Day twelve of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Lock 23 to Lock 25

Today was a humbling day. We were in one of the bigger locks and lost control of the boat. It started with us deciding that we no longer needed the ropes that we had left on our cleats to put though the cables as we had cables available for last 20 locks or so. I should mention that we have ratchet straps attached to most of our cleats helping to hold our mast in place so adding a dock line on there takes up more room and is slightly inconvenient and time consuming to get into place. Since coming though the flight of 5 all of the locks had lines hanging down the wall. We would generally pull up to the wall then grab a line for each end of the boat. If we were lucky those lines would be long enough to sort of get on a cleat and we would tighten those up as the boat rose in the lock. If we did not keep those tight the boat would/could drift over to the otherside of the lock and of course we didn't have any fenders on that side of the boat so it would be a bad thing for our gelcoat. So long story short we removed the lines we had not been using only to pull into the first lock that now required them. Luckily we had simply hung them on our rail rather then actually putting them into a locker somewhere but in the time it took to get them back on the cleats and around the racket straps a strong wind came in and blew the boat over to the other side of the lock and of course this was the only lock where you had to use the wall on the port side of the boat because the other one was missing really large chunks of concrete. Well needless to stay we sustained some damage before we could get a couple of fenders moved over to protect the boat. As we started to get blown over I attempted to control the boat from the helm but suspect I was to afraid to give the boat the power it needed to fight the wind and move back over before hitting the wall. After we were pushed up against the wall we did finally get a couple fenders in place which allowed me to reverse the port engine to get the bow of the boat off the wall and moved back to the other side. Of course as we are doing this the lock master is calling us asking what we are doing and letting us know that she now has another boat waiting to lock though. I'm sure the entire event took less then 10 minutes from start to recovery but it felt like a really long time in the moment. Once we made our way back over to the correct side of the lock we ran our lines though the steel cables and didn't remove them again for rest of the trip. Side note the opportunity to use them was not available but we kept them on anyway. 

Other than this humbling experience the day was fairly uneventful. Most our time was spent traveling though no wake zones and I think we only made 40 miles or so of progress.

When arriving at lock 25 we asked about spending the night on his wall. He was happy to have us as he was only there for another 45minutes or so before it was time to close the lock and head home for the night. He invited us up for a tour so we took him up on it. I will say you can tell a difference in the supervisors priorities between sections of the canal. Everything in this section of locks was clean, well polished, and perfectly maintained down to the flowers along the lock wall. This lock master was proud of his job and his lock. When he opened the control panel showing us how the mechnisiams worked all of the switches were polished the wood was nicely varnished and the wiring was neat (he showed us both sides). Next he took us around the lock explaining how and where the water flowed, how the weights worked that opened the water gates, and then how the doors operated. We ended in his shop which used to be where the electric motors were that ran the lock. Again everything was highly polished and cared for. It was interesting to hear about his day to day duties, the amount of traffic he saw, and what they do in the winter months when the canal is closed. I had heard that the canal is drained in the winter but seems that is not the case for this section at least. He said they do a lot of preventive maintenance during the winters and that at least one lock gets its walls rebuilt each year. Even with that it seems that most of the lock workings are still much the same as they were 100 years ago. It really is impressive how these have stood the test of time and how well maintained New York keeps these without charging any fees. While I imaging these are a major expense in their operations budget I would question if that is recovered in the amount of tourist traffic the canal generates. While clearly well used by cyclists and recreational boaters the Lock Master said he only sees 2-3 commercial boats come though a year transporting various items... But without these access to the Great Lakes would be limited to the St Lawrence and the Mississippi River system adding possibly several thousand miles to a lot of recreational boaters trips to Florida each year should this system not be available.

After our tour we went back to the boat for dinner and another quiet night on a lock wall.

Day eleven of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Lock 20 to Lock 23

Today was a shorter day. We left lock 20 around 9am but decided we needed a break and stopped after 23 around 2. The lock master had told us there were a couple of restaurants within walking distance and the park at this lock wall seemed a bit bigger and well used by the locals. We tied up. I went for a walk just needing to get off the boat for a while. Later that night we walked into town to check out the pizza place that was recommended by several of the local fishermen. Unfortunately it seemed that all three of the local restaurants were closed due to the holiday weekend. I guess the locals here don't want to eat out on Labor Day?

It ended up being a nice, quiet day. We both caught up on some screen time, got some exercise, and enjoyed the short day on the water. 

Day ten of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - St. Johnsonville, NY to Lock 20

After a late night with our new found friends we left first thing in the morning ensuring that we could do the first lock though of the morning for Lock 16. It seems they have been having some erosion problems between lock 16 & 17. To address this someone decided to only allow boats to pass though every two hours. They are also strictly enforcing a no wake speed limit. So if you show up at the next lock early you will be penalized and have to wait for the next opening two hours later. Of course their are stories about boaters really pissing off the lock keepers which have the power to hold you all day if they feel like it. Being a sailboat we pretty much only travel at a no wake speed so arriving early was not much of an option for us.

