We are underway northbound in the Atlantic ocean, off the coast of New Jersey. We've been waiting for this window for several days, but, as luck would have it, we are in thick fog. Visibility has been 1,000'-2,000', and we've had the automated fog horn running since we weighed anchor. I have a guard alarm set on the radar, and typing is slow because I need to look ahead every few seconds.
Saturday afternoon we made the Cape May Canal just before the tide turned against us, and had the anchor down off the Coast Guard station by 5:20. We lucked out and found a spot about as close to town as possible (map). We realized too late that we'd probably need dinner reservations on a Saturday in season, and the best I could do was 7:15 at Lucky Bones near the boat ramp, which would be a cold, wet dinghy ride.
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| We fished this out of the Atlantic just as I was wrapping up typing. It's under our deck chairs to keep from blowing overboard. I really wish these were outlawed. |
I also noticed Port Marina Restaurant is now on Open Table, and I put in to be notified if a table came up. One did, making for a much shorter tender ride. When we arrived we learned that their inside dining was now open, and that's where our table would be. The outside deck takes no reservations. On a cold, damp evening we opted to keep our inside table, even though the inside dining turned out to be high-zoot, with an expensive and very limited menu. If you want a salad of any kind, you have to eat on the deck. Fortunately, they had an unadvertised burger, which was actually pretty good.
Around 10pm, winds picked up to 25-30 knots, and we found ourselves plowing through the soft mud bottom with our Bruce anchor. Louise had to drag herself out of bed so we could increase scope, which we did twice until we had 100' of chain out in jut 15' of water. Thankfully, we had the room.
Sunday morning I started calling around for a local diver to add the dampers to the Spurs line cutter, knowing we'd be here for a few days. I got a good recommendation on Facebook and was able to make arrangements with Shawn to meet on Tuesday. With that scheduled I was able to turn my attention to some critical projects.
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| At the biggest marina, it is a loooong walk to your boat from the parking lot. I counted at least 40 of these wagons, each with rod holders, chained up in the parking area. |
Chief among these was to adjust the engine alignment. As soon as I got the shaft coupler nuts loose I could see it was way off, even though it had seemed OK when I bolted it all together in Hampton. I might have been too tired to notice. I don't really have the right wrenches for this, but I was able make an improvement with a pair of slip-joint pliers.
After I had the engine mounts all buttoned up and the shaft back together, I pulled up the sole plates to get at the fresh water pump, which has been acting up lately. I think the last set of well-pump pressure switches I bought are just really low quality, and I've had to clean the contacts on this one several times. On this occasion it was the pressure mechanism itself and I just replaced the whole switch.
We still had 100' of chain out, and in the afternoon we ended up chasing off two sailboats that both tried to anchor with overlapping swing circles. We are a bit gun-shy of late. And somehow we forgot it was Father's Day and that, therefore, we would again need a dinner reservation. Lucky Bones had nothing until late again, but we headed ashore anyway knowing that Tony's Pizza, while beer-free, would have room. It turned out that Mayer's Tavern right next door was able to get us in with no wait, and they had excellent scallops and good draft beer. This was our first time here -- we'll be back.
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| Cheers from Mayer's Tavern. |
By 2pm it was dry enough to tender ashore, and a bit less chilly, so I landed at the boat ramp and walked the mile and a half to the Acme grocery store. We needed milk and veggies, and I needed the walk. The wind picked up while I was out and I had a very wet ride home; thus we opted to just go back to Port Marina for dinner. This time we ate on the more casual deck, where they had the wind breaks in place so it was comfortable. We were home in time for a 7pm video conference.
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| Under her personal Louise Hornor awning. Nice of the Lobster House to roll out the red carpet like this. (We did not eat there.) |
Sometime later we heard a sailboat trying to call TowBoatUS, but they ended up talking mostly to the Coast Guard. They were disabled seven nautical miles from the Cape May inlet, nearly half way across the mouth of Delaware Bay and needed to be towed in. They were Brazilian with limited English and only a Brazil cell phone, so the CG was struggling. TowBoat finally arrived to the harbor with them around midnight, circled around behind us, and then brought them to the middle of the pack of anchored boats to drop their hook. My entertainment for the evening, but I'm sure a miserable night for them out in short-period five-footers. By this morning they had dragged partway into the channel and I had to go around them.
Yesterday morning we weighed anchor to go meet diver Shawn for the liner cutter work. His day job includes responsibilities at the Atlantic Capes Fisheries docks, and that's where we met. We had to go through the very narrow Two Mile lift bridge, which I remember crossing in Odyssey, then we turned down Mud Hen Gut and rafted up to the scallop boat Captain Danny (map). I spent ten minutes with Shawn in Captain Danny's galley going over photos on my PC and the instruction sheet from Spurs.
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| New damper pads installed. |
Shawn jumped in right at noon when his lunch break started, and I had the Spurs pieces in my hands in less than five minutes. Sure enough, the dampers were missing altogether, and I quickly cleaned out the residue and gunk from the press-fit mounting holes. I pounded the new dampers in, put a pair of new screws on the unit, and handed it back to Shawn, along with new bearings, to install.
A couple of minutes later he was back on the surface to report a problem. A piece of the assembly broke off at the screw hole, and that was the end of the project. I had him hand me everything back, including the new bearings, and we called it a day. I think he felt bad about it breaking on his watch and was ready to waive his charge, but we insisted on paying him -- ten years of crevice corrosion and a stress fracture are not his fault.
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| Oops. Tiny end broke off right at the threaded hole. |
We left the fish dock, came back through the Two Mile bridge, and right back to the anchorage, where a Krogen had taken our spot. We ended up another hundred feet west on a shorter scope (map). The good news is that the rattle we'd been working to remedy was gone, confirming that it was the lack of dampers on the Spurs. The bad news is that we still had driveline vibration, so I did not get the alignment quite right.
After we got settled I contacted Spurs, who are happy to send me a replacement for $400. A good machine shop could probably fix this one for maybe half that, but it all comes down to how fast we can have it. At this writing it's looking like having Spurs send a replacement to Brigantine will be the quickest option. Shawn is willing to meet us in Atlantic City to install it. He told us that he is one of only four divers from Cape May to Point Pleasant.
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| My attempt to capture the crowded anchorage. By nightfall I counted a dozen boats behind us and one in front. |
I spent the rest of the afternoon once again aligning the engine; this time is was out in the other direction, albeit closer. I think it's pretty close now, but it is still a hair off in a direction I can't easily fix. With the harbor fairly calm, the third time was the charm, and we finally made it to Lucky Bones for dinner last night. Cape May is full of nice restaurants, but there are fewer than a half dozen walking distance from the docks, and this is really the best of that lot. We decked the tender when we returned home in anticipation of an early start this morning.
As I wrap up typing, with less than two hours to go, the fog has finally lifted and we should be anchor down in AC by 1:30. Our mail is slated to arrive tomorrow morning and we pick up the rental car just before they close tomorrow afternoon. There is a big storm coming this evening, and I am very glad to be out of the tightly packed anchorage in the soft mud of Cape May for it. I just hope we can get ashore at dinner time.
Thank you for your (balloon) service.
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