fetchinketch

05:05 local, 23 July 2019
Lat: 43° 58.4’ N
Lon: 64° 18.9’ W
Weather: Overcast, scattered rain, wind 14kt, NE
Water temperature: 64°F/Air temperature: 58°F
Course: 072M
Speed: 6.1kts
Distance from Delaware Bay Entrance: 578NM
Distance from Halifax Harbor Entrance: 46NM

We are closing in on the port of Halifax, ETA 14:00. The fourth day of a passage is about when we get fully into the rhythm of watch schedules and underway life. Despite that, we are both very much looking forward to an uninterrupted sleep.

There has been lot more wildlife to see. We are learning that the best viewing here is near where water temperatures are changing, and they change a lot here! In the last 12 hours we have seen water as cold as 46°F, and as warm as 64°F. Many more birds, mostly shearwaters and storm petrels. Harbor porpoises, harbor seals, and pilot whales have rounded out the visible critters.

The pilot whales were in a closely packed group of about a dozen, cavorting on the surface for about 10 minutes before diving as a group to feed in the 800 feet deep water. After about 10 minutes they would reappear very near where they dove. It’s a pretty typical place to find pilot whales: deep water, yet near land. They live all over the world. The last time we saw them was in the Molokai Channel in Hawaii’.

Because it was calm and the whales were close, we tried to launch the drone to get pictures of them. We didn’t quite get our act together quickly enough before they moved on. We also learned a lot about launching and recovering the drone from a rolling and pitching boat. I learned how to drive it, Karen learned how to catch it, and to keep her fingers away from the propellers (Ouch!). We’ll be better next time, or if not better at least faster!

After 36 hours of motoring through flat calm seas, we finally have some wind, unfortunately it it dead straight on our nose. For now we have decided to continue to motor into it which will save us several hours. That decision might change if the waves build, or the wind direction shifts a bit.

07:00 local, 22 July 2019
Lat: 42° 31.5’ N
Lon: 66° 50.6 W
Weather: Partly cloudy, wind 4kt, NE
Water temperature: 64°F/Air temperature: 62°F
Course: 066M
Speed: 6.8kts
Distance from Delaware Bay Entrance: 435NM
Distance from Halifax Harbor Entrance: 186NM

We have been motoring since midnight, and the forecast is for continuously light winds for most of today. We continue to be on target for a tomorrow afternoon arrival in Halifax.

We are now in Canadian waters, and stowed the fishing gear until we have check in with customs. We didn’t get as much chance to fish on the way here as we had hoped. Either the wind was blowing to hard to fish deep, or we just weren’t in a good spot.

We have just past a pair of harpoon boats. I have seen this kind of fishing boat in harbors, but never out fishing. Characterized by a very long and narrow bow pulpit where the harpooner stands waiting for the boat to either chase down, or sneak up on, its target. He throws the harpoon, which is attached to a large float. They then chase down the float when the fish tires. Swordfish and giant bluefin tuna are the usual catch.

We had a clear day and night, but there is a gray wall ahead of us, so I suspect we’ll be listening to the foghorn again in a short while.

Water temperature around here changes dramatically, and quickly. We have seen changes of up 10°F in a few minutes. The proximity of deep cold water with the filling, and emptying, of the Bay of Fundy every 6 hours I am sure have something to do with that. Where the water is cold, it is foggy. Where the water is warmer, it is sunny and warm.

05:30 local, 21 July 2019
Lat: 41° 05.7’ N
Lon: 69° 10.5 W
Weather: Dense fog, wind 16kt, SW
Water temperature: 57°F/Air temperature: 52°F
Course: 055M
Speed: 4.5kts
Distance from Delaware Bay Entrance: 301NM
Distance from Halifax Harbor Entrance: 321NM

We spent the day yesterday sailing or motoring downwind. It was hot, and humid. The ocean appeared almost empty. We saw no birds. For most of the day we traveled across a flat ocean bottom 200 feet deep, only rarely marking a fish on sonar. We sailed. We sweated. Did I say it was hot?

As we approached Nantucket, we saw a disturbance on the water surface a good distance away. Spray, foam, splashing. Thinking we were seeing feeding fish, I started to turn the boat that way. It quickly became obvious that what ever it was was coming toward us. Directly toward us. Fast. Soon we could make out the individuals in a school of 100 or more common dolphin. A school of dolphin who obviously wanted to be somewhere very special, as quickly as possible.

Harmonie was directly in their path. For a few seconds we had dolphin in front, behind, and under us. They were on a mission. Without slowing down, they continued as if we weren’t there, and a few minutes later disappeared off to the Southeast, never varying from a straight course to—somewhere.