By this point in the canal the locks were becoming fairly spaced out. We did go through the unique one where the lock door actually lifts up. They call it the guillotine it is the biggest lift on the canal. Lock 17 is significant for several reasons. Completed in 1916, it was considered an engineering marvel. With a 40.5 foot drop or lift, it is the highest lock on the Erie Canal system. But what makes it really special, at least in my mind, is the enormous guillotine style lock gate. Suspended by what looks like giant bicycle chains, the gate is lifted and lowered with the aid of a concrete counterweight. You can see the counterweight descending  When full, the lock holds 6 million gallons of water and that water really rushes out when the valves are opened! I should mention here that the other end of the lock chamber has standard mitre gates. By this point in the adventure its fun to see something different but it does drip on you as one goes under it.

We only made it though 4 locks today but they were quite spaced out. I'm not sure how many miles we traveled but we did use most the daylight hours available to us before stopping at Lock 20 for the night.

Each of the locks are generally part of a nice park. Often we would run into a number of bikers riding along the canal and camping along the way. Each park generally offers a place to tie up, walk around a bit, and a port a poddy. There is generally no power or water available. From time to time one gets lucky and they are within walking distance of a town. Unfortunately that was not the case here so we tied up, went for a walk then came back made dinner, watched a movie and went to bed.

Day nine of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Troy, NY to St. Johnsonville, NY

This morning we woke up had breakfast and decided to head up to the state’s largest farmers market in Troy. They were not kidding the market was huge and even sorted by street and vendor. Clothing/neckless/cute stuff vendors were all on one road. Hot food was all in the center within a traffic circle area, fresh produce was on a different street, and fresh made items like bread, honey, peanut butter were all on yet another street. It took at least two hours to walk the market. I am generally terrible at these things as when I find something unique food wise I always want to try it. We did pretty well limiting our purchase's to fresh bread, home made brownie peanut butter, some fruit, and fresh pesto. Amy had a fresh desert crape and I found the special cake that was supposed to change my life (per last nights ice cream guy). The cake was a lot like pineapple upside down cake but with 3-4 kinds of alcohol in it. Strangely it didn't taste like alcohol but you did need to be over 21 to buy it. Unfortunately while it was good, it was not something I would get again or even recommend to anyone else. Guess the guy at the ice cream stores good taste buds were limited to frozen concoctions. 

It was about noon before we pushed off the dock and headed into the first set of locks. Per the guidebook all the locks were at least 150ft long and 45ft wide. It seems some are only 40ft. The 40ft locks felt really small our first few days with our boat being 26ft wide plus about 2ft of fenders hanging over it felt quite tight driving into them. The first few locks had long cables hanging down that are attached at both the top and bottom of the wall. This made it quite easy to put a line though and attach to back on the boat. When going up in the lock I could occasionally put the starboard engine into gear and the boat would pull the line and snug right up to the wall. Then we got to the next five locks which are creatively called the flight of five. These have ropes hanging from the top. Some of the ropes are longer then others which meant sometimes we could get one around a cleat then pull it tight as the boat rose in the lock. Other times we had to hold the line until the boat came up enough to get it around a cleat which generally meant the boat would float over to the other side of the lock. For this trip we only had five fenders. All of them were about 3.5ft long and 18 inches wide (quite big). Because they were inflatable I had thought fender boards might be a good way to protect them against the walls as I was worried they might snag something and pop. Using fender boards meant that you needed two fenders for each fender board and that our set up would be quite time consuming to move from one side of the boat to the other and that all our fenders would be on one side. Meaning if we drifted over there was nothing to keep that side of the boat from rubbing the concrete wall.

The first two locks in the flight of five went ok. The dock lines were long enough to get on a cleat. The next two were challenging but we did ok. Lock five went pretty well. We were feeling good and thought we had a system in place. Of course that's when everything falls apart. With our past boats they were light enough we could pull them over or if they drifted out it was not a big deal as they were no where near the other wall. We quickly found out that we were no match for the weight of this boat especially when we had to work against the wind and water flow. We drifted over almost rubbing the wall. The next lock we did drift over and hit the wall leaving a little bit of gel coat behind from our rear sponson as we could not keep the lines tight enough on the cleats. After those two the next couple of locks went pretty well.

We ended the day after lock 15 as lock 16 had limited hours only opening every two hours for traffic. We pulled into the St. Johnsonville Marina and Camp Ground for the night. I'm pretty sure we stayed here during our first trip through the canal 16yrs ago. I still recall the marina convincing us to head to a local Italian restaurant and packed eight of us into an old 80's Cadillac they were using as a curtesy car. Anyway.. Once we were tied up some ladies came over to check out our boat. Amy gave them tours while I paid. It seemed they had their campers here and had seen us on the water while exploring in their pontoon boat. After making some dinner we headed over to their campsite for dessert and made some new friends. They all had their big dogs with them and it was nice to be around their furry four legged children while hearing about their adventures and sharing the campfire for the night.

