We are landed again back aboard Harmonie at Herrington Harbor North in the bustling metropolis of Deal, Maryland. Our delivery of the Amel 54 went smoothly, a few mechanical glitches, but nothing of great import that couldn’t be sorted out.
We had a slower trip north than we did on Harmonie, mainly because we had a couple weather related stops. We were on a bit of a schedule, so we powered on through a couple of light wind spots rather than relax and sail slowly.
I have been teasing Karen about how very quick it was that she switched from fussing about the Florida heat and humidity (it has been a very HOT spring in south Florida) to complaining about how COLD it is here. It has been a very cool spring here in the Chesapeake Bay area. The morning of our arrival it was in the high 30’s. By the end of this week, we are expecting 80’s.
The local marina is pretty much operating normally. They have been launching boats from winter storage pretty much on schedule. Within the last few days, the state of Maryland has officially opened up recreational boating. With that official release, and the warm weather coming up, and the number of people with cabin fever, I am expecting quite the crowds on the water here next weekend!
We ducked into Moorhead City, North Carolina yesterday afternoon to avoid a nasty piece of weather. Today we are running north as fast as we can to avoid the NEXT contrary wind.
Right now we are coming up on Cape Hatteras, and our last ocean leg before we enter the Chesapeake. We have had a few minor mechanical problems, but everything has been managed without issue so far, and nothing surprising from a boat that has sat for several years.
Unusually, we were contacted on the radio by a Coast Guard cutter off Cape Lookout. After asking name, number of people on board, last and next port of call, they asked when the last time we had been boarded by the Coast Guard at sea. Oh, No! Surely in this 20 knot wind and steep chop they weren’t going to ask us to heave to for boarding? Would they? Fortunately not, they wished us a pleasant voyage and continued on. I have heard this series of questions of other vessels, but always they were commercial fishing boats, never recreational craft. I’m guessing they were bored…
We should be in Herrington Harbor early morning Saturday.
Why are we 100 miles of the coast of northeast Florida? We had so much fun last time bringing Harmonie north from Florida, we decided we just had to do it again! Well, this time it is actually “work.” We are delivering an Amel 54 from Florida to the same marina in Maryland where Harmonie is waiting for us. An Amel 54 is a boat that is basically Harmonie’s younger, more sophisticated, sister.
Deliveries are always a bit of a crap shoot. You can never be 100% sure the boat is really ready to go. We had an advantage on this one, because I had spent a fair amount of time on board fixing systems for her new owner, but on a boat that has sat tied to the sales dock for the better part of four years, there will be surprises. We did the best we could checking systems at the dock, but as Captain Ron said, “If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen out there.”
We had some trouble with the engine not developing full power. Several things had already been done to sort this out, with what looked like good success, but when we motored away we still found it an issue. After “a little of this, and a little of that” it seems happy. Except… a day later we find the alternator is only intermittently, and ineffectively, charging the batteries. Bypassing a relay gives us the solution to that problem.
Overall we’re making good time, and so far have had excellent weather.
We have made out landfall in Herrington Harbor Marina in Deal, MD, safe and sound and without complication. We had four days of beautiful, fast downwind sailing, and 14 hours of getting paying the piper while we beat upwind into a full gale. All those things average out.
After nearly 6 months of major and minor projects, it was a bit much to expect absolutely everything on the boat to work perfectly the first time out, but it did–almost! The new turbocharger on the engine, and the new transmission both worked great. We did have a small leak from the rudder shaft, but that’s an easy fix.
We’ll likely be here until traveling becomes more routine. On our trip up here we saw less than a half dozen other non-commercial boats. Out in the ocean we it was hard to judge the relative number of cargo vessels on the move, but once we arrived in the confined space of the Chesapeake Bay it was obvious that commercial traffic was reduced–a lot. Training and ship movements out the Navy in Norfolk seemed to be close to normal levels.
Now, our next step is to turn around in a few days, and do this all again! There is an Amel 54 at the dock in Hollywood, Florida, that needs to come here. As in RIGHT here, just a few slips away from where we are right now. We had expected to be doing this delivery project ourselves, but it turns out that the owners (who are very cool people) are going to be able to come along. Rotating watches with four people instead of two will seem an amazing luxury. Almost like riding on a cruise ship!
Flight scheduling is a challenge, but it looks like it is possible and inexpensive. As with all things in this new and complex world, flexibility is required. It looks like flying will be Friday, and sailing starts Monday.
In the deep ocean water around Hawai’i there are a number of buoys anchored. The have no navigation purpose, they are there solely to attract fish. They are referred to as “FADs,” Fish Attracting Devices. In the open ocean anything floating on the surface can quickly become a FAD. Logs, rafts of seaweed, boats…
We had been motoring for a bit, and came across a dramatic current line in the Gulf Stream. The water temperature was 79 degrees on one side, one hundred feet to the northeast it was 76. Lots of weed and small fish. The sonar was crowded with small fish arches from the surface down to 200 feet. Standard fishing advice is to always “fish the edges,” and there wasn’t going to be any better edge out here than this! We stopped, and I got out my jigging rod.
In no time Harmonie’s shadow attracted lots of baby bar jack, bite sized tidbits for anything we’d be interested in. The variety of small fish that accumulate at a place like this is staggering.
A few minutes later a school of a dozen mahi-mahi come cruising down the line. They were active, and feeding, lit up bright green and neon blue. They circled the boat, just drifting there like that we were quite the fishy FAD. I hooked a nice one on my first drop of the jig—and after a great fight, the hook pulled out boat side. By the time we got recombobulated we had lost the temperature break, and the fish.
We headed in closer to shore, and tried some deep jigging without any luck. Toward sunset, the wind picked up again, and we were off.
