Meet me tonight in Atlantic City

We are underway northbound in the Atlantic Ocean after five nights in Atlantic City, New Jersey. That's an unusually long stay for us, but in addition to waiting on good passage weather, we also had a number of errands we needed to handle there.

Wednesday afternoon we had an early arrival, right around 1:30, and we picked a nice spot to drop the hook right off the Coast Guard station (map). That's about as close as we can get to the two places we can land the dinghy, and with so many errands I wanted to try to keep the rides short.

We just barely beat this thunderstorm after parking the car Thursday night. The "golf ball" atop the Ocean Casino is in the clouds.

A big storm with plenty of rain and high winds was forecast for dinner time, so we put out extra scope and left the tender on deck.  We thought we could make it ashore for dinner, but then we might well be stuck there until the storm passed, with Vector fending for herself in the anchorage. We opted instead to eat aboard.

Of course that meant the storm was a complete dud. We got very little wind and almost no rain, and after dinner it was clear skies and pleasant. I splashed the tender and headed ashore stag to get a walk in, and also get the lay of the land after an absence of a year. The very first change: our secret dinghy spot at the marina is now occupied by a PWC float and I had to find a different spot.

We tucked the dink into this notch behind a superyacht.

I checked in with the marina for the dinghy landing and got the gate code to get back on the dock before setting out on my walk. First stop: the county bus stop in front of the casino, in the event I might need to take the bus out to Brigantine to get our mail and packages. I ended my walk with a loop through the casino, where I noted that what used to be an Italian venue, The Grotto, mid-casino, is now the Mexican-themed Dos Caminos. The other half dozen dining venues were unchanged.

The anchorage was comfortable, but sometime after dark, loud music started up from the parking lot on the point adjacent to Gardner's Basin. We had forgotten about this but were now reminded, and our memory was that this pop-up party can go well into the wee hours. We weighed anchor and moved down closer to the bridge (map), a quarter mile farther from the music.

Bus stop. This will get you to Brigantine but is also the easiest way to get to the Borgata right across the highway.

That was a lot quieter, but just before bed time the Atlantic swell clocked around to the exact direction to come rolling down the inlet between the jetties, and we rolled the rest of the night. It was too late, really, to relocate, and Louise had to sleep cross-ways across the short dimension of the bed to get any shut-eye. In hindsight, we should have weighed, gone through the bridge, and dropped the hook in front of Harrah's.

Things started to flatten our with the turn of the tide Thursday morning, and we moved about halfway back to split the difference between too loud and too rolly (map). Almost as soon as we had the hook down, we got the notice that our mail had arrived at the UPS Access Pint in the CVS in Brigantine. The timing was wrong to take the bus, and so I called Seatow, across the street from the CVS and who has a few slips out back, to see if they would let me tie up for a few minutes. They were very pleasant and agreed to let me squeeze in.

They had me tie to this skiff to get to the dock.

Between the barrier islands and the mainland in this part of NJ is a lot of wetland, crisscrossed by myriad channels, some natural and some not, and the ones that run alongside land are chock-a-block with docks. Seatow is on one of these called the Golden Hammock Thorofare, which is completely unmarked. It is reached from Absecon inlet via the also-unmarked Little Panama Slough. I was navigating by chart alone when I was passed by a local, whom I then followed the rest of the way. They knew where the also unmarked no-wake zone started.

Seatow had me tie up to a skiff at the dock and it took less than five minutes to grab our package and leave. I walked past the "Brigantine Lighthouse" on my way back, just to snap a photo. This was never a real lighthouse, having been built here in the 1920s by a real estate developer just to attract business. It has become the icon of the town. I was back at Vector just a bit late for lunch.

1926 Brigantine "lighthouse," a marketing ploy for a real estate developer.

Chief among our motivations for extra time here was the need for a follow-up visit to my parents, about an hour north. They're actually right next to the Manasquan Inlet, but there is no place for us to anchor there, and a marina stay is $300 per night. By contrast a rental car (which we'd likely still need there anyway) is $60 a day, so it was a no-brainer to make the trip from here. We tendered over to the casino at 4 and Enterprise came and got us around 20 minutes later.

After picking up what turned out to be a pregnant roller skate of a car, we checked out the nearby Atlantic City Rail Line station as an option to get home after our after-hours return, and then thought about having dinner right there in Absecon on the mainland. But it was really too early for dinner, and we were concerned that we lad left Vector alone at anchor before having been through a full turn of the tide. We decided to find dinner in Brigantine, which would give us a reassuring view of the anchorage from the bridge.

Diminutive rental car. It was easy on the gas, at least.

