Really cool Dolphin video and Superstorm Sandy

Location:  Annapolis, Maryland

It was an exciting trip getting here, with Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy going almost right over the top of us (more on that below).  We started out from Wentworth-by-the-Sea on Friday, October 19 after I arrived back on the boat from my dad’s burial ceremony in Bismarck/Mandan, ND.  One of his last requests was to be buried at the Veteran’s Cemetery in Mandan.  My mom, my uncle Max, my uncle George, my cousin Barney and his wife Deb, and I all arrived on Sunday, Oct. 14.  On Monday, we took a trip over to the cemetery to check things out and also did some sight-seeing in Bismarck.  We spent the morning at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, where Custer lived prior to his last stand against the Sioux.  The buildings were closed because they were decorated for “Haunted Fort” tours for the Halloween season.  We looked in the windows of the building and got to see the ghoulish decorations and they opened up the commissary building for us so that we could look inside at where they had the costumes staged for the weekend tours.  On-A-Slant Indian Village is in the same state park and has replicas of Indian earthlodges.  The Lewis and Clark expedition spent a lot of time in this area traveling on the Missouri River.  After the state park, we searched for other historic locations in the area.  This is a picture of us standing in front of the “Whispering Giant”, listed on the guide map as an historical landmark.  In reality it was a wooden carving on the street corner in front of a liquor store.

Cousin Barney, Uncle George, Mom, Uncle Max, B at Whispering Giant, Mandan, ND

Dad’s burial ceremony was very nice.  The honor guard was there and they did a flag folding ceremony, played Taps and did a nine gun salute.  After the ceremony, we walked up the hill to his burial plot.  It’s in a good location with a view overlooking the Missouri River.  Plenty of family and friends came for the service and it was nice to catch up with cousins and their families, many of which I hadn’t seen for 25 years.  The next day we decided to try some more cultural experiences so we went to the Heritage Center (it was closed for renovations) and a tour of the state capitol building.  This is a picture from the 19^th floor of the capitol building looking out over the city.

View from 19th Floor of ND Capitol Building, Bismarck

Most of us who flew in for the services left early Thursday morning and I arrived back in NH late Thursday night.  Friday morning we took the truck back over to Dave’s Dad’s house, said our good-byes and headed south to Gloucester.  The wind was predicted to blow up to 45 knots that afternoon and the ride was very rough.  Dave lost his whole crew that day and was up in the pilot house bucking the waves with no company for most of the day.  We got to the north side of the Blynman Canal early afternoon and were protected from the worst of the wind, so the rest of the ride into Gloucester harbor was calm.  I talked about the Blynman Canal in an earlier post when we traveled north thru it; it is still very tight quarters and the bridge at the south end is very narrow.   Saturday morning we moved from Gloucester to Salem and dinner with Al and Patti at Finnz.  Salem is definitely a happening spot during Halloween with people in costumes and plenty of Halloween decorations.  This is a picture of a house decked out for the holiday, with huge spiders and webs and ghouls in the yard hovering over boiling cauldrons.

Salem Halloween House

From Salem, we went to the Plymouth/Duxbury area, anchored out and had dinner with Craig and Verna.  Craig and Dave were classmates at MMA and Craig is now a professor there.  Verna does interior design and they have a beautifully decorated house in Kingston.  Our plans for the next day were to go thru the Cape Cod Canal and Craig asked that we give him a call when we got to the east entrance.  MMA is on the west side of the canal and when we arrived there, Craig had arranged a group of cadets along the pier.  While we were cruising by, they shouted “Bon Voyage, Captain Herndon”.  It was really cool and very thoughtful of Craig to arrange it.  Here is a picture of the cadets along the pier.

MMA Cadets "Bon Voyage, Capt. Herndon"

We made it through the canal late afternoon and proceeded to Cuttyhunk for the night.  We arrived there after dark, so got to practice some night cruising.  This is a picture looking back at the Cuttyhunk harbor as we were cruising out the next morning.  From Cuttyhunk, we cruised to Block Island, RI.  Last year when we stopped here in August, the harbor mooring field was packed with boats and the restaurants ashore were packed with people.  This year, most of the moorings were already winterized and we were one of the only boats anchored in the harbor.  We dinghyed into town and asked a local where to get a beer.  She mentioned that only two places were open, one for beer and one for beer and food, so we had a beer at the first place, then walked up to Club Soda for another beer and Taco Tuesday dinner (tacos $2 each).

