today we continued up the Atlantic coast, the long white sandy beaches with water towers denoting the coastal communities seem to go on forever, we saw as many as ten water towers at a time. New Jersey has roughly 130 miles of ocean coastline and 160 miles of coastline along the Delaware River, by the time we reach New York, we will have seen most of its coastal miles.
Tonight we are at Brewer Crystal Point Marina, Point Pleasant Beach, NJ. We pulled up to the fuel dock, our first self-service fuel dock and pump-out station, and as Rick serviced the boat I went to find the dock master’s office. This is a family owned marina and, as it turned out, they are “closed” on Tuesday and Wednesday. We were very lucky, one of the dock hands had been out fishing with friends and was at the dock. He was off duty but told us where we could tie up and borrowed a restroom and laundry key for us to use. Perfect, we were all set for a work afternoon. I did laundry while Rick was on boat duty and, although we did not have time to explore the area we did have an outstanding sunset, it seemed like the sky was on fire.
Wednesday, June 28: Today we passed Sandy Hook, took the Ambrose Channel to New York’s upper harbor and anchored Andiamo behind the Statue of Liberty. The anchorage was a bit bumpy, but what an amazing site. We loved watching the boating activity and enjoyed watching the city turn from daylight to night.
June 23-25, 2017 Friday-Sunday
Friday, June 23: Today was definitely a work day on the boat: bills, cleaning, laundry, cooking – where did the day go?
A few interesting tidbits about the Utsch’s Marina: It was built in 1951-the year Rick was born, you can see hazards in the slips at low tide (those slip holders definitely need local knowledge), we received a lovely bottle of red wine and biscotti when we checked in, and we had to leave a $150 deposit for the bathroom keys.
Saturday, June 24: Today we walked across the Veterans Memorial Bridge to West Marine for a chart book and then walked down Washington Street, lined with gardens and Victorian homes, to the Cape May Hops Festival: Blues, Brews, & barbecue! The festival offered the usual fare of crafts, collectibles, music, food, and kids activities. We found a tree-shaded bench and spent the day eating, drinking, listening to the different bands, and people watching, one of our favorite pass times.
The festival was held at the beautiful Physick Estate. This 18-room Victorian mansion was built by Frank Furness for Dr. Emlen Physick in 1879. Emlen Physick’s grandfather, Dr. Philip Syng Physick (1768-1837) is known as the Father of American Surgery and although Emlen Physick followed family tradition by completing medical training, he never practiced medicine. Instead, he elected to live the life of a country gentleman and animal breeder. Today the estate is home to the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts & Humanities, host of today’s activities.
Sunday, June 25: Tomorrow is decision day, we have to decide which of the two routes we will take from Cape May to Manasquan. The inside route travels through the marshland of the New Jersey Intracostal Waterway (NJICW) while the outside route follows along the New Jersey coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. Both have advantages and disadvantages. The inside is not dredged on a regular basis and you have to continuously worry about the water depth, no-one wants to get grounded, but then again, who wants to get caught in the ocean if the weather turns bad? After talking to the locals and studying several weather forecasts we are leaning towards the outside passage, the final decision will be made tomorrow morning.
In the afternoon we walked 4.9 miles to the Cape May Lighthouse, visited the World War II Lookout Tower, and ended the day at Sunset Beach to honor a veteran.
Since 1975, every summer night from Memorial Day through September 30, the Hume family of Cape May Point has honored a departed U.S. veteran in a flag ceremony at Sunset Beach. The veteran’s casket flag is flown during the day and 30 minutes before sunset the ceremony begins. Information about the honoree is read, “God Bless America” and the national anthem are played, and taps are sounded as the veteran’s relatives lower the flag. Very moving with a very special sunset!
June 21-22, 2017 Wednesday-Thursday
Wednesday, June 21: Arriving at Mile Zero of the ICW we turned east to transit the 14-mile long C&D Canal. A canal across the narrowest section of the Delmarva Peninsula was first suggested by Augustine Herrman in the late 1600’s, it took till 1826 for his dream to become a reality. The canal, 10 feet deep and 66 feet wide, cut 300 miles off the trip between Philadelphia and Baltimore. With improvements over time, the C&D Canal now has a depth of 35-feet and a width of 400-feet and is the busiest canal in the US and the third busiest in the world.
As observers, we love watching all types of vessels, but as boaters, it can be pretty tense when boating through a congested area and, although the guide books said it was pretty straight forward, we never look forward to transiting a busy canal or harbor. As luck would have it, we had only one tug that overtook us, Sea Robin, and a couple of small fishing boats, an easy run.
They say that a favorite pass time at Chesapeake City, MD is ship watching. Although I saw a few binoculars turned our way I’m sure that seeing us was not nearly as entertaining as when tall ships, Navy ships, and foreign ships transit.
When we arrived at Delaware City Marina the dock hand that helped us gave a quick rundown of the city, “ we have a population of 1,756, an ice-cream store, and thirteen churches,” what else could we possibly want to know.
Thursday, June 22: We were planning on exploring Fort Delaware, Fort Mott, and Fort DuPont today, all part of the historical defense system of the Delaware River, but the weather prediction for tomorrow is not good and the dock master told us that today’s weather prediction was the best one he had seen in over a month, so off we went.
Delaware City is two miles north of the C&D Canal, which meant that when we left the marina we had to pass the east entrance of the canal. We counted seven sailboats (including a tall ship), one tanker, and five motor vessel going in the canal. Looks like a busy day for the C&D.
We cruised down the Delaware River and at the Miah Maull Shoal Lighthouse we set a heading for Cape May, via the Cape May Canal, and arrived at Utsch’s Marina in time to have docktails with fellow loopers.