Shortly after, we came across a large group of birds. More than we had seen the whole trip so far. Mostly just sitting on the water surface. A group of them started to follow us and show an unhealthy interest in one of our trolled lures. Even diving at it. This is unusual, birds are usually smart enough to avoid a artificial lure (not always!). When I brought the lure in to avoid hooking a bird, we discovered the source of the attraction. About a freshly hooked 2 pound mahi-mahi, too small to pull out any drag or even bend the rod.

A few minutes later, we noticed the water temperature gauge had dropped from about 76° to 66°. As the sun set, the water temperature dropped again, down to 60°. Now fish are everywhere on the sonar. It’s a very different ocean than we were in two hours ago!

As that hot, humid air blows northward and encounters the suddenly cold water, it cools quickly. All that humidity can no longer stay as water vapor, so now it is water droplets, I.e., fog. Our visibility is down to about 50 yards. Our foghorn and a close watch on the radar are suddenly very important.

We just crossed the last major shipping lane until we approach Halifax. As intimidating as the large ships are in the near zero visibility, the smaller fishing vessels are more difficult to deal with. Because of their work, their movements are much less predictable, and—sometimes—they are much less professionally run.

The last leg of this voyage is now a straight shot to Halifax, or as straight as wind allows. Hopefully we have weather that will allow us a fishing stop on Georges Bank. Cod, haddock, and pollack seasons are open out here, and if we are incredibly lucky we might tie into an Atlantic halibut.

09:00 local, 20 July 2019
Lat: 40° 25.5’ N
Lon: 71° 24. W
Weather: Hazy, wind 11kt, W
Water temperature: 76°F/Air temperature: 74°F
Course: 081M
Speed: 4.5kts
Distance from Delaware Bay Entrance: 195NM
Distance from Halifax Harbor Entrance: 426NM

We are about 40 miles off Montauk, on the eastern tip of Long Island, and are in the middle of crossing the busy shipping lanes that lead into the Port of New York. The ships are spaced about an hour apart, but it takes us about an hour to cross, so timing is important! As we pick our place between large cargo ships to dart across, I have an understand of how the squirrel feels trying to cross the freeway.

Our next challenge is rounding the shoals that surround Nantucket to the south and east. Long the bane of vessels approaching New York from the Atlantic, these shoals are littered with ship wrecks, and are also home to some of the best summer flounder fishing anywhere. Unfortunately, we’ll be passing at night and can’t take the time to stop—this trip. Once clear of Cap Cod, we have a straight shot across Georges Bank to Nova Scotia.

We sailed on a comfortable broad reach all night, with the wind sifting exactly as predicted, and exactly as we wanted. During the night we were treated to several groups of dolphin playfully bow-riding, and a group of whales close by. The full moon was bright enough we could see the spray of the whale blows 150 feet away.

Pretty much always at night, and frequently during the day, you first notice whales when you hear them breath when they surface. It sounds pretty much like you would imagine it sounds like when a 30 ton animal blows his nose.

05:26 local, 19 July 2019
Lat: 39° 02.7’ N
Lon: 73° 39.6 W
Weather: Partly cloudy, wind 14kts, NW
Water temperature: 81°F/Air temperature: 75°F
Course: 090M
Speed: 7.5kts
Distance from Delaware Bay Entrance: 66NM
Distance from Halifax Harbor Entrance: 558NM

As the early summer sun rises, Harmonie is rolling miles beneath her keel in good form. The last of the night time haze is burning off even before the sun clears the horizon. Our course is taking us more east than north right now, chasing some wind to power us north, and heading out toward the Continental Shelf.

Here off the coast of New Jersey, the ocean bottom slopes very slowly deeper. Right now we are about 50 miles off shore and it is still less than 200 feet deep. Out another 50 miles and it will still be only 400 feet deep. But then, the bottom drops suddenly to over 2000 feet and is cut by enormous canyons. All of this complex underwater topography stirs up the water as it moves, which brings nutrient rich water to the surface, which grows little fish, which bring big fish, which brings fishermen.

If the weather holds, our forecast arrival at the entrance to Halifax harbor is the morning of July 23.

As the sun sets we are sailing out of the Delaware Bay ready to turn north. The weather models are split about the fastest route to take, but all have us arriving off Halifax mid-day on the 23rd. Winds right now are light, but we are making reasonable progress on the outgoing tide.

Other than the normal summer pop-up thunderstorms the weather looks mild for the trip. We are looking forward to cooler weather, fun sailing, and good fishing!

We dropped our lines in Annapolis this morning, and headed up the Chesapeake Bay toward the Chesapeake & Delaware canal. It feels so good to be underway again, stretching the sails and pushing water aside, spending the evening at anchor instead of at the dock.

The tide timing and weather suggested an overnight stop would be a good idea, so right now we are anchored in a scenic, protected back bay in the Sassafras River. A short line of thunderstorms blew through shortly after we dropped anchor and cooled things off nicely.

The canal route across the Delmarva peninsula and down Delaware Bay saves us a lot of miles heading north compared to running back down the Chesapeake.

