Badabing!

After leaving Cape May on Saturday we tried our best to sail in light winds by putting up the spinnaker and having Conrad and Mark put on fins and hang off the back of the boat to give us a push.  Boat speeds of under 2 knots were't going to cut it so after a few hours we had to resort to turning on the engines.

We arrived in Atlantic City with enough of the day left to dinghy ashore and walked along the crowded ocean-front boardwalk. It was very interesting people watching. Our brief exposure to the city did nothing to counter our preconceived notion that it is a poor man's Vegas. But it does have a certain tired sort of energy (although there is a decided lack of energy from a segment of the population that can't work up the gumption to walk and hire a poor guy to push them around the boardwalk in a glorified woven wicker stroller). Although a few hours on the main strip is enough for us, we are happy to share with the boys another aspect of our diverse world. Their favorite part was the NY-style pizza and lights on the slot machines. It also gave us a chance to talk about the gambling industry with them: "Always double down when you have a ten or eleven."

I'm kidding! It totally depends on what the face card count is...

The other day I was on Mark about cleaning up his toys. At one point he turns to me and cheerfully starts mocking and pretending to be me, "I'm bigger so you have to do what I say..." I have not used those words--that is just his assessment of the situation. My assessment of the situation is that this kid is not nearly scared enough of me. And if this is how he is at 5 years old, we are in for it.

Mark took these pictures. We have to stop every few feet and take pictures of things that he finds interesting, which are numerous. Thank goodness they un-invented film.

 

Cape May Nature Center

 

Thursday we were on the boat all day because it was very windy, cloudy and cold (a high in the low 70s). After dreaming of winter while enduring the heat wave in Annapolis, none of us even left the interior of the boat except Matt who wore a jacket. We are total babies and much like Goldilocks--it's too hot, it's too cold, waaah.

While cocooned indoors we listened on the VHF to the saga of one boat trying to come into a local marina. They called the marina initially to ask whether the conditions were such that they should come in sooner rather than later (they were off-shore and could delay their arrival as needed). It took about 5 minutes for the tentative-sounding marina radio operator to understand what they were asking and then to answer "I don't know" in a roundabout manner. He ended by suggesting that they "should be fine." Several hours later they called the marina to say they were entering the inlet. Then a few minutes later they hailed the tow boat company to ask for a tow because they were stuck on a shoal. About 10 minutes after that, they called the tow boat company to say they had gotten off the shoal  (it was a rising tide). Then they called the marina and we didn't hear from them again so we assume there was a happy ending.

 

The next day, we visited the local Cape May Nature Center. There is a lot of goodness packed into a small area. The boys got to see a rescued octopus ("Fred") and touch a Horseshoe Crab. The young intern explained what the difference was between male and female Horseshoe Crabs. She started off strong by saying that the males are smaller. They also have "boxing glove" claws so that they can "hang on" to the female. You could see the moment when she realized that Conrad and Mark may not understand about the birds and the bees (they actually do understand mating in an Animal Planet channel kind of way). As she got to the part where the male's shell is curved in the back so that he can fit on top of the female crab, she kind of paused and said something about the male crab climbing on...the beach.

That night we again heard the water pump for the fridge straining and pumping louder. A nettle jellyfish had committed hari-kari in the intake. After trying unsuccessfully to pull it up and out the intake hose, we got out out the dingy pump, stuck it down the water line and blew it back out to the ocean (minus some tentacles and other parts that got left behind).  That's twice in the States that something has worked its way in there. Add that to the list of chores you don't have on land.

Jersey Shore

Please ignore the fact that it's 3 days later and
Matt and Conrad are wearing the same shirts as in Annapolis.

At a sushi restaurant in Annapolis, the Japanese waitress asked us whether we were from Jersey because of our deep tans. Reality show stereotypes reach far. We're in South Jersey now.

While there are some very tan looking types walking around (no Snooki yet), mostly Cape May seems like a lot of other northern coastal towns. The shoreline buildings are heavily Victorian, but the residential areas remind us of any suburb around Chicago, with its deciduous trees and hydrangea.

Unlike Chicago, the seafood is cheap and plentiful--a 1-pound lobster costs less than $8 at the local restaurant. Tuna is fresh off the boat and you don't need a second mortgage to buy a big slab. At the other extreme, we were unhappily surprised to find that almost all the beaches in New Jersey charge admission (not parking fees but actual admission).