That turned out to be a snare and a delusion. We drove around Brigantine for 20 minutes but could not come up with a place that was open for dinner, served beer, and was not a dump. Maybe the mob still controls the liquor licenses here. We decided to go someplace in AC instead, and the first place suggested by Google was our old friend the Back Bay Ale House, which is at Gardner's Basin. We've only ever been there in the dinghy, so it was interesting to drive around the Monopoly board to get there. After dinner we stashed the car in the free casino garage.

When I had booked the car my plan had been to pick it up Thursday at closing time, drive to Brick on Friday, and then return the car sometime on Saturday at our leisure. But by the time we picked it up, my cousin and uncle had also decided to drive down from New York on Saturday, and we changed our plan to arrive together with them. That gave us all day Friday for errands with the car.

Too sunny outside so we ate in the bar at Back Bay Ale House.

Among the things in the mail we had received was the legal paperwork for my "ordination" to officiate our niece's wedding next year. So I spent some time Friday morning filling out the paperwork for Douglas County and making an appointment with a notary. The UPS Store in Egg Harbor had an appointment available at 1:30.

Again around 10:30 we got notice that both my Amazon order and the replacement Spurs parts  I had ordered from Fort Lauderdale had arrived at the CVS in Brigantine, and so after lunch we headed out on our expedition, stopping first at the CVS and then heading directly to Walmart in Mays Landing. On the way we passed the Sams Club, where I posted the very first travel post to this blog a little more than two decades ago. It's been quite the ride.

Notarized NV affidavit and signed letter of good standing from my "church."

With the luxury of a car, we loaded up with a five-gallon pail of motor oil, printer paper, and dry goods. We omitted the fresh veggies and cold stuff until after our other stops. We arrived to UPS right on time for my notary appointment, figuring to head from there just a few miles up the road for Louise to get her hair cut at Supercuts. But we found a Great Clips right in the same shopping plaza as UPS.

Also in that plaza was a Lidl grocery, a first for me, so after her haircut we finished up the shopping. They had a very nice fresh bakery section and we picked up a couple of bagels as well. We returned home the long way, via US-40, so we could drive "the strip," Atlantic Avenue, past all the boardwalk casinos. The whole strip is looking quite shop-worn. The glitz that never really was has faded, lots of places are shuttered, and even the gritty Springsteen song no longer seems to fit.

We used our folding wagon to get our loot from the garage back to the tender, and after just an hour or so back home, we turned right around to come back for dinner. I found Bocca, a well-rated coal-fired pizza place with draft beer down in Margate, and we drove down there via Baltic and Ventnor. Of course that took us past Marven Gardens, which was misspelled on the Monopoly board (it's a portmanteau of Margate and Ventnor, on whose borders it sits). The further you get from AC the more upscale things become, and Ventnor and Margate both had a nicer selection of eateries than the city, apart from the casinos themselves.

I knew where the no wake zone in the Thorofare was by following a local. This guy was not so lucky.

The entirety of Saturday was given over to our trip to Brick. Our car had no EZPass transponder, so we ended up going through the cash lanes on the Parkway. Thankfully we asked at the very first toll booth -- the Enterprise clerk had told us to just go through the transponder lanes regardless and we'd be billed later. The toll taker confirmed what I already thought I knew -- NJ does not have pay-by-plate. 

I had figured to take the train back to AC after dropping the car off at the 5:30 due time, but we had it gassed up and parked by 4:30. We didn't want to wait for the 5:45 train, so we ended up grabbing a Lyft. That also aced us out of the brew pub near the train station, and we ended up eating at The Deck, adjacent to the marina. It was a great night to eat outdoors, before the current heat wave hit, and we thankfully finished before the pervasive live music started.

We might well have decided to leave first thing yesterday morning, except that as soon as I had the Spurs parts in hand, I had texted Shawn to see if he was available to install them. He agreed to meet us at the dock on Sunday, and that sealed the deal on staying until this morning. Farley State Marina has a very generous day-use policy, and we weighed anchor yesterday and headed over, asking for a couple of hours. They put us in a slip with just a few inches under our keel (map).

Vic & Anthony's steakhouse in the casino has stratospheric prices. But if you know about it, there is this unadvertised bar menu and even better happy hour menu in the bar if you can find a seat.

Shawn arrived with his wife and his own stepladder to get back out of the water on these ladderless docks. Once he was in the water it was a ten minute job, and I think he was really happy to wrap up what he saw as unfinished business from the little mishap in Cape May. I am happy to report that the new piece, with damper plugs properly installed, is not rattling.

After the dive work and taking on a little water we returned to the anchorage (map). We came back via tender at dinner time, venturing in to the bowels of the casino to try Dos Caminos, which was actually quite good. On a Sunday night the casino was not busy enough for cigarette smoke, which somehow does not respect the restaurant boundary, to be much of a problem. We decked the tender as soon as we returned home.