Our next objective is Halifax, Nova Scotia. We have learned if we have a specific place to visit, stopping along the way can be a problem. We find interesting things to do and places to see, and we end up not getting to the destination we originally targeted. So this time, as soon as we exit Delaware Bay, we are turning left, and running straight north to Canada. It will be about a 600 mile passage, and the weather forecasts look excellent. We should be clearing into Canadian Customs in about 5 days.

Summer on Chesapeake Bay is brutally hot and humid. We are escaping just as the first real heat wave throws a flaming hot and soggy humid blanket on the Bay. It will be nice trading daily high temperatures in the high nineties for the mid seventies.

For the last several years our inexpensive little folding dinghy has served us well as our car, delivery wagon, fishing platform, and general transportation tool. She was a bargain when we got her, but now her time is past.

She had been patched a couple of times due to traumatic injuries, and had a couple of problems that caused us to drop her off at the local inflatable service center. They did a great job of working us into their schedule at the last minute. (Karen waving a $100 bill around probably didn’t hurt!) After inspecting our girl, the service manager took us aside and explained the situation. It was time to pull the plug. Repairs would cost fully what we paid for her when new, and there were multiple problems that prevented a reliably permanent fix. 

Finding a good replacement became a critical task. When you are out cruising the oceans of the world, a dinghy is a critical piece of gear. It is your connection to the land world. It takes you to the best places to explore, and brings all your provisions and supplies out to the mother ship.

We quickly marshaled our resources and research skills and, armed with a list of our criteria for what we needed, we finalized a choice and, with a bit of good luck, found a local supplier with exactly what we wanted in stock and ready to deliver.

As with all boats of all sizes the perfect dinghy does not exist. They are a collection of compromises. Our old girl did one thing really, really well. She folded up and stored in a compact package on deck, or in the aft locker. That was a great benefit, unfortunately it required a significant compromise. She couldn’t be built of the heavy-duty rubberized canvas that is the best for dinghies who have to live in the tropical sunlight. Instead the folding required a lighter fabric coated with PVC. Although PVC coated fabrics have improved greatly in recent years, They are still much more subject to degradation from the UV components of sunlight.

We could replace her with another folding model, but the cost of the newer folding dinghies was significantly higher, and left us still with the uncertain lifespan of the PVC fabric.

We knew we wanted an inflatable boat with a hard bottom, what is normally called a “RIB” (Rigid Inflatable Boat). They perform better, and can be dragged up on a rocky beach without issue. We knew we wanted it small enough to store under our mizzen boom on the aft deck–but not too small. It had to be big enough to safely handle our 15HP outboard. It would be nice to have an aluminum hull instead of fiberglass for reduced weight and better abrasion resistance.

To our good fortune, our friends Alan and Laura aboard Ora Pai, a sister ship to Harmonie, arrived to the slip right in front of us yesterday. They had a dinghy in the size range that we were investigating stored on their aft deck. That gave us a chance to measure and check clearances. This was a great help in being sure that we were on the right track.

Today we put a deposit down on an 9.5 foot, AB brand, aluminum-hulled, inflatable dinghy that is in stock at Annapolis Inflatables. They had the best price that we could find anywhere in the USA, and were very helpful through the whole process. A special thank you to Fred in the service center who was more than generous with his time.

Our biggest compromise on this is that it doesn’t fold, so has to live out on deck. In return, we get a longer lived and better performing dinghy for our explorations.

We should be taking delivery of our new dinghy on Friday, or Monday at the latest. We are expecting to wrap up the last of the details from the computer snafu at the same time. Hopefully, the weather gods will smile on us and we’ll be back underway the middle of next week for points north.

Well… water is great… in its place.  Unfortunately water has some places where it does not need to be.  Inside my laptop computer is one of those places. Last night, the tiniest little bit of water got where it wasn’t supposed to be, and it turned my old reliable Apple laptop into a fluky, funky creature who’s future lifespan is now totally unpredictable.

The upshot of that problem, is that we are still here in Annapolis. Instead of being out sailing, and right now entering the ocean, we are still right–where we were.  All dressed up, but nowhere to go. We spent the day, not sailing, but rather shopping, and buying a new laptop.  

Getting the new machine is the simple part, getting the trade-in credit for the old machine is the time consuming bit.  It will take us the better part of a week to process through all of the logistical issues surrounding this, but it is worth enough in trade-in $’s to make the delay and hassle worth it..  

The boat yard here automatically rolls us over to a monthly rate as soon as it makes sense, so as far as they are concerned we are already paid up out for another two weeks.  So we will stay here and explore and enjoy while the wheels of commerce grind away.

All is not bad, of course.  The difference between a 2015 and a 2019 laptop is pretty dramatic, especially for the computationally intense task of video editing which wasn’t really on my radar when I selected the last computer!  So, we’ll just keep plugging away.  We’ll be on our way again before we know it!