Day eight of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Kington, NY to Troy, NY

Last time we did this trip with the tug we were able or maybe just motivated to travel from the Statue of Liberty all the way to Catskill in just one day. We are now essentially on day 3 of going the same distance  motoring up the river with the catamaran. Last time we had timed the tide perfectly to push us all day additionally helped by the fact the tug travels about 2kts faster than this boat and seemingly they both burn about the same amount of fuel.

We had planned to be moving about 730 this morning but woke up to a rain shower and it felt good to roll over for an extra hour of sleep. By 830 the rain was gone but it was still quite foggy. We weighed anchor and continued our trek north.

We had the tide with us for the first 3hrs or so after that we were fighting it rest of the day. This day going up the river was much like the other two passing beautiful Mansions on the river banks, neat old light houses, and the occasional train along the way.

After about 53 miles we decided to stop in Troy for the night. Originally we had planned to stay at the Erie Canal visitors center but when we called, it seemed their space was somewhat limited for a 70ft boat and the Dock Master convinced us that Troy was the place to be. Troy was also our first fuel stop. At this point in the trip our tanks were just under 50%. I think we took on about 120 gallons thinking this should be plenty to get us through the entire Erie Canal and probably back to the west side of Lake Erie.

Once tied up we met some folks that were just coming out of the locks having spent their summer going through the Canadian locks & the Georgian Bay. It was nice to hear about their trip which is still one we would like to do one day and had planned to do with the tug but decided to push up the circumnavigation plans instead. Thinking the other trip would be easier later than sailing around the world as we continue to get older. After a week or so it was nice to get to talk with some other boaters and Troy did turn out to be a nice stop. That night we decided to relive our first trip up the river when we stopped here for fuel and lunch at Browns Brewing. Dinner was good. Afterwards we took a walk finding a remarkable ice cream place called the Dutch Utter that is now in my top 5 favorites. We met the owner, he easily translated his passion for creating new flavors and was really into what he does. He also told us that we could not miss the farmers market the next day where I needed to seek out some cake that would be life changing.

Day seven of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Croton, NY to Kington, NY

Going up the Hudson River is always a beautiful trip. Oddly I'm still surprised how pretty it is each time we do it. You feel like your in the mountains fully surrounded by nature at times going past all the big granite cliffs, reminded that your near a big city by the bridges that your regularly going under while also getting to pass light houses and mansions from the early 1900's. Then about every hour you'll see a train traveling along the bank. It seems the passenger trains are mainly on one side while the freight trains travel the other side of the river. On the surface it seems like all of these things would be at odds with each other but somehow it all just works making for a very enjoyable trip.

We got a bit of a late start leaving around 10am or so. We had waited till morning to return the rental car then decided to wait for slack tide to depart the dock. This leg of the trip was quite uneventful. It was just a nice motor up the Hudson. We motored most the day with the tide (finally) waiting until about an hour before dark to pull into one of the few nice anchorages we found on the chart. While we were anchored just in-front of the town neither of us really felt like heading in at dusk to walk around the area. Instead we relaxed on the boat made dinner and just enjoyed the sunset. 

West Point from the river

Day six of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Croton, NY - Halfmoon Bay

Front side of the dam

This marina is in a fantastic location. It feels a bit like the middle of no where but there is a rental car place only 1/2 mile walk away, a grocery store, ice cream, a couple restaurants, and more. Best of all the price was quite reasonable. We made some phone calls booked a tour of West Point, rented a car, and unfortunately found out that the Culinary Institute was not open yet as the students had not returned to campus yet. Guess we have to save something to see next time we come by here :).

West Point Catholic Church

We booked the first tour of the morning. The drive over to the pick up location was about 25 minutes away. The pick up location is the West Point Visitor center and military museum. Both are very much worth visiting and free. I'll even say they were better and more interesting than the actual tour. As West Point is an active military base the only way to get on campus for most of us is via a private tour company. They load you on a bus for about 2.5hrs. Let you out about 4 times then drop you back off where they picked you up. I'll say I'm glad I did it once but I would not do it again. The campus is neat to see, the guide gives some of the history of the original fort, talks about a few of the statues and various monuments around campus, takes the group to the Catholic Church, then takes the group to the wall that overlooks the river and a couple other stops. After which everyone is packed back on the bus and driven back to the visitors center. I'll say that we both enjoyed the tour of the Navel Academy much more. We spent 2-3 hours in the visitors center and museum then found a really good Chinese place for lunch and headed out for our next stop.