Cuttyhunk Harbor

Our original plan from Block Island was to cruise into Long Island Sound and to spend a few days in New London, CT where there is a huge Defender store.  Defender is a marine supply store and we have been developing our Defender wish list as we have been cruising this summer.  So it was going to be a big shopping spree, bring your wallet type of stop.  Instead, we checked the weather, noted it was going to be three days of good weather and decided to cruise along the southern shore of Long Island and skip Defender.  There are very few places to turn in along the southern shore and most inlets buoys are uncharted because the inlets have constantly shifting shoals, so it is not recommended that you cruise here in inclement weather.  We spent the first night in Shinnecock Bay, a large basin with about 8 foot depths.  We anchored out and left early the next morning.  Day 2 we went thru Jones Inlet.  As we were going in, following the buoys, a “head boat” fishing vessel hailed us on the radio and told us not to continue any further as the channel was mismarked and if we continued we would probably go aground.  He advised that we turn around, come back out and then follow him in.  We did and after we were inside, he advised us of a good place to anchor for the night.   We got up the next morning, checked the weather and headed for the New Jersey shore.  By that time, the predictions were that Sandy was going to come up the east coast.  Our leisurely cruise along the Jersey shore, with a planned stop in Atlantic City for a little gambling, now became a race to get somewhere safe out of the seas before the storm got too close.  On the leg from Long Island to New Jersey, a pod of short-beaked common dolphins joined us and swam in our bow wake for about an hour.  Very Cool!  Something that we will remember for a long time.  Here is a still picture of the dolphins and a short video of them swimming in our bow wake.

Dolphins swimming in bow wake

 We spent a long day cruising and anchored inside Barnegat Inlet for the night.   Here is a picture of the Barnegat Inlet Lighthouse at dawn. 

Barnegat Lighthouse at dawn

On Saturday, we spent another long day cruising to get around Cape May and up inside Delaware Bay before the predicted 12 – 16 feet seas on the Atlantic side of the coast.  (The predicted sea state of 12 – 16 foot waves means that the forecasted wave is equal to the average of the highest 1/3 of all waves.  In real terms this means that the maximum wave can be expected to be 1.86 times this prediction, so 12 -16 feet would be max of 22 – 30 feet.  Needless to say, we didn’t want to be out there in it when the waves reached those heights.)  The next day, Sunday, we left our anchorage near Cape May at o’dark thirty in order to make it up the Delaware Bay, thru the C&D canal and into northern Chesapeake Bay before sundown.  Our plan was to anchor in the Sassafras River and ride out the storm there.  We arrived mid Sunday afternoon and anchored up in the river just south of Knight Island and felt comfortable with our chosen location.  Sunday night was fairly quiet.  Monday dawned with plenty of wind and rain.  We set-up an anchor watch alarm on our chart plotter and our radar and took turns watching those and out the window to make sure we were holding fast.  About 10 a.m., the wind shifted and started coming more from the Northwest.   0ur watch circles indicated that our anchor was slipping so we pulled up the anchor and moved across the river so that the land mass better protected us from the NW wind.  All afternoon, the rain continued and the wind continued to increase in intensity.  We took turns on watch during the day and agreed that Dave would take the 8 p.m. to midnight watch and I would take the midnight to 4 a.m. watch.  About 10:30, I checked on Dave and he said all was well.  At 11:00, I could hear Dave zooming the chart plotter in and out, in and out, beep, beep, beep, beep.  Pretty soon, he fired up the main and I knew I better get out of bed.  The winds at that time were probably blowing 50 – 60 knots with gusts even higher.  I went out on deck to watch the chain come in and to help Dave with visual navigation.  We got the chain in (about 200 feet) and moved up river and across to the other side to get more protection from the south wind and re-anchored.  While we were making sure we were set and not slipping, we both felt a lull in the storm and assumed the eye must be passing overhead. Our barometer read 946mb at that time and if you look at the storm track you can see how close to the center of the storm we were.  Dave stayed on watch until about 3 a.m. when the worst of it was over and then I took over to watch the sun come up.  Anchor spot #3 was the charm and we didn’t have any more issues after that.  We came thru unscathed, with only some slight damage to the stem paint on the bow because of dragging the anchor chain across it while pulling in for our second reset.  The charts here will give you an idea of where we were and our anchor positions.  The first chart is the upper Chesapeake Bay.  You can see Annapolis and Baltimore on the western shore and there is a box around the Sassafras River on the Eastern Shore.  The second chart is the Sassafras River with anchoring spots 1, 2 and 3 noted.

Chart - Upper Chesapeake Bay

 

Chart - Sassafras River with anchor locations

Tuesday was a nice quiet day with some rain and wind, but very light compared to the previous day.  We both caught up on our sleep and watched the river flow mud from the creeks and land that were affected by the storm.  We also saw the local docks being overtopped by the rain and surge flooding of about 3 feet for this area.  The quadruple whammy of the rain, wind, storm surge and higher than normal tides contributed to the much of the damage seen along the New Jersey and New York coastlines.  Wednesday morning all was well, we pulled up anchor and headed for Annapolis where we are now.  We have spent the last few days visiting with Jennie (my friend from college, she was on the boat with us in August) and testing the food and beer joints around town.  Annapolis is a very quaint, easily walkable town, with a lot of bars and restaurants near the water front.  Yesterday there was a big tug-of-war fest.  The rope was strung across the harbor and teams from the Annapolis side tugged against teams on the Eastport side.  We’re on a City of Annapolis mooring so we had front row seats for the event.  Dave’s friends Tom and Sandy live in Easton (on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay) so they came into town yesterday for a tour of the boat and lunch at an Irish Pub.  They also have a trawler and will someday join us for a cruise either headed south or north from here.  We just got back from a crab cake lunch at Davis’s Pub on the Eastport side of the harbor, so time to post and prepare for our next adventure.