This morning we weighed anchor shortly after the start of the ebb. Conditions have been excellent, and we are just approaching Barnegat Light as I wrap up typing. I am maintaining a careful watch for a dead whale reported off the coast here. We have one more bail-out option, at Shark River, but if these conditions hold, we will try to push all the way to Sandy Hook, with dinner on board underway.

My Spurs went jingle jangle clunk

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.

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.

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.

Cheers from Mayer's Tavern.

Monday was another cold, bleak, rainy day, and I spent the morning working on travel reservations. That included planning for our upcoming stop in Atlantic City, where we will again be pinned down for a few days and will be renting a car to take care of some errands. We're having our mail and some Amazon packages sent to neighboring Brigantine.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Jersey boy.

We are underway southbound on the Delaware Bay, bound for Cape May, New Jersey. We've had a string of excellent travel condition days and have been using them to make tracks, but that will come to an end here and we will likely be pinned down in Cape May for a while as we wait on an outside window to make progress in the Atlantic Ocean.

Vector staring down the Hooper Island Light. "This is a lighthouse, mate. Your call."

When last I posted here, we were docked at the Reedville Market restaurant in Reedville, Virginia. After dinner we had a nice walk to the end of the peninsula and back, and I went as far as the main road north of town. Absolutely everything in Reedville is closed Monday, and I was halfway through my walk when it occurred to me that we could have landed the scooters and ridden someplace else. There are a couple of Mexican joints in Burgess, about a six mile ride.

Our view from the Reedville Market dock.

We had another short walk in the morning, after the rain ended, before shoving off. Before reaching Smith Point, Louise spotted something bobbing in the water, and through our binoculars we could tell it was a deceased dolphin. I radioed the Coast Guard to see if that required a report; it did, and they took all our information. Later the Virginia Aquarium Stranding Response unit called me to get more details.

The lone gas station and mini mart in Reedville closed long ago. Not one graffito.

I was on the phone with them just as we were passing "Hannibal Target," where we were strafed by a jet fighter maybe 300' off the deck. This is a US Navy live-fire training target, and we were just outside the no-entry security zone. The phone call kept me from snapping a photo of the jet, but I got some of the USAS American Mariner, the Liberty ship scuttled here as a training target after the USS Hannibal had basically been obliterated by the elements and decades of live fire. We've seen her from a distance many times; this is the first time we've ever passed at just a half mile.

The remains of USAS American Mariner, nearly clove in two.

Going around the target was only a minor deviation from our straight-line course to the Honga River entrance, where we curved around to the east side of Hoopers Island and dropped the hook (map). There is nothing ashore here, so I grilled some chicken on board. This first comfortable anchorage in the river put us just a short ride from Hoopersville, and after dinner we splashed the tender and landed at the boat ramp there just to get a little walk in. We decked the tender as soon as we returned.

Wednesday we had a quiet morning at home. Louise had been in contact with the Hooper Island Light folks and they did not expect to arrive at the lighthouse until noon. With a two-hour cruise to get there, we left close to 11 to make sure they had a good head start and would be settled in by the time we arrived. That proved wise; as we approached the light maybe a half hour out it looked deserted, and we were nearly on top of it when we saw the crew zipping out in their Highfield RIB from the marina at the other end of Hooper Island. They arrived just ahead of us.

The lighthouse guys sent us a few drone shots. Photo: Rich Cucé

We sounded a Captain's Salute on the Kahlenbergs and dropped the hook 200 yards off the light. We tendered over to the base and spent about a half hour chatting with them from the dink. As we expected, insurance limitations precluded an actual visit. Louise has been supporting these guys on Patreon for a while, and it was great to meet Thomas and Rich and catch up a little before moving along. You can find their work on the Hooper Island and Wolf Trap lighthouses over on YouTube, here.

The small basin in Hoopersville hosts a fleet of crab boats, and will host pleasure craft of shallow draft.

After leaving the lighthouse we had a two-hour cruise to Solomons, where we dropped the hook in our preferred spot near the island known as Molly's Leg (map). We tendered over to the Island Hideaway for dinner, even splurging on a decadent dessert. This has become our favorite place on the island, and the food was good as usual. After dinner we strolled the riverfront a bit before heading home.

We left the dinghy in the water overnight, contemplating spending an extra day. A vibration is telling me I need to adjust the engine alignment since doing the transmission work, sooner rather than later, and I thought this would be a good place. But after looking at the weather and the prospects of busy waterways and anchorages for the holiday weekend, we decided to keep moving and do the work in Cape May instead.