We also finally got a new SIM card for the IPhone recently so we could access weather and email if no free Wi-Fi is available.  The bad news is that the phone number we got was previously owned by a deadbeat named Mirabelle and every bill collector east of the Mississippi is calling us looking for her.  Oh, and apparently Mirabelle likes to ski because she's on Wilmot Mountain's robo-call list.  Only 5 more days to get your season pass at a reduced rate...

I wasn't going to dive, but now that you say I can't...

The winds are looking poor for the next few days so we may get to hear a few more renditions of the Coast Guard recruits do their early morning calisthenics at the base just behind the boat. If we don't get a couple of days of good solid winds to make the jump to Cape Cod, we might change our strategy and head up the coast slowly in small segments via New York and Long Island sound.

Cooler on the water? Not so much.

We really enjoyed our stay in Annapolis even though it was the temperature of the sun, due mostly to some new live-aboard friends. They are the kind of people that you feel like you have known forever, even though it's only been fifteen minutes. They live in a marina and were very generous with their time, space and stuff. They have two great kids. Their 9-year old son 'speaks' Star Wars and Lego--Conrad and Mark can't stop talking about him. They also have the cutest and most articulate 2-year old daughter ever. We stayed a couple days longer than we were going to, so that we could spend time with them.

The heat forced us to resort to covering our cabin with a blue tarp. Along with our laundry, we were full-on live aboard. At least it was a canvas tarp and not plastic.

Now we are in Chesapeake City, at the mouth of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, for a day. The boys loved the C & D Canal museum. It is small but has some great videos and models of the canal, including pieces of the old water wheel. The town is very historic and almost every building near the waterfront seems to have a name and a story. Tomorrow we head to Atlantic City.

Annapolis (unplanned)

We are spending the next day or two in Annapolis to have a small repair done to our jib. We don't have to do the repair here but it's probably a good place for it. We have only been here for the boat show and it is a lot less crowded now, at least mid-week. We like this town though. Instead of ice-cream shops (though those are here too), the majority of non-restaurant businesses along the main street seem to be t-shirt shops and art galleries.

As we normally do when we're back in a civilization, we are stuffing ourselves full of ice-cream. And going to parks and museums of course.

Take me to the river house

We visited our good friends who have a summer home near the Potomac River. We spent a great couple of days with them and their adorable toddler. They fed us delicious barbecue and took us to a local island in a fast boat. We can't let the boys do too much of that or we will be too spoiled to go back on our boat.

The highlight of the trip for Conrad was finding fossilized shark teeth on the island. He has mentioned a few times that he found the biggest one.

 

We were anchored across from the Bevins Oyster factory

which supplies them as far as Chicago. Those are mountains of shells.

 

Osprey nests occupied every channel marker. We even saw

one atop a sailboat mast.

We are slowly making our way up through the Chesapeake to the Cape Cod area. The Chesapeake is a very big bay, especially on windless days like those we have been experiencing. In several areas it also has worse Wi-Fi and cellphone reception than in the Bahamas.

As long as none of them blows us up, we'll be happy

Our first submarine sighting.  "I would like to have seen Montana..."

When we were at the beach at Cape Lookout, I pointed out to Conrad that there were hermit crab tracks in the sand. He said, "Really?" and walked over to look. After a few seconds he said, shaking his head, "Those aren't tracks. It says 'joy.' Someone wrote it." Oh. Yes, I'm doing a great job educating our children.

Conrad knows so much more about identifying fish than we do. We caught our first Mahi Mahi on our passage from Cape Lookout. It wasn't huge but we were very excited because we had been waiting so long to catch one. The Mahi had a little fish in its mouth. Conrad immediately said, "That's an Atlantic bumper!" Then he showed it to us in the fish book and sure enough that's what it was. We had never even heard of it. We have a budding ichthyologist.

Our passage was pleasant. We caught our Mahi and saw several dolphins. As we approached the Chesapeake, we caught the edge of a storm full of lightening and blowing 50 knot winds at one point. It probably seems obvious, but there are a lot of military vessels and planes around here. Today Matt contacted a line of seven big Navy boats because we couldn't tell what course they were on. They were nice enough to change course for us.

Cape Lookout

We came to Cape Lookout by chance after meeting some great people on a sailboat that we anchored near in Beaufort. They have a daughter who is between Conrad and Mark in age. They highly recommended Cape Lookout, saying it was one of the nicest anchorages in North Carolina. We were not disappointed. The beaches are beautiful, the water is clear, and the weather was perfect. The boys had a great time playing on the beach.

We were supposed to leave today but when we went to raise the anchor, the buttons for the windlass didn't work. Again. Matt spent the morning troubleshooting and fixing the windlass. He was able to get it working by cleaning the corroded leads of the wires. So we didn't have to raise our 110 anchor by hand to go somewhere and buy a new part.

