On Wednesday morning we took the boat across the creek to the well at Hop-O-Nose. The guys lifted our mast off of the boat with a crane and set it in sawhorses on the dock. We had to do a bit of work then, such as putting the radar back on the mast, as well as the windex (which tells us from which direction the wind is coming), the anemometer and the antenna. Then, they lifted the mast and set it on our boat. They attached the stay wires and that's about it. Well, that was it for them. Our work had just begun.
Little did we know that this company didn't do any rigging adjustments. They just put the mast up and attached the stays. They didn't adjust the stays at all, so they were very loose and not at all ideal for sailing. We are not riggers, so we would have adjusted them ourselves, but it wouldn't have been perfect by any means. Lots of guesswork.
This is where the helping hands and kind hearts began (but did not end, by any means). Dave, a Canadian boater docked next to us, came over and said if we needed help with our rigging, he had a tool we could borrow. We thought that was great, except we had no experience using the tool. In the end, he came over and helped us do all of the stay wires. His tool, a Loos Gauge which I call the Loosy Goosy, tests the tension on the stays and we have to tighten or loosen them accordingly. As we do this, we have to look straight up our mast to see if it is straight, has a curve, or is bent one way or the other. He worked with us for about an hour. What a nice guy! He and his wife, Nicki, even invited us over for a drink later. Boy, did we need it.
After that, Carey had to work on re-connecting all of the wires that run down the mast, and he had to make sure everything worked! It was a ton of work and took him a long time to complete. We also ran all of the sheet lines, the halyards, and furlers that we had fished out in Buffalo.
While we were here, we had two packages (stanchions and stern engine cover clips) delivered from our Jeanneau distributor, NavyPoint. Luckily, they both arrived before we left.
Later, in the evening another boater, Beverly, who had a car there, came and offered me a ride to the grocery store in the morning. What?! Was this Christmas? I was amazed at the generosity of boaters to other boaters. I took her up on the offer and we planned to meet at 9 the next morning.
That evening Dave and his wife, Nicki, invited us over for a drink, and gave us a tour of their Hunter 41. Beautiful boat, AND they have an ice maker!!!! Oh, Carey was envious! Haha.
Thursday, September 22
Today, I met up with Beverly and took Nicki along. Beverly gave me the keys to her old truck and directions to Walmart. Imagine handing your keys over to a complete stranger. Trusting soul. I wasn't entirely comfortable driving a strange vehicle in a strange town, but we followed her directions and found the Walmart easily. The only tough part was getting out of the truck! Instead of a handle, there was a pair of vice grips. Unfortunately, I couldn't open the door, so Nicki jumped out and saved me. We went into the store and agreed to meet up in an hour.
While in the store, a tall, slim woman came up to me and said, "Excuse me, could I ask you a really personal question?" "Okaaaaay," I said, thinking she was going to ask me my age, and figuring she could ask the question, but I didn't have to answer it. "You look really good," she said. "I was just wondering what you weigh." Huh?! Oh, well, what the heck, I told her. She thanked me and explained that she was trying to slim down, so she was stopping women who looked to be an ideal weight. Boy, that was a nice ego boost!
Nicki and I checked out, met up, and drove back to the marina by 10:30. I spent the next couple hours putting away supplies, intermittently assisting Carey, putting a date loaf in to bake, and reorganizing our stores.
While I was away, Carey started installing the trilight/anchor switch. It's a double pull double throw switch, which means we can switch it one way to get the anchor light, and another way to get the navigation lights. After many, many hours, we checked it and the anchor light didn't work. That meant we couldn't leave in the morning, because our plan was to anchor out on our way to the Chesapeake. Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh!!!
Not only that, but I burned the date loaf. So much for my Suzy Homemaker reputation. Haha.
Eventually, Carey left the trilight issue and we put the jib up. More problems. Carey put the jib in the smaller track (although there didn't seem to be a difference with the two) and I used the electric winch to pull up the halyard. Unfortunately, two wrongs do not make a right. The jib got stuck partway up. If I had winched it manually, I would have known that it was getting tight earlier, but with the electric winch I continued to jam it up there.