A fellow boater at one of the docks sent us some pics. Sunset in Solomons. Photo: Liz Marks

Thus it was that we left first thing Thursday to have some fair tide to Annapolis. I would have skipped Annapolis altogether this time, except for the fact that it was the only reasonable UPS Access Point and that's where I had Spurs ship the line cutter parts. Amazon also insisted I pick a specific UPS store to return the bolts I did not need for the damper plate, and I chose one here.

Our anchorage off Hooper Island. There is nothing on the island to even provide a wind break.

Leaving Solomons we found ourselves in a conga line of northbound boats, including a phalanx of long-range trawlers that included a big Selene, two Nordys, and our friends on Vahevala, a steel hull similar to Vector. We had to alter course a bit to be overtaken by USNS Charlton, whom I had seen on the scope about twenty minutes out. Evidently, many of the conga line were caught unawares and had to scramble out of her way, just as the downbound bulker Macheras was passing. We chuckled when the pilot of the Charlton, making arrangements with Macheras, said "I'm navigating a flotilla here, so you have that to look forward to."

We arrived to Annapolis after 4pm, and opted to drop the hook in the choppy harbor rather than our preferred spot on Weems Creek, on account of the errands. We had the usual hunt through the borrow pits before finding a safe spot (map). As usual, the gaggle of racing sailboats passed us close aboard in the evening on their way back to the barn; right now we have sailboat impact PTSD and Louise watched them carefully from the pilothouse.

USNS Charlton overtaking us. I altered course 20 minutes ahead to be this far out of the way.

To get to the UPS store for my Amazon return we tendered to a new landing for us, at the end of Burnside Street, west of the Spa Creek drawbridge. That made it about a half mile walk to the shopping center, where we had a nice plate of ribs at Adams Taphouse. I was able to walk over to the UPS store before they closed while Louise finished her beer. There are no tourists in this joint.

Vector in Solomons at night. Photo: Liz Marks

On the way back to Vector we detoured down Ego Alley to the town dinghy dock, where I walked the two blocks to the CVS to pick up my Spurs parts. Even after dinner the temperature was in the high 80s, and with all the walking Louise hit her heat limit and waited for me in the air conditioning at Chipotle with a cold drink. We were back at Vector after only a little more than an hour or so ashore, and decked the tender for an early start. We have several friends in Annapolis, but with the late arrival, errands, and early departure we did not reach out to any. It was a pitchy, rolly night in the harbor, and in hindsight we should have gone to Weems and landed the e-bike ashore for the errands, but beach landings are never my first choice for that.

Yesterday morning we got an early start to catch the last of the flood. Before reaching the Bay Bridge we passed a crane moving giant roadway sections between barges. They looked shop-worn, not new, and we wondered if they were wreckage from the Key Bridge. As we passed under the bridge, we were whizzing right along at nearly max flood.

A barge full of old road deck segments, complete with Jersey barriers.

I had figured we'd make it only as far as the Bohemia River, but after passing the Patapsco we realized we'd have fair or slack current all the way to the canal, and we decided to press on to Chesapeake City. We ran out of push just past the canal entrance, and the last hour was a slog against the current, but we had the hook down in the Chesapeake City Anchorage Basin (map) before 3pm. The anchorage was quite full when we arrived, and even more so by nightfall.

An upscale candy store has recently opened in the old bank in Chesapeake City.

Weekend nights are something of a zoo here in the summer. Live music at The Deck at the Chesapeake Inn, Rummur outdoor rum bar at the Inn at the Canal, and Schaeffer's deck across the canal all compete for the ear, and if you stand on the town dock you get an interference pattern. We had a nice dinner on The Deck while it was still the quieter warm-up duo; the six-piece band complete with saxophone was much louder and we enjoyed the music of our era from the comfort of our own boat.

We had a nice walk around town and also offloaded the trash and recycling before returning to Vector and decking the tender, ahead of a forecast thunderstorm. That storm fizzled out just before reaching us, leaving all three music venues unscathed and the myriad open small boats that arrive every weekend evening mostly dry. After the music stopped at 11 we had a quiet and comfortable night, although I noticed a passing RoRo in the canal moved us a good 40' or so across our swing circle as it went by.

This photo does not really convey how crazy it is at the Chesapeake Inn on a warm Friday evening.

We seldom go all the way to Cape May from Chesapeake City. But today we had to make a very early start if we wanted any fair tide at all, and the math, coupled with the scarcity of anchorages, made it work out to do the whole stretch in one day. That means pushing through one entire flood but getting the benefit of most of two ebbs, so it all works out in the end. During the flood the plotter was giving me arrival times of 8pm, but now that we're into the final ebb the time is right around 5:15.

Unless the forecast changes, we'll be pinned down in Cape May for a few days, and I hope to align the engine and get a few other projects that have been backing up knocked out. My next post will be northbound in the Atlantic Ocean, whenever that may be.