Back side of the dam

The Croton Dam was amazing. I had only seen pictures of it from some of our friends that stopped by here on their loop. Unfortunately pictures don't do this place justice. To me it felt like a place they should be filming a James Bond movie or big action movie at. The dam was completed in the early 1900's and is supposedly the second largest man made stone structure next to the pyramids. At one time this was once of the major spots that NYC got its water from. The backside of the dam is a bit like a pyramid in that it has a large number of stone steps that is probably 2-300ft high that allows water to run over into the river below. Along side those steps is essentially a man made river that is also moving right along a huge granite cliff. The amount of water flowing through here is incredible and is not been something that I could visualize at a dam before. The entire area is hilly and very upstate New Your feeling.

The front side is pretty impressive as well. At one point there was a road across it but it seems that has been shutdown for a while now. Fortunately the dam is located in a park and there are several hiking trails that let you make the trek to the top. I easily spent an hour and a half just marveling at this thing as we walked around the various trails. I'm not sure Amy was a bit less excited than me but this stop was really a highlight for me. I could not tell you why but it was just neat. It probably also helped that it has been raining the last two days allowing for a fair amount of water to be flowing when we were there.

After our two stops we headed to the grocery store then back to the marina where we lounged in the pool for a bit, had dinner and turned in for another early night to bed.

Dam wall

Partial view of the marina, our boat is in the very back

Day four and five of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Cape May to New York City (Croton, NY)

When we awoke early this morning I checked the weather as any respectable sailor does first thing each day. It seemed our desired window was still there but just moving in a bit slower than we planned with the rain pattering down on the boat we went back to sleep for a couple hours and hung around the marina until about 11am when we got the next slack tide. Our desired weather window still looked good but unfortunately we had lost about 5 hours of daylight travel time. This meant would might be coming into New York Harbor between 3 & 4am if all went well. This didn't sound like a bad thing as there might not be as much commercial traffic running at that time. Which would allow us to focus on all of the various channel markers in that area.. I won't mention how much more exciting it might be to navigate these in the dark.

The 18hr leg from Cape May to New York Harbor was fairly uneventful. The day started out a bit rolly but settled down after a couple hours and stayed that way until about midnight when we got a light rain and a 4-5ft following sea. We passed a lot of ships drifting waiting for their pilots to bring them into the various ports along the coastline. I chatted with a couple of them on the radio but most didn't seem very concerned about us. This might have something to do with our AIS (sort of like a transponder for marine traffic) probably not working very well as it can't broadcast very far with the mast down and no antenna hooked to it but from what I gathered the big ships could still pick us up once we were within a half mile or so of them.

As we turned into the Lower Harbor coming by Sandy Hook around 3am our following sea was now on our quarter which made the boat roll in all kinds of fun ways that makes steering really fun especially when one can't see the other side of the boat and the other half of the channel markers your trying to stay between. I woke Amy up, convinced her to head to the bow, and with our headsets on we worked as a pretty good team. Sitting up front she could see the markers I couldn't and even found some without lights that I would have never seen from the helm. We spent the next three hours or so navigating like that until we got near the Verrazano bridge where things get a bit easier channel wise and we were getting first light. Unfortunately this is also when the commercial traffic starts running. For those that have not experienced it commercial traffic does not care much about pleasure craft. Our job is essentially to stay out of their way. Fortunately its a big river and we move slow so its not to bad.

I had taken a nap the day before knowing I had the night shift. I had taken the helm around sunset at 730 and by the time we got to the Statue of Liberty around 8am I was tired. I usually love to see NYC from the water but by 9 I was done and just needed a nap. So Amy got to enjoy all the city views on her own. We had been fighting the tide for a couple of hours and decided we should find a stopping place. Being cheap by trying to avoid marina fees for a 70ft boat in NYC I started looking for anchorages. Seems there are not many recommended anchorages on the Hudson. So we decided to splurge on a marina just past Terrytown called Halfmoon Bay. It was supposedly close to West Point, the Culinary Institute of America, and the Hudson Dam that I wanted to see but never made the time to stop at previously.

After we got checked in and tied up after our 25hr journey we had some lunch and both took well deserved naps. Later that night we wondered out and found ice cream but we really didn't feel like doing much most the day. Looking forward to exploring this stop more tomorrow!

Day three of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Chesapeake City to Cape May

Seems we both overslept a bit. We had planned on leaving Chesapeake City around 8am, unfortunately we did not have the anchor up until around 930. The leg from here to Cape May would be around 60 miles or about 10hrs. This time we had planned well to ride the tide but unfortunately had trouble executing so we had the current pushing us along for the first 3hrs or so but then lost it when the tide switched causing us to travel slower then usual.

Emerging into the Delaware River from the C&D canal can be challenging if you don't plan it correctly as its sort of like two bodies of water mixing right there and there are a lot of different markers where the various channels are coming together and diverging from each other. Luckily we had some experience coming through here four years ago with our Nordic Tug when we did the Great Loop. We had plenty of daylight and it was a nice day weather wise making this area fairly uneventful.

