"SUNSHINE" Is Going Back Home!

Thursday, September 27, 2007 SUNSHINE IS GOING BACK HOME (for a brief visit!)

WEATHER: Hazy and hot again; 81 degrees, wind 5-10 SE building to 10 – 15. Small Craft Warnings for tomorrow.

COMMENTS:
0700 We arose slowly after a hot, restless night! We applied sunshine’s name to her port side last night and this morning, Anna Marie peeled off the tape that kept letters together prior to application. Our vessel’s name was reveled and we can now be identified from either port or starboard, but not from astern yet, we still have to put the name and hailing port on the transom.
0815 I completed some of the log; we fired up the puppies and slipped our lines. Destination: The fuel dock at Tidewater Marina.
0845 Took on 14 gallons of fuel and headed out.
1050 We were able to unroll the jib and do some motor sailing – such is the advantage of a sloop as compared to our catboat.
1545 Anchor down in Bodkin Creek. This is the creek SUNSHINE called home when she was known as SEA PAWS.

We rolled and unrolled the jib a couple of time on the day as the winds veered to our advantage. The sail gives the motors a lift. They don’t seem to have to work as hard. Unfortunately, we were never able to shut them off and sail on. They ran the whole time.

Shelley, Greg and family mentioned that they would meet us in the Solomons for the weekend if we were going there. We were excited by this prospect, but with the small craft warning for tomorrow, any chance of making the Solomons would require a very long day today. Our late departure probably meant that we wouldn’t be able to get far enough down bay. We cogitated for several hours and finally threw in the towel. Our destination became Bodkin Creek, the place from which we purchased “Sea Paws.” Our hope is to meet Greg, Shelley and kids at Baltimore. We’ll probably spend the day here tomorrow and make for Baltimore on Saturday morning.

Friday, September 28, 2007 OUR FIRST LAY DAY

WEATHER: Small craft advisories NW 15-20 gusts to 25; Showers in AM sunny in PM 81 degrees

COMMENTS: This is our first lay day. We’ve been going pretty hard for three days and finally are taking the time to slow down. Today’s agenda was reading, doing Sudoku puzzles, attending to some boat tasks. I also updated all of the logs and wrote a blog entry in anticipation of connectivity at the marina tomorrow (ED NOTE: When we arrived, we found that the marina’s service was down!)

Anna Marie made reservations at the Inner Harbor Marina East in Baltimore. We’re hoping that Shelley, Greg and the kids will join us for the weekend.

We made a call to Myrtle Beach to wish Rosie a happy first birthday! Happy Birthday Rosie!!! We wanted to talk to Josh, but he was out playing with Noah. Boy do we miss him, Rosie, Sandi and Matt!

The Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware Bay Legs

Old Coast Guard Station near Little Egg Inlet and Holgate, NJ

September 24, 2007 The Atlantic Ocean

It is 0600 and the anchor is up! We are on our way to Cape May, NJ. We motored down the NJ ICW along LBI, passed the Brant Beach Yacht Club, the Haven Beach Club, and Spray Beach Yacht Club. We observed that Morrison’s Restaurant, which burned down several years ago, has not yet rebuilt. We thought they would rebuild immediately after the fire, but that was not the case.
Atlantic City Skyline

After passing the Beach Haven Yacht Club, we unfurled the jib and motor sailed out Little Egg Inlet. The day was crystal clear and Atlantic City looked like a fine jewel jutting out into the ocean. Winds were out of the north east at 5 to 10 knots, so motor sailing was the order of the day. We ticked off the coast towns as we progressed south and entered Cold Spring Inlet at 1630 hours. We fueled up at South Jersey Marina and anchored just south of the Cape May Coast Guard Station at 1800 hours. It was a long yet satisfying day, and we toasted the fact that ½ of our Atlantic Ocean work was completed. (ED. Note: On “Fodder’s Cat,” a series of cold fronts caused a five day delay getting to Cape May.)

Anchorage in Cape May, NJ (near Coast Guard Station)

September 25, 2007 The Delaware Bay

We fired up the engines and weighed anchor at 0600 hours, determined to make our way to the bountiful Chesapeake Bay. We have settled in for a long day. The current is against us and will get progressively worse until we get to Reedy Point (the entrance to the C&D Canal where we’re timed it exactly right to hit the maximum foul current!