Waylaid

We are underway northbound in Chesapeake Bay, two weeks behind our planned schedule, which is par for the course on a boat. We had hoped to skip the Chesapeake on this pass, and today's outside weather is actually pretty good, but not so for tomorrow, so we'd either have a miserable overnight passage, or else be pinned down in, perhaps, Chincoteague for an unknown period.

That period would be longer than the four days we'd save with an overnight passage, and so instead we're make a "delivery" run up the inside. Where by delivery I mean long days and only one-night stops. Not that we have any kind of deadline, but we're feeling our summer cruising season in New England slipping away little by little.

Vector departing Hopewell. Photo: Stacey Guth

Today is my first open-water day where I can type since we were downbound on the James a week ago, when I felt like it was a bit too soon. As luck would have it, I have since been "overtaken by events," as they say, and now I'm behind, so sit back while I catch up.

When last I posted we had just arrived in Hopewell, a pleasant detour mostly enabled by having to wait a week for the transmission damper to arrive from California. We had booked four nights at the dock there, but ended up extending to five when we worked through the downbound schedule and timing of the damper replacement. The whole stay cost a whopping $75, which is less than we would have paid for just electric power at many other docks. Such a deal.

Dinner aboard Stinkpot. Roast pork loin, home-made mac&cheese, and sauteed veggies. Photo: Dave Rowe

That gave us four more evenings with our friends Stacey and Dave of Stinkpot, who cooked for us one night. In addition to Carr's that I mentioned in the last post, we also ate at Sedona Tap House, another in the small chain that we remember fondly from our stay in Mamaroneck, and Trapezium brew pub in downtown Petersburg, which was very kitschy. They had some nice brews, and I enjoyed a maibock called, seriously, Mai Neck, Mai Bock (IYKYK). The final evening we went to the Salty Siren out on Jordan Point, which looks like it might be accessible by tender from a nearby anchorage.

Beacon Theater, Hopewell.

Most days I did project work, a fairly long list having built up, and I also tried to get out and walk, at least when it was not raining. Downtown Hopewell is a long walk from the dock, and is clearly struggling to stay viable. The one nice restaurant, the Boathouse, is actually out closer to the marina and not downtown. They did have a very nice public library, with lots of comfortable seating and workspaces and decent WiFi. A bit closer to the marina is the small but very well-stocked Randolph's Market, which had an impressive selection of beers.

Tiny Randolph's Market, a short walk from the dock, was well-stocked.

Dave and Stacey joined me for what ended up being my longest walk, all the way to Grant's Headquarters on City Point, by way of a detour to the riverfront boardwalk. Tons of history here at the confluence of the Appomattox and the James, which I will leave as an exercise for the reader.

This unassuming cabin on the palatial Eppes estate was U.S. Grant's HQ. About 10% is original.

Early in the visit, we met Dave and Stacey's local friend Robert, who owns the same model boat as Stinkpot and who has been helping Dave keep her in fine fettle, including, most recently, fabricating replacement fuel tanks, which is ultimately why they were in Hopewell to begin with. Robert treated all of us to lunch at the American Legion and we were happy to make his acquaintance. He turns out to be a good guy to know, as he is well-connected in the region.

My kind of beer aisle.

On the project front, the big item was the repair of the granite counter top, which spanned parts of three days. Dave supplied me with the epoxy for the project, which was, as I had hoped, very runny, to penetrate into the very thin space of the crack. I used heat and vibration to move it along while injecting it with a syringe and a #18 needle. That turned out to be so effective that epoxy came out the bottom of the crack and onto the cabinet; in order to stop it running down both inside and outside the cabinet I hurriedly pried the false drawer front off the face frame under the sink so I could get tape on both sides.

Injecting the epoxy. I had to hold the needle onto the syringe to keep it from popping off.

The other steps involved scraping off the excess when mostly cured, and sanding the surface after the full cure. The drawer front had been (poorly) secured with finish nails that I had to pry out from the back and which I could not easily replace, so I ordered a set of tip-out hinges to the next stop. The repair is not invisible, but it should do the job to keep the crack from spreading any further and to keep  contaminants from getting in.

Clamped and mostly cured. I am removing masking and scraping off excess with a razor blade.

In addition to the walking and the projects, I joined Dave on a provisioning run out to Walmart and Aldi, and I was able to stock up on a bunch of things we only buy at Walmart. Had I been thinking clearly, while I had access to a car, I should also have bought a couple of five-gallon pails of motor oil, but, alas, I did not.