On our way down to Cape May we past a lot of big commercial freighters. This was made a bit more exciting by the fact that our mast is laid down on deck. For those that have not had this experience is a  very much like driving a car with a ladder running from the dash board in the front seat to the back of the trunk. It basically means you can't see anything for about 180 degrees on the passenger side of the car or boat in our case. Amazingly even though these freighters are huge the mast can still cover them up as well as all the red bouys that one generally uses to navigate channels with. This meant I really preferred to hug the green marks I could see which is a bit like driving on the wrong side of the road.

We had good weather most the day. Unfortunately the wind picked up a bit towards the end of the day creating a wind against current thing that made a four foot chop with around a three second period for the last three hours of our trip down the Delaware River. This kind of short chop is never fun as the boat rolls and bangs around a lot but our mast never moved which felt very reassuring.

With our mast down we were able to enter Cape May via the Cape May Canal. Unfortunately we entered at low tide which made it a bit more exciting as the channel is narrow, shallow, and there was a fair amount of traffic going both ways. I would guess the channel is about 45ft wide but we took up 26 of it thus a boat had to be pretty brave to come around us against oncoming traffic that they probably could not see coming at them until they pulled up really close to us. Needless to say we had a nice escort of 6-8 small boats that really wanted to go fast but were stuck following us at sailboat speeds. Once we got into Cape May it was about an hour till dark and it seemed both the anchorages were full. Amy started making phone calls and found one marina that had a dock big enough for us. We both really hoped this would work as if it didn't we might be shoving our way into an over crowded anchorage in the dark which neather of us were excited about. The marina said they had one dock available and it was a 90ft dock they generally put any big boats staying with them into. Amy asked several times what the dock width was but it seemed they did not know.. just that it was their big dock and it would for sure handle us. Once we pulled into the marina and started lining up for the dock I knew right away we were not going to fit but they were quite instant we could get into it. Well as you can see above we didn't fit. The dock was maybe 25ft wide? So we wedged the front 1/3 of our boat in between the two posts. The marina was ok with us hanging out of the dock as long as we left early in the morning and Amy was happy to not have to figure out how we might fit into an over crowded anchorage in the dark. The only other option would have been to start our Atlantic leg early but the weather conditions were not in our favor yet.

The marina was kind enough to only charge us for a 50ft boat instead of the 70ft boat we are with the mast down even though we probably only took up 30ft of dock space (with the other 40ft hanging out into the fairway) and we didn't have a cord long enough to get power. Fortunately our hose was long enough to allow us to refill our water tanks.

Cape May was another cute East Coast town/area to walk around. We found a restaurant and ordered a much needed adult beverage and tried not to think about any new gelcoat damage we might be acquiring at the dock.

Day two of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Tolchester to Chesapeake City

Traveling on a sailboat with the mast down is a pain in the rear and nerve wracking! One is always worried about the mast moving then adding to that it makes walking around the deck quite challenging as we had all kinds of ratchet straps attached to chain plates and deck cleats all over the boat. Meaning there is a lot to trip over and bang your head on. It also means most our cleats were being used to hold the mast down vs being easily available to tie to a dock with. Not to mention the added joy of the boat now being 70ft long with the mast down and hanging 15 ft over the front of the boat and 5ft off the rear. Last time we did this we both said never again. But here we are because we were too cheap to have the mast shipped to our final destination. 

The scariest part of this trip was going to be the Atlantic leg from Cape May to the Hudson River. We figured that we needed a good 28hr weather window to accomplish that leg. The reality is we expected the journey to be around 18hrs but I like to plan a buffer into our sail plans should something unexpected happen. It appeared we were going to get that desired magic weather window in about three days. So after a few long days of getting the boy dropped off at college, getting the boat provisioned and ready, then a long day on the water heading north in the Chesapeake we decided a short leg was in order and traveled about 20NM from Tolchester, MD to Chesapeake City, MD located in the C&D canal.

This turned out to be a great stop. We arrived around 11am, we were the first boat to drop the anchor beating the weekend traffic and were able to head into town just in time for lunch. We were able to visit one of the two museums, walk around the shops a bit, found some ice cream then settled at a B&B with an outdoor bar and live music for a while. We had great weather and it made for a really relaxing day. 

Starting our adventure back to the Great Lakes - Trappe to Tolchester

When we last saw the boat we were a bit concerned about the way the yard had put the mast on the boat. We also noticed before leaving that one of our dock lines had been cut. We were thinking it happened somehow when the marina moved the boat from their Oxford location to their other location in Trappe. The line must have dropped off the side along the way allowing it to get sucked into the prop. 