 

 

If we had to be stuck somewhere, this was a good place for it. We got to spend another day in paradise and found five dozen little neck clams (66 to be exact). Our buddy boat helped us find them and then let us keep them all. We leave for our two-day passage to Norfolk today.

Wild horses...

We have had a couple good beach days. The island near Beaufort with the most popular beaches is also filled with wild horses.

Today we took a dingy ride to Morehead to get some sushi fish. Morehead is bigger than Beaufort and seems less like a small town in some ways. We spent some time at the History Place while Matt walked to the sushi place. It has memorabilia from the area but is very kid-friendly with great tunnels and some toys.

We are heading over to Lookout Bight for the next couple of days and from there will sail to Norfolk.

Happy Independence Day (Beaufort, NC)

Remember how we were somewhat amazed that Wilmington would just close down a 4-lane US Highway on demand for any old boat? Well, Beaufort doesn't have that. No bridge raising during rush hour and then only at half-hour intervals. After spending all day sailing, we waited a long 10 minutes for the bridge to go up and then squeezed the boat through what seemed like a pretty narrow opening.

The anchorage is just on the other side of the bridge. When we got there, the anchorage was swarming with sailing dinghies from the local summer camp. We spent about an hour anchored temporarily nearby while we waited for the boats to clear since we didn't want to run anyone over. Afterwards we figured out that most boats just kind of plow through and the sailing dinghies will make way. Theoretically. We were okay with waiting.

We had dinner and then went to town for dessert. It was nice to be off the boat after five days. The boys celebrated by running through town screaming at the top of their lungs. We just fed them ice-cream and pretended they were someone else's children.

July 4th in Beaufort was just what you would expect from a small coastal town. We went to the parade, which was surprisingly entertaining and refreshingly creative. We loved the Maritime Museum and spent hours there. After hot dogs for lunch and haircuts on the transom for all the boys, we spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach playing with a girl from another boat. After dark we got to watch Beaufort's fireworks show, which was 100 yards away and a very respectable effort.

Weather permitting, we will head up to Norfolk, Virginia on Monday.

 

 

 

 

 

Water torture (no not Chinese, we're Korean here)

What? Pictures of navigation instrument panels are boring you say? Well, 50 knot winds on an anchored boat are so not boring. At least the anchor held and nothing else blew away.

Speaking of boredom, if there's anything worse than a multiple day passage it may be this: being stuck on a boat without actually making any progress. Did I mention that there are little boys aboard? The normal kind that jump all over the place and yell and wrestle.

Conrad did a little fishing yesterday and caught half a dozen baby sand sharks before one bit through his line and allowed us (thank goodness) to put an end to baiting hooks with the rankest smelling 3-week old shrimp ever. Despite the two inches of pressure washer type rain that fell overnight, the transom is still speckled with the vomit/poop (not sure which) from one of the sharks that threw-up/pooped all over Matt's hand while he was releasing it.

Yesterday the winds dropped a bit and the waves looked manageable, so we tried to visit a nearby island just to get some time off the boat. We made it into the dinghy, though it was choppy, and then got to the island only to discover that it is a Federally protected bird sanctuary and people are not allowed on it.

Disappointed, we turned around to head back to the boat and got completely soaked with salt water from the steep waves. We jumped onto the boat and started to raise the dinghy before it got too banged up from the waves. A slight sideways roll started the dingy swinging so wildly that Matt had to run down to the transom to stop it from banging against the boat. In the process of grabbing for a handhold, he impaled his finger with the giant tuna hook from the trolling line. There was screaming (like a girl). There was swearing (like a drunk sailor). I'm not judging--even if the kids added some new words to their vocabulary--it was totally justified. Fortunately the hook did not go in past the barb (probably because the bone stopped it) and Matt yanked it out and went back to the task of stopping the dinghy swing and getting it back on the davits.

To quell the throbbing finger, Matt took a couple of Ibuprofen.  Despite all the "boat bites" that Matt has gotten, we realized that this was the first time in more than 6 months that he has had to take any pain medication. At least once a week while still working he'd take something to stamp out a headache.  Also, he hasn't needed the heartburn medication that he used to take somewhat regularly and he has lost a few pounds. So overall, that's a fair lifestyle trade-off for bumping your head into the ceiling a couple times a day, right?

Related to the blog title, this video amused us (spending time in the South gets me this question a lot).

I'll say it again, at least we have internet. And Lego. We're hoping to get our weather window tomorrow.