When I was not out and about or doing projects, I was online doing research or making arrangements regarding the damper plate project. I had to have a diver on call to adjust the line cutters, I needed to order fresh bolts and washers for the damper, and ensure I had all the correct thread lock, anti-seize, and grease. This final item proved to be a challenge, and I am guessing I spent no fewer than four full hours trying to determine the correct grease to use on the splines. Apparently it is a state secret, or else everyone else is just as clueless as me and there is no real consensus.

Hopewell has a very nice, modern library. "Ship" in back is the children's section.

Having determined the tide was favorable to get back downriver to Hampton in just two days, we dropped lines Monday just at the turn of the tide, after the four of us took a short walk around the neighborhood and we said our goodbyes. We had a great push downriver and arrived at our intended anchorage just off the Kingsmill resort (map) by 3:15. Winds were supposed to be northerly, clocking to south but light after dinner time. But at 3:15 they were already southerly and well above forecast, and it was clear we would not be comfortable here.

I had chosen this spot because we hoped to tender ashore for dinner, but on the way in I learned that you have to actually take a slip at the marina for $186, which provides a temporary "membership" to the club, in order to dine. They were willing to get us in somehow anyway, but with the anchorage, and dinghy ride, untenable, we waved off, weighed anchor, and moved along.

Dinner and drafts at Trapezium brew pub in Petersburg. Photo: Dave Rowe

That had us following the old and now abandoned river channel, past the "ghost fleet" and into Burwell Bay, where we dropped the hook at the first comfortable spot in the now partly westerly wind (map), off Bailey's Beach. That spot was just a half mile from a boat ramp, but nothing to get to ashore, really, so we just stayed aboard and had a quiet dinner. It was a very quiet spot overnight.

Tuesday morning we weighed with the tide and just skated over a part of the old channel that has silted in to just under eight feet on our way back to the main river. As we angled back to the main channel we noted that the US Army Vessel (yes, really) Harold C. Clinger was gaining on us, and the math said we'd reach the James River Bridge at the same time. They called for a full lift (we need none at all), and rather than tangle with them in the main channel, we went through a different span that still had enough height for us. I only had to clench a little as we whizzed through the narrow space between the unfendered concrete supports with a knot behind us.

Historical markers at Grant's HQ, Petersburg National Battlefield.

The early start and the fair current had us tying up at the Downtown Hampton Docks (map) before lunch. The damper plate was waiting for me in the office, having arrived the previous afternoon. We were surprised to see the Custom House Marina, next door but run by the same dock office, had been closed down and roped off, with a handful of derelicts sporting removal notices. We later learned the city will rebuild it into a large-yacht marina.

After lunch we put one scooter on the ground, and I headed off to West Marine for the grease I ultimately settled on, and the Amazon locker for the bolts and the tip-out hardware.  While I waited for the engine room to cool down, I installed the tip-out hinges and a little bin made to go between the sink and the panel. Then mid-afternoon I moved our free-standing air conditioner into the engine room and got started on tearing apart the transmission.

New tip-out tray, entirely a consequence of having to remove the dress panel when gluing the top.

I wrote this project up the last time we did it, so I am not going to repeat it all here. Suffice it to say that I got as far as pulling back the propeller shaft, and disconnecting the shift cable and hydraulic pump before dinner, and after dinner I got back to work until about 9:30 or so unbolting the mounts and getting most of the housing bolts out.

Transmission, left, separated from engine.

At dinner time we walked down to Walgreens to pick up a couple of scripts for Louise and then circled back to the downtown restaurant district, where we ended up at old stand-by Brown Chicken, Brown Cow for dinner and drafts. Two of our favorites, Legend Brown and Devil's Backbone Vienna Lager, are on offer in several of the downtown joints here.

Legend Brown at Brown Chicken Brown Cow in their signature glass, looking a bit shop-worn.

I had made arrangements for a helper, Jerry, to meet me Wednesday morning. He was a referral from Robert, whom I mentioned was a good person to know. Jerry is a mechanic at the Smithfield plant as his day job, but has a side hustle diving boats. He agreed to come over around 9 after his Smithfield shift ended, with his dive gear to take care of the line cutters as well.

I got started around 8:15 and had the rest of the bolts out and the cases split by the time he arrived, and was just starting on the damper bolts. Perfect timing, as removing the last bolt requires someone to be holding on to the damper. The two of us worked through the morning; the new damper went right on, and they had even shipped me the correct bolts and washers (the ones I ordered on Amazon will go right back), but getting the transmission back on to the engine and the shaft back on to the transmission took over two hours. We ended up using a come-along and a bottle jack to unweight the engine enough to get the splines aligned.

Mid-project chaos, captured during a short break.

Jerry was in the water for the line cutters before noon and was on his way before 1, so my initial estimate that it would take us four hours was right on. I finished reconnecting the shifter and hydraulic pump while he was under the boat so we could test it all before he left. I spent the afternoon torquing everything to spec and cleaning up.