Fortunately the yard also noticed this and decided to pull the boat and ordered some new parts for the prop to resolve the damage. So when we got to the yard after dropping Max off at school the day before they had the boat in the lift and waiting for the new bits to come in the next day. Additionally they had also spent some time working to get the mast mounted better on the boat which also resulted in getting the total height of the boat off the water to 14 feet 9 inches (once I removed the wind generators). This meant we would not need to cross Lake Ontario or deal with a schedule for the Welland Canal. Instead we would be able to travel the full distance of the Erie Canal that eventually ends around Buffalo, NY making for what might be a less stressful trip.

View of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge

We spent the next day provisioning, making fender boards, and attempting to tie up all of the loose ends that need to be resolved before leaving for what we planned to be a 2-3 week trip bringing the boat back to Lake Erie. The yard got our prop put back together, called in a fuel truck to ensure we could leave with full tanks, and got the boat back in the water. It was a productive day. In addition to this the yard owner had some really good news for us. He had found the owner of the Jet Express Ferry service that takes folks over to the various islands on Lake Erie and told us they would be willing to pull and store our boat along side their ferries for the winter. This meant we could eliminate 600 miles from our planed trip to Lake Michigan during a time of year that is less than ideal for travel on the Great Lakes. Plus the boat would only be an hour or so from our house vs 3.5 and on the other side of the state. 

The next morning we dropped off our rental car. Said our goodbys to all our new boat yard friends and headed out on the high tide. Logically this seemed like the right thing to do but seems I still have a lot to learn about the Chesapeake Bay. Apparently we headed out a bit too soon as we got ahead of the tide and stayed that way for the entire day which meant we were going against the tide and traveling about two to four knots slower then we would have if the tide stayed with us. Luckily we had a nice weather window with calm waters and after a full day out on the water we ended up dropping anchor just a little north of Tolcheaster, MD for the night where we got to enjoy a beautiful sunset.

We dropped the boy at college

Summer is just about gone and with that its was time to do the thing every parent dreams of and dreads at the same time. We all want our kids to be strong well rounded, independent adults. We want them well educated. But we also hate giving up the direct time we get to spend with them when they live at home, and ultimately the amount of influence we once had in their lives. We like to think it's a good influence to keep them "on track and doing all the right things" that will hopefully pay off later in their lifespan. However eventually they do have to leave the nest and start doing their own thing.

August 24th is the day we officially became empty nesters and dropped Max off for his first year at Central Michigan University. I'm sure he will do well and it seems he is already on track trying some new things and making friends. I look forward to seeing him grow over the next four years. The house will be different without the kids around as much. I look forward to figuring out what this next phase of our life's will look like as the kids continue on their own journeys and we start to develop our new routines. For now I'll enjoy what I'm guessing will be a 60% reduction in our weekly grocery bill. I'll be less excited about picking up all of his chores and having to resume my role as the lawn guy around our house but hopefully there will be slightly less work with only two of us making messes on a daily basis.

FINALLY! That's CAPTAIN to you! (with sailing endorsement, of course!)

Seems I've been deemed special enough to have received my official Captains Credential. I submitted all my stuff to the USCG on July 1 and just got the completed paper back on September 18th. Unfortunately I still don't have the medical certificate in hand. However they notified me today that it has been approved and will be mailed soon. Seems the credential is not truely valid until you have the medial certificate, MMC credential, and TWIC card all in hand at the same time.

So what did I really get here. Well I may have gotten a bit carried away with the endorsements for something I really have no plans on using but figured I might as well do them all while the base information was fresh in my brain. In addition to the test for the standard 6 pack license I went ahead and got the endorsement for the Master level which means I can drive pretty much any vessel under 50 tons full of people. I can be a Ferry Captain if I want or I can take out large charter groups on inspected vessels. Additionally I also got endorcements for Towing and Sailing. This means I can run sailing charter boats with more than 6 customers and I have the option to be a tow boat captan. 

It's nice to have options but am I really qualified in any way to do any of this stuff? Probably not. But the USCG says I'm good to go. I'm sure I could figure it out with a lot of on the job training but for now I'm smart enough to know I should not be jumping into any of these things without additional experience. While it sounds impressive to say you're a Master rated Captain with endorsements for sailing and towing. It really just means one can pass a few tests the main one being that I could get all the paperwork together and filled out correctly. Frankly I'm a bit disappointed that there is no actual proof needed that one can safely operate a boat like what is required for a drivers license. In my case I filled out a couple forms that said what types of boats I've owned, how much time I've spent on them over the years, and where I took them. It's all an honor system. Until one has to demonstrate some actual seamanship skills I won't be very impressed with their licensing system.

