Up the Ocean

June 11 --Monday - another night of major thunderstorms .It's still raining here and we are rocking in the harbour. Winds are on the nose and the seas are at 7 feet today outside the Chesapeake...sorry guys, not going out when we have to stay awake for 24 hours or more AND fight the weather. Staying in Cape Charles and working on little jobs. While we were commiserating and working, a 100-foot tall sho came ...Of course we had to go watch [Rick actually meant 'help'] it dock. Beautiful Dutch reproduction called Kalmar Nyckel. Everybody in town came over...apparently its been here before and they love it...no wonder!!

June 12....Yeah...no...we got out to the sea buoy at 3 miles off shore and headed up our track, the seas were 6-8 feet and the wind was 25 knots from the northeast...couldn't get over 2.5 knots, so we turned back...crap! 25 miles wasted! We left at 7:30 and landed back here at 2;30 7 freakin hours to go nowhere. So we did an oil change and re-fueled. And we couldn't keep going because its a 60-70 hour run to New York and we would have run out of fuel..probably could have made it to Ocean City but not at 2-3 nots bucking 6 foot seas!
We had 25 knots on the nose coming back into the harbour and the sky has closed around us. C.G was warning boaters of waterspouts on the Bay.

I don't trust ANYBODY's weather predictions now! We're going to wait until tomorrow afternoon...see if the predictions are 24 hours behind and if they are, take off. I am rapidly running out of Rescue Remedy!!

 So to follow that up, another celebrity. ..USHER ...came in. I can't imagine anyone with that kind of money naming their boat after someone else, so I assume it was his boat. But when you google it [I hate that word] it doesn't say who the owner is...I didn't even look at the price, after I saw the photos.

June 13 --What a difference a day makes... I think that's a song but...
we got out under the bridge into a different world... perfect for motor- sailing and we got to Cape May this morning - 22 hour trip, and the engine alarm came on...our water system is not working again... THANK GOD FOR TOWBOAT US!!!!

And thanks for all the positive vibes y'all sent out...it got us this far! 157 miles from Cape Charles.

We are in Cape May in an anchorage and now we need to find more parts and a dealer. And Ben {Towboat captain] says its an air leak somewhere so we will epoxy the shit out of all the plastic parts, tighten all the clamps again,and hope the dinghy holds enough air to get us to shore to the YAnmar dealer in case we need other things. The winds right now are 22 knots and the anchorage is along the side of the wind tunnel!!!

Tomorrow is supposed to be just as bad [wind on the nose] so we will probably stay here overnight. Besides, we were working in 2-hour shifts so neither of us got much sleep. We will do the last stretch to New York in 2 or 3 stops...no more overnights. 

I'm going to write a book about this "adventure" and I have the pictures as proof.🤣😜😂 Anyway, we left on June 13 at 8:30 am and by 9:30 next morning we were off Cape May when the motor alarm went off.

June 15 Rick is looking for parts...oil seals for and /or new water pump. We'll fix the old one when we get home.  we both slept well last night but were up at 5 am  again...habit

IF we can fix it today we will leave and head for New York. It's only 120 miles so we can do that over 24 hours and we will get there in daylight.  Then we will be in the Hudson River, take down the mast and head through the Canals for Lake Ontario.  On a higher note if the dinghy motor keeps working, we do have a back-up for the Canals. :(