This would all have been a very upbeat day, if not for the fact that about a half hour after Jerry arrived, while we had four hands on the engine, an out of control sailboat crashed headlong into Vector from the anchorage. Not a casual drift or anchor drag like our last encounter; no, this guy sailed right into us, his rusty anchor taking a big chip our of our nice new paint.

Down in the engine room, the sound was indistinguishable from a large metal object being dropped on the deck, and my first thought was that Louise was puttering around outside and had dropped a boat pole or maybe the big bag of recycling with its many glass bottles. Louise, likewise, initially thought we had dropped something heavy in the engine room. She had to come down to tell me what happened, and then, of course, all work stopped while I went upstairs to deal with it.

Out of control sailboat sails right into us.

It was some kid in a 30' Tartan with no engine, and not enough skill. When I came on deck he was sailing away, so I went apoplectic; another boat that appeared to be buddied up with them came over to explain they had no motor and were trying to get to the dock to deal with it. Since Jerry was on the clock I left it all to Louise to deal with and we went back to work.

Deep gouge maybe 2-3" long. This will become roughly a 1" x 6" rectangle of not-quite-matching paint.

When next I circled back to this, the buddy boat, which turned out to be the guy's mom, was on the dock exchanging insurance info with Louise, and someone who had captured the whole thing on his phone from a second-story window came over to give us the video. The Virginia Marine Police arrived to take a report just as Jerry was leaving; apparently the marina was required to call them because it happened on their dock.

It's a good sized gouge, fairly deep but thankfully not down to the steel, and a big scrape on the rub rail. We're back to the same pain-in-the-butt process we had with the last damage, where now we need a yard with a painter to fill the hole and touch up the paint, which will never look right no matter what, and spend hours with insurance adjusters and claims specialists getting it all paid for.

Scuffed-up rub rail will need to be polished out.

The marina staff felt terrible about the whole thing, even though it's really no fault of theirs, and they dug through their drawers and gave us all the free drink tokens they could find, which turned out to be three. We converted those into draft beers at dinner that night at Pour Girls.

These tokens have the weight and feel of actual casino chips. Apparently made for some upcoming city events.

The marina gave us a late check-out on Thursday, and in the morning I rode to the bank, having given Jerry the last of my cash, and Walmart for the oil I should have gotten with Dave's car. I had to settle for two 2.5-gallon jugs, which I can easily fit on my floorboards. I also stopped at Air Power Park and strolled the indoor and outdoor exhibits at this free museum; this area is really the birthplace of what ultimately became NASA as well as the US Air Force.

Air Power Park. This looks like a toy rocket but it is a genuine Little Joe with a Project Mercury test article on top. This was the backup rocket for the escape tower testing at Wallops.

After topping up the water, getting the trash off the boat, and a free pump-out from the marina, we dropped lines and shoved off for the anchorage around the corner near Phoebus. It was too late in the day to get any farther, really, and I needed the rest of the day off, as I was pretty tired from the damper project. We also wanted a short day to sea-trial the work.

NASA Harrier; I remember these flying out of Moffett Field. The building houses mostly models and was purpose-built as a museum in the 60s.

Sadly, the rattle was still with us on the trip over. The last time we changed the damper plate the rattle disappeared immediately, so our hearts sank as the realization set in that it might be a more serious problem. Things were a little quieter, and there was plenty of evidence when I removed it that the damper plate was due for replacement, but clearly this was not the main underlying cause.

These rubber fragments and dust came out of the old damper, indicating it was end-of-life.

We made our way in to the Phoebus anchorage, passed the phalanx of sailboats already there, and dropped the hook fairly close to the fish plant (map), which appears to now be defunct. My plans for a relaxing afternoon on board were out the window, as I deployed the tender and the e-bike to go ashore for oil. Transmission rattles are sometimes hydraulic in nature, so I wanted to change the fluid, top it up, and change from SAE 30 to 15W-40 to see if that made any improvement.

I was happy to see these all over town (along with the 125th anniversary banners). We missed Phabulous Phoebus. which happened while I was in NJ.

I spent a half hour on the O-Reilly web site cross-referencing everything they had in stock with the list of approved oils from ZF; while they allow pretty much any SAE 30, there are only a few approved 15W-40 oils. There was just a single match, Rotella T4, and I headed over to pick up a couple of gallons. On my way home I stopped at the Grey Goose bakery, recently moved to Phoebus from downtown Hampton, and picked up a couple of bagels for the morning.

As soon as I was home we turned around and headed back ashore for dinner at Mama Rosa's, with decent Italian fare about 3/4 mile from the dinghy dock. On the way home we checked out our other options, thinking we might spend a second night since I never got my downtime, and I still had to do the transmission fluid in the morning. We left the dinghy in the water when we got home for the same reason.