Now that I've nearly completed the process I will say it was a bit of a roller coaster ride. A ton of information was feed to us during the in person training class I took for the 6 pack endorsement. I spent a fair amount of time in class and memorizing a bunch of stuff that is interesting to know but not really required to know to successfully operate a boat. Getting the notification that I had passed all of that felt like an accomplishment. Passing the four tests required for the entry level endorsement was not trivial. Oddly adding the endorsements for the Master rating, Towing, and Sailing did feel somewhat trivial and required much less time. With that said putting together the application and submitting that was quite time consuming. After uploading everything I was quite worried that I might have missed something, paid for the wrong drug test, or not checked a box correctly somewhere along the way. Fortunately after watching a number of YouTube videos on the process I seemed to have gotten everything correct the first time. Its feels like another weight has been taken off now that I've made it though the process successfully.

More choices

While waiting to board our flight back from Baltimore the owner of Xquisite sent me a e-mail with information about their World Rally trip. I think I am one of the first to see the details. Obviously we bought this boat with the intention to circumnavigate with it. Originally we had looked at a number of options and settled on going with the World Arc. But now we are getting some information on a 4 year around the world rally that Xquisite is planning to start next year. They are calling it the Great Xcape. We had talked to the owner about his idea for this trip last summer when we were at the Xquisite Center with our new boat. But it seems they have just now started putting the actual plans down and looking to see who will commit to such an adventure. 

It seems they are modeling it like the Oyster rally where it will hopefully be a big marketing thing for them. But going with them the adventure will be fully supported with Xquisite techs, Captains, and even a doctor traveling with the fleet. If you need crew they will provide it, if you need to leave your boat somewhere and want to join the fleet when you come back they will move it for you. They will even attempt to charter the boat for you while you're gone to help cover the costs along the way. They are planning to handle all the visa's, check in's at each country, transpiration of parts, assist with weather/route planning, and things to do at each destination. The bonus is rather then leaving from Africa and crossing back to Brazil their route plans to take the group though the Suez Canal and into the Med which I would really like to travel by boat.

I really like the idea of joining the Great Xcape. It would be fun to be one of the first doing it with them. The tech support along the way would be helpful. Amy's biggest concern is missing family and friends. I think spreading out the time doing the trip this way will allow for more trips home without feeling like you missed something with the World Arc fleet constantly moving. This trip is planning to stay much longer than a couple weeks at each destination which I'm hoping means we might be able to put the boat on the hard during the off season then come back to continue the trip when the weather permits. The down side would be it will be a smaller group, the adventure will take longer and what happens if something changes at home not allowing us to complete the trip, or just generally missing more life events (weddings, funerals, graduations, etc). I'm also guessing their version of the trip will be much more expensive the way they are currently planing it but we have yet to hear of a price.

We were planning to sign up for the World Arc trip when sign ups opened in September/October. Now we have something else to think about?

Year two of retirement

I feel like the last year has gone by really fast. I don't have any regrets about retiring nor do I feel that I'm missing any sense of accomplishment from not working. This second year I feel like I've got the hang of retirement.. establishing new routines and habits that keep me busy in ways that I truly enjoy. It was my son's senior year of high school and I'm really glad that I was around and truly present for all of his lasts. 

This year he aged out of Scouting and I backed out of my leadership role there. It was also my last year as head coach of the High School Trap team which I'm now in the process of handing over to another dad who's son is on the team. As a family we were able to travel a bit visiting my daughter when she was working at Disney, on the boat, we took a cruise over spring break, and still have a lot more planed for this year. Staying busy has not been a problem.

In about two weeks we will be dropping both Annabelle and Max off at college and that will be quite a change for us. We will officially be empty nesters! It may be quite different without any kid activities to attend, coach, or lead. We will need to find a new rhythm in our house that is not centered around our kids. But next summer we plan to start our circumnavigation which may take anywhere between 2-4 years. So we have that to look forward to and start preping for.

As far as what I had imagined doing in retirement so far none of that has really come to fruition. At one point I thought I might follow up on that offer to teach at the community college or one of the local private schools. I thought I would be playing video games more. I frankly had notions of all sorts of ways to spend my time that I have yet to get to. Of course I also thought I would have a great looking yard, be caught up on all the projects around the house and would have a regular workout routine. Well it seems I failed at all of those but maybe the workout routine. I've been doing really well at getting to the gym or something equivalent 3-4 times a week this year and have continued walking a few miles each day with the dogs. 

Financially its hard to complain the stock market has been doing great which has put us in a better position then we planed for. Our rentals are having a rough year as we had a lot of turn over coupled with a few expensive repairs but I'm optimistic that we will break even with those this year.

Looking back I was never the person that didn't enjoy working or all of the chaos or challenges that came with it but at this point I can safely say I don't miss it nor do I even think about it other than to reminisce with a former colleague from time to time. Retirement has been a great decision for me and I'm really looking forward to our next chapter!

Lowering the mast

While we have had several sailboats before I've never really been comfortable when it comes to lowering a mast and have always relied on the boat yard for help. Historically they promised a lot and generally disappointed in this area. My experience has been that they will generally operate the crane for you while you do all the work. This time may work out to be the exception?