Note: The Cape May Canal is just under three miles long and was dug from a natural shallow creek in 1942 after several ships were sunk by German U-boats. The building of the canal was the final link in a protected waterway intended to allow coastal shipping to travel along the coast without the fear of being sunk by German submarines.
Nuclear Power Plant Crabbing (I wonder if the crabs glow in the dark?)
June 17-20, 2017 Saturday-Tuesday
Saturday, June 17: Spent a fun filled day in Baltimore with our nephew Nick. Nick just graduated from Johns Hopkins University and will remain there next year working on a research project with one of his professors. He gave us a tour of “his domain” for the past five years. His apartment, friends, campus, and the Baltimore Museum of Art’s and Sculpture Garden, which included lunch at Gertrude’s, excellent.
On our way back to Nick’s apartment we walked by the Civil War: Union Soldiers and Sailors Monument. I was surprised to learn that of the four Civil War monuments in Baltimore three of them honor the Confederacy, it is obvious that Baltimore had a lot of Southern sympathies. The Confederate statues; Lee-Jackson in Homewood, the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument, and the Confederate Women’s Monument right on the other side of the Johns Hopkins campus.
Sunday, June 18: Two glorious days in a row, today was spent with our friends Sam, Damon, and family, it has been at least twelve years since they visited us in Italy. We worked with Sam in both Cuba and Panama and she became like family, joining us on Paradigm Lost for a trip to the Bahama’s and one to Jamaica. Damon might have been one of our most entertaining guests on Paradigm Lost and it was great to enjoy his unique charm today. Sam, Rick, and I spent the morning reliving old times and catching up. In the afternoon we joined Daman, Saffron (daughter), Darius (son) and Ashley (cousin) for Father’s day dinner at Damon’s favorite restaurant, Gilligan’s Pier, located on the Potomac River.
The only problem with the last two days, both were way too short. We are already looking forward to our next visit.
Tuesday, June 20: Today was pretty uneventful as we left Solomons and cruised up to Bay Bridge Marina Resort on Kent Island. On the way up the bay, we passed the Calvert Cliffs on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, these hundred foot high cliffs are famous as great fossil collecting areas and constitute the most complete section of Miocene deposits in the eastern United States.
It must be Dolphin Mating Season, around the Calvert cliffs we saw lots of dolphins frolicking in the sun.
Near Annapolis, we passed the Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse, the only screw-pile lighthouse still standing on its original site and the last manned lighthouse (1964) in the Chesapeake Bay.
Kent Island is the largest island in the Chesapeake Bay and is roughly four miles from the western shore, at this point the main waterway of the bay is at its narrowest and is spanned here by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge
Tomorrow we plan to complete our journey on the Chesapeake and cross the fourteen mile C & D Canal to Delaware.
June 13-16, 2017 Tuesday-Friday
Tuesday, June 13: Coinjock is fifty miles from Norfolk which is Mile Zero of the Intracoastal Waterway and home of Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval installation in the world. While a fifty-mile day is doable, we did not want to enter such a busy port at the end of a long day, so we opted to spend the night at the Atlantic Yacht Basin Marina, Great Bridge.
The plan was to secure the boat, walk a quarter of a mile for propane, return the propane to the boat, and then walk about a half mile, in the other direction, to the Great Bridge Battlefield and Waterways Park. It was so hot that we ended up stopping for a very long early dinner, the dinner was okay but it was the air conditioning that we were really seeking, the temperature was 92 degrees with a “feels like” 102.
After dinner, we got the propane and went back to the boat. It was just too hot to visit the Great Bridge Battlefield. On our way back to the boat, we discovered a monument stating it was the site of the encampment area for the American Patriots of the Battle of Great Bridge. In 1775, the Battle of Great Bridge took place in this area and the success of the Patriots helped change the course of history. As victors of the battle, American Patriots gained control of the British Naval Operations in Norfolk, thus ending the rule of the British Crown in Virginia.
Wednesday, June 14: The Atlantic Yacht Basin Marina is located at Mile 12 of the ICW, just south of the Great Bridge Bascule Bridge (8 feet) and the Great Bridge Lock at Mile 11.3. We were up early to make the seven o’clock opening of the bridge and proceeded to the lock. The lock lowered us to sea level, a mere two feet, and we are now ready for the Chesapeake Bay portion of our trip, Norfolk to the C & D Canal, about 200 miles.
Today was a long day, about 10 ½ hours, the 12-14 knots SW winds were not bad because they were on our stern. However, when the winds changed to the northeast the waves pelted us on the bow which made for a bumpy, difficult to steer ride for the rest of the day. We are at the Norview Marina, Deltaville, VA and winds are predicted to be about the same tomorrow. Sounds like a good day to stay put and do some boat chores.
Thursday, June 15: With an empty water tank, we were disappointed to learn that Deltaville does not have city water. The well-water smells of sulfur and we were not inclined to fill our tank with it, but we did need water. Fortunately, Linda, from the Deltaville Market, over three miles away, picked us up at the marina and returned us with our water and groceries, better than a Taxi.
The best part of the day was the cool weather, the skies were cloud covered and the temperature never went above 77, perfect day for boat cleaning and doing laundry.
Friday, June 16: Today we were boarded by the Coast Guard, in all our boating time this is the first time they have ever paid us a visit. It is a calm day on the water which made the boarding easy. All went well, the inspection was professional, friendly, and took about fifteen minutes. All was in order and we now have our CG-4100, which should keep us from being boarded again for a year.
Tonight we are at Calvert Marina, Solomons, MD where we plan to stay until Monday. We will visit our nephew Nicholas in Baltimore on Saturday and friends from our Cuba/Panama Days on Sunday.