Sunset from the Phoebus anchorage.

That idea evaporated at 7:30pm when I got a text from my cousin in New Hampshire. I'm not going to go into details here, but suffice it to say my folks are in their mid 90s, with all that implies, and he was going to fly to NJ Saturday morning to meet up with his brother and dad for a family welfare visit, and within the span of an hour, I also had flight reservations to NJ, departing out of Norfolk at zero-dark-thirty. Louise and I spent the rest of the evening figuring out where she and the boat were going to stay and how I would get to the airport.

The ideal answer would have been to take the boat to Norfolk and dock at one of the marinas for the duration of the trip, but this weekend was the annual Norfolk Harborfest, and literally every marina on both sides of the harbor was sold out. We could maybe anchor at hospital point, with Louise dropping me off and picking me up in the dinghy (at 4:30am and 1:30am respectively), but even that was likely to be a zoo. We did the fireworks there one year and we were lucky not to be hit by the gaggle of unskilled skippers on day hooks.

I caught Norfolk and Portsmouth from the plane window on departure. I can see the Hospital Point anchorage packed to the gills.

I decided to Uber in from Hampton. We though about just staying there in Phoebus, with Louise schlepping me to and from the dinghy dock, but that anchorage can become miserable if the wind picks up out of the west, and then there would be nothing she could do about it. We ultimately decided to just go right back to the Downtown Hampton Docks and take two nights there.

And thus it was that Friday morning I booked the marina before descending to the engine room to change the fluid. I was relieved to find nothing at all in the little filter screen and just a bare minimum of filings on the magnet, nothing that would suggest internal transmission damage. I drew a sample of the fluid for lab analysis later.

Strainer (left) was clean. Magnet (right) had an insignificant amount of filings for 5,200 hours.

After lunch we weighed anchor for the 45-minute trip downtown, just a mile and a half away as the crow flies. The dockmaster welcomed us back (map) and we spent half an hour chatting about the collision and things in general. After packing for my trip I tried to work up the energy for a long walk around town, but I was so tired the best I could do was poke my nose into the Virginia Air & Space museum and the Hampton History museum for a couple of minutes apiece before heading home. We walked to Baked Bistro for beer and pizza, which was pretty good.

Saturday morning Uber picked me up at 4:30 and dropped me back off at 1:30 Sunday morning. In between I had decent flights and a nice visit with my parents, uncle, and cousins. Also, way too much food, with my uncle insisting on buying us dinner at the Spanish Tavern in Newark on the way back to the airport (excellent Spanish food). My cousin and I hung out in the United Club at the whizzy new Terminal A until his 8pm flight, and I stayed until they booted me out at 10, since my only evening flight option was 11pm.

Vector, with her trawler leprosy, in the Phoebus anchorage, a ways from the sailboats.

Yesterday morning I slept in, and dockmaster Allie once again gave us a late checkout. We shoved off after lunch and in a bit of deja vu once again headed to Phoebus (map), where I took the aftenoon off. I've always wanted to visit Fort Monroe, and with the afternoon to myself I had a pleasant walk to the fort and even made the 3pm ranger tour. I made a quick stop at the grocery store on the way home, and we immediately returned ashore for dinner at El Diablo Loco Cantina, which was quite good if a little inauthentic.

The moat at Fort Monroe.

As soon as we stepped back out of the restaurant, the heavens opened, and we went right back in for another beer until that cell passed. About 8pm the weather radio started going off every half hour, and we got hit with a wet, fast thunderstorm that gave the boat a good fresh-water rinse and probably moved some of the sailboats around the anchorage. They were all behind us so we rested easy.

We are now well past done with being stuck in Hampton Roads, and since the tide way favorable for an early start, we weighed anchor and got underway first thing. Neither one of us is on the right schedule for an overnight today, but we looked at it anyway and it was a no-go, with a multi-day outside window also not forthcoming.

Fort Monroe never left Union hands. Confederate President Jefferson Davis was imprisoned in this former casemate after the war.

As I wrap up typing, the plotter says we'll be in Ingram Bay by 5pm, and we have some chicken thawed for the grill. None of the restaurants in the area is open Monday, so we might not even go in as far as the dock. In the morning we will continue north, making tracks toward New Jersey.

Update: As is so often the case, I did not get all the photos loaded before I had to drive up the river and into town. We are now docked at the Reedville Market restaurant in the eponymous town (map). The restaurant is dark Mondays and so I grilled some chicken. We docked anyway so that we can get a nice walk in. In the morning we will continue north toward Solomons, although we are looking into how to swing past a lighthouse near Hooper Island, whose renovation Louise has been following online. My next post will likely be underway southbound in Delaware Bay.