We will be entering the Chesapeake Bay tomorrow morning. It looks like we be dropping anchor at Norfolk for 24 hours to let a north wind blow out and make our passage up the bay more pleasant.
Harmonie took off from Fort Lauderdale like a race horse out of the barn. Perfect winds, and a fast running Gulf Stream had us running 10, 11, even 12 knots over ground. In the first 24 hours we covered more that 250 nautical miles, a new best for us.
Overnight the weather gods decided to punish us a bit for the fun we had. What was forecast to be a spot of rain, turned out to be 6 hours of winds between 30 and 40 knots. While it kept our speed up, it was a bit more than we consider comfortable.
The winds brought us a small visitor, a tiny yellow and black Cape May Warbler who sought refugee status on board at the height of the storm. This is pretty common offshore, but this little guy has made himself at home. He darted into the cabin, and after exploring a bit, decided that our bananas are just the perfect thing to refuel with after 200 miles of flying. Every once in a while, he pops up on deck, decides he doesn’t like all that water, and goes back to the bananas. Since these guys migrate from the Caribbean to Canada, he might be less a refugee than a hitchhiker, even so we haven’t found the heart to kick him off.
After too many months of landlocked life, we are once again in what feels like our natural element. The sun is shining, the sky and the water are blue, the breeze is blowing, the flying fish are flying, and we are making 8 knots in the direction we want to go.
We are off Palm Beach, Florida just entering the Gulf Steam and from here, all looks good in the world.
This afternoon we left the world of large crewed superyachts, and made our way down the New River to an anchorage in Hollywood, Florida. This is a trip we have made a number of times, and it was surprisingly busy, given everything that is going on. Something is always new to see on this bustling waterway.
A Boat of Boats
As we were passing by Port Everglades, the main shipping terminal in Fort Lauderdale, we noticed this strange scene being played out.
For people who have a boat HERE who need or want it THERE and the boat is unsuitable for making the trip itself, you can have it shipped. In this case literally loaded on a ship to cross the ocean. The ship is a bulk cargo carrier that is loaded with something like grain, or ore, or coal, and then yachts and other “stuff” is loaded onto the flat deck after the cargo holds are closed. I am not sure where this one was going, but it has deck cargo of construction equipment as well as these trawlers and sportfishers.
We are now comfortably at anchor, and it is a delight to feel the boat moving that little bit under foot as she comes to life away from the dock.
The wind today is still from the north, but that will be changing over night, and bright and early tomorrow we should be seeing a nice breeze from the southeast carrying us in the direction we want to go.
This one certainly surprised me. In our enforced isolation and idleness I am sure you have all come across some piece of information in your web browsing that surprised or amazed you. Well, here is mine…
The Astoria photographed in 2016
The picture here is of the Astoria. She wouldn’t have attracted much of my attention if we crossed each other at sea, except maybe for a comment on her design, so much more stylish than modern cruise ships.
She is actually a very famous ship, although you’d likely not know it. She is currently in service (or at least was until the current troubles started) as a cruise ship, and her most recent routes were in Baja, Mexico. Yet in an earlier incarnation she played a key roll in one of the most infamous nautical events of the 20th century.
She is an older ship, originally launched in 1946. To be still sailing almost 75 years later is remarkable, but that is not what makes her special.
She was originally the pride of the Swedish America Line and was one of the great romantic Atlantic Ocean liners of the 1950’s when ocean travel still was competitive with the upstart airlines. But that is not why she is special.
She served under many names for many companies, and countries, as a liner, and then reconfigured as a cruise ship. Some of her names were: Völkerfreundschaft, Volker, Fridtjof Nansen, Italia I, Italia Prima, Valtur Prima, Caribe, Athena, and Azores. But that is not why she is noteworthy.
Here is a picture of the Astoria when she was first launched. Anybody with even a passing interest in matters nautical might be a step ahead of me now. If you look closely at her bow, you will see her original name, and the one with which she entered the history books for all the wrong reasons: The Astoria began life over 70 years ago as the Stockholm.
Here is the most famous picture of the vessel known as the Stockholm:
This photo was taken while she was limping back into New York Harbor after putting her re-enforced ice-breaking bow to unfortunate use: Accidentally ramming, and sinking, the great Italian liner Andrea Doria off Nantucket in thick fog on the night of July 25, 1956. Fifty-one lives were lost.
I was amazed to find out she was still sailing.
On the home front, we are going to be moving tomorrow! We’ll be getting out of the boatyard as soon as we complete our last preparations. We’ll be anchoring down close to the ocean overnight. It looks like we have an outstanding weather window for our passage north with a Thursday departure.
We are both very excited about first, sailing, and second getting further north where we can enjoy at least a few weeks of weather cooler than we have been suffering with here in sunny Florida! Our next landfall will be in the town of Deal, Maryland. Halfway up the Chesapeake Bay.
One of the rules in the city of Fort Lauderdale is that when you in an “essential” business, you have to wear a face mask. Since this is Florida, marinas are “essential” so anytime we are out and about in the boat yard, we are masked up.
We are more than ready to get out of Dodge. We have been here way too long, and need to stretch our sealegs again. We are ready, and we have Harmonie ready too. Before the end of next week, we expect we will start sailing north. We have a couple of marinas in the Chesapeake Bay who will take us in. It’s about a five or six day trip for us from here to there. It has been amazingly hot and humid here for days now. The prospect of cool ocean breezes is really, really appealing.
When we get to Maryland, our expectation is within days we will be on an airplane, heading–right back to Florida to pick up another boat to deliver–right back to Maryland!
Except for sweating a lot, we are comfortable, happy and healthy. We sincerely hope all of you are too!
fetchinketch 