The yard called in the crane company. Helped get everything disconnected. I'm a bit worried about getting all the wires that were running through the mast connected again when we get to our destination but that's a problem for another day. For now they are labeled showing what connects to what so I can join wire 1 to the other part of wire 1 at some point in the future. Needless to say there were a lot of wires and no easy disconnects. Fortunately we only ended up cutting one wire that we could not trace. It will be interesting to see what it might have been and how many smaller wires are in it when the time comes to join it back together.

The crane showed up around 1130 on a day that was 89 degrees and very humid. Luckily the yard treated this event as an all hands on deck maneuver from a staffing standpoint I think I had 5 guys plus the crane operator for this project. Getting it off proved to be pretty easy. Unfortunately the yard had not got around to making the braces/brackets they had committed to prior to lowering the mast so there was nothing to lay the mast in on the boat once it was removed. They ended up moving it over and setting it on some blocks on land. At this point everyone took a break and started scratching their heads on next steps. I realized there were also no straps to tie it down and asked Amy to make the 35 minute drive to the hardware store to buy everything they had in the racket strap section.

Meanwhile the yard guys found a spreader bar to help balance the mast as it would be moved over the boat. They had also decided to use some of the blocks they set boats on to temporarily rest the mast on my boat with. Unfortunately these were to be stacked on each other until the actual supports could be made. The new plan was to later use their smaller crane to raise it on deck enough to get the promised supports under it the next day. I was not very excited about this idea but unfortunately it seemed like a reasonable approach for what we could do at this moment and I was not very excited about paying the crane guy to sit around any longer then we had to or worse yet come back the next day.

Now that some informal plans were made up it was time to set the mast onto the boat. Unfortunately because of the way our mast is rigged to rake back there is some diamond shaped rigging starting midway up the mast that makes that happen. This rigging seemed to be hitting our bimini top and limited how far we could push the mast towards the back of the boat making it hang over the front of the boat about 15ft. It seemed we had a few options:

1. We could disconnect it which would allow us to push the mast back further and better balance the boat but would require a rigger when we put it up somewhere that understands our boat, why it was shaped that way, and knows how to get it back to that shape for optimal performance. This did not sound like a great idea as a good rigger can be hard to come by.
2. We could raise the mast up higher on deck (about 3-4ft) to ensure the cable would clear our bimini but then we might be to high to make it under the lowest bridge along the canal. 
3. We could take the top and windshield down which would provide zero protection from the elements during the 2000 mile journey and possibly make our helm position very uncomfortable. 

4. 

   A problem waiting to happen

   We could let the mast hang over the front of the boat more than we would like which would somewhat limit our travel days on the Atlantic and Great Lakes to ideal weather only. 

In my mind all of those options sucked. I looked over to my left and started looking at the straps on the travel lift and decided to just get the mast on deck for now and hopefully we could use the travel lift to bring it back up to change the mast position vs being limited to their crane. Hopefully once they get some chalks made to hold the mast more appropriately we might be able to have a better idea of where our height cut off will officially be and with some creative engineering we may be able to move the mast back and keep our top and window protection. For the moment I'm pretty sure we can make it under the 20ft bridge but I would really like the option of making it under the 15ft bridge.

Some other fun challenges I have not mentioned yet. 

1. We decided to do all of this work while the boat is still on the Chesapeake Bay. It seemed like a good idea at the time as the yard we were at was willing to do the work and their labor rates are quite fair compared to doing this somewhere in NY. This means we will have to travel up the Bay, though the C&D canal, then down to Cape May, and then 18hrs up the East Coast in the Atlantic with our mast down before we get to the Hudson River where the conditions will start to become easier weather/element wise about 1/3 the way up.
2. We found out our mast is really 69ft long. This means we are now a 69ft boat which will make docking interesting, limiting, and expensive anywhere we stop. It also means a best case setup we will have 10ft of mast hanging over each end of our boat.
3. 
   Turns out there is no where in Buffalo, NY (the end of the Erie Canal) that can put a mast this big up on a catamaran. Luckily I found a place in Oswego, NY that can which is where we will come out if we go the Lake Ontario route.

Our current thoughts are that we would like to leave the mast down until we get to where we will have the boat hauled out on Lake Michigan. This will allow us to do some maintenance on the mast next spring. Items like cleaning up some of the rusted fittings so we can hopefully see where the rust is coming from, replacing the tricolor light that worked but had water in it, replacing some of the stainless bits on the roller furling that are showing their age, etc. Additionally if we leave the mast down there is a chance we might be able to get the boat into inside storage for the winter which would hopefully be easier on the boat as it seemed our gel coat did not appreciate all the freezing and melting last winter even though the boat was shrink wrapped. So lots of items to work though as we make this journey at the end of the month. But for now the big dependency we have is the yard getting the chalks made and placed under the mast then ensuring its tied down well enough to make this trip prior to August 25th when we get back to the boat. Any wagers if it will happen before we get there?