On the bright side, we sailed for 2 ½ hours on the Delaware Bay at speeds in excess of 8 MPH! Were we flying or what?

Shipping traffic was light in the lower bay but got progressively busier as we traveled almost due north. At one point, we were surrounded by fog, but visibility was at least two miles. We were out of the shipping lanes and we had no problem with the fog.

We have heard several cruisers on the radio and saw about 2 dozen vessels that appeared to be doing the same thing as us - heading south for the winter!

I get all of the necessary tide and current information from the GPS (Garmin 545s Chart Plotter) which is an amazing piece of technology.

We “enjoyed” the slow going through the C&D Canal. Our hope to drop the anchor in Engineers Cove on the Canal at Chesapeake City was foiled when we enter the cove to find greatly expanded dock space which took up a good portion of what used to be the anchorage. What anchorage was left was occupied. The tie up space along the town dock was full and, even at 10:00 PM on a Tuesday night, the joint was hoping. The marina is much larger than I remember. There were lots of boats and people. A live band was playing and the crowd was partying. One might have thought it was a Saturday night!

The evening was dark. Without the chart plotter, we would have been very apprehensive entering the cove. We didn’t find any channel marks, but with the chart plotter’s 200’ scale, we could pick our way in with confidence. What a difference from using paper charts!

The lack of room to anchor caused us to exit the harbor in hopes of finding a quieter anchorage at the nay end of the canal.

We followed the channel to Veasy Point on the Bohemia River. Just before making our turn around red nun “16” the starboard engine picked up some grass and wasn’t getting sufficient water. We shut down the engine and proceeded under port engine alone.

We got the anchor down in Veazy Point and immediately crashed. It was a long day. We made it out of NJ in just three days. Our delivery trip is over… now, we start cruising!

We're Off!

Motoring down bay shortly after departure
September 23, 2007
This is the blog of the good ship “SUNSHINE,” a 34' catamaran made by PDQ Yachts in 1989. "SUNSHINE" has just departed from our home port in Barnegat, NJ. with Fodder (Bll) and Grammy (Anna Marie) aboard. This is our second trip on the ICW.

We slipped our lines from Mariner’s Marina in Barnegat at 1700 hours on Sunday, September 23, 2007 and headed south, all the while waving good-bye to Mom, Shelley and Greg, and Geoffrey, Claire and Madi (mom, daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren respectively). We are officially chasing the 70’s (70 degre weather that is)! We hope to follow the warm weather down the coast to Florida.

After our late afternoon start, we motored down beautiful Barnegat Bay. We tossed out the hook in Manahawkin Bay after only two hours underway. It was a calm, colorful evening. The yellows and oranges of the setting sun gave way to the crimsons and violets of the twilight. The water was an iridescent silver/purple, and we could just hear the clicking of tires as cars made their way across the Causeway that connects long beach Island and the Mainland. It was a splendid first evening on the hook.

While swinging at anchor, I reflected back to the summer Mariner races held on the west course of the Surf City Yacht Club. Crew Gary and I meet all of the goals we established at the beginning of the season, in fact, we exceeded some of them!

Three of our five grandchildren participated in SCYC programs. Oldest grandson, Geoffrey sailed in the Opti I (Optimist Dinghy - Level I) while Josh and Claire were in the Bay kids program. Madi and Rose were too young to participate but stayed with us for the summer as did youngest daughter Sandi. My mother, Mom-Mom to the kids, played with us as well. Beside activities at the Yacht Club, we spent time with the kdis at the ocean and bay beaches, Fantasy Island and Eagleswood Amusement Parks, not to mention many games of minigolf. The hardest thing about cruising is leaving family and friends.

While on the hook on this splendid evening, we took time to reflect on our previous journey south in “Fodder’s Cat,” the cozy, little vessel that we called home for eight months. We took great pride in that boat and the fact that we were the smallest boat in that year’s group of “snowbirds” to make the trip south.

This year, our vessel is more commodious. One of the reasons we “adopted” this boat is to have family and friends join us for various legs of the journey. So far, we have scheduled visitors for a total of about a month and a half and are waiting for commitments from several others.