Dave came over to offer some help, but they couldn't budge it. Then, Jess and Brad, young guys from a neighbouring boat offered some muscle, too. No dice. It still wouldn't move.
Mike Quinn, the boys' father, walked up and suggested that we use a two-by-four wrapped in a towel to wrap around the jib sail so that all four guys could give equal weight on it. That did the trick! Genius! I congratulated Mike on his creative thinking and he said it was because he survived being shipwrecked when he was 19 and stranded on a deserted island for 12 days with 5 other people. What!?! Yup, he gave me the McLeans article and a more detailed write-up of his experiences after hitting a reef. Carey and I stayed up until 11:00 reading it. Fascinating.
That evening we invited Dave and his wife, Nicki, over for a drink. Our boat was still a mess, though, so we couldn't give them a tour.
Friday, September 23
Today, we woke up to some rain, but it stopped pretty quickly. Carey spent almost all day working on getting the trilight working. Oh, my, what a big pain to troubleshoot an electrical problem when the wires are running under the floor and through the walls, and the numbers don't always match up with what is coming down the mast. Finally, around 4:00 he got it working. Yippee, that meant we could leave in the morning. Working on a boat means moving this to get at that and then moving that to get at this. After he was done it looked like a tornado had run through our boat--tools and parts and cushions and stuff everywhere. So, we started working on cleaning up the boat and putting away all of the tools and parts. Ugh.
Here are before...
and after pictures. It felt soooooo good to clean up.
We invited Dave and Nicki over for a before-dinner drink and this time we could give them a tour. For dinner, we went to the Creekside Restaurant with them, which is rig at the marina. We had a lovely evening with our new friends. We were in bed by 10:30, thoroughly tired out.
Saturday, September 24
We left the dock at 9:00 and headed south into the Hudson. Mike, Jess, and Brian (on Simplicity) as well as Dave and Nicki (on Off Duty II) stopped for diesel at Riverview just ahead of us. We tried to leave when we knew the tide would be turning soon. We are going 60 nautical miles today, so we wanted to get an early enough start, without going against the current for very long. We were against the current for the first part of our day. Our boat speed was 7.1, but our speed over ground was around 6.1. Gradually that changed until it was helping us. Dealing with tidal currents and tides is very different for us, but we are learning. By 10:40, the tide had turned and we were going 8.1 SOG, with a boat speed of 7.7.
At 11:00 we put up the jib, and lowered the RPMs to 2300. SOG 8.1; boat speed 7.0. The wind was almost directly astern most of the time, at 8.6 apparent and 16 knots true from the north. It was hard to control, because when the wind shifted slightly, we would gybe. It was always an easy gybe, though.
Around noon, we saw a bunch of kite boarders and sail boarders off Kingston Point. We had to be vigilant so we didn't hit them, because at least one was crossing our Channel.
At noon, we reduced the engine to 2100 RPMs and we were still going 7.6-7.8 SOG. Throughout the afternoon, we gybed our way down the river, often getting over 8 knots of speed. The wind speed was dropping throughout the afternoon, but we were still making good speed.
South of the Poughkeepsie Bridge, we had to call into the US Customs and Border Patrol again. Apparently, we have to do that all the way down the coast at each new Customs area, even though we called in in Buffalo and won't be leaving the U.S. for many weeks. A little strange when you think we can drive across the Bluewater Bridge and go through Customs, and then never have to call Customs again at all. When I called them, Officer Richardson said to call back when we reached our anchorage. He said someone would be there until 10:00 tonight.
At about 1:50, the US Coast Guard broadcast that assistance was needed on the sailing yacht, Cottonwood. That was one of the boats that was at Hop-O-Nose Marina when we were there. They have a beautiful Gozzard sailboat, but we had heard that they are very new to sailing. They bought their boat a year ago and they learned to sail on YouTube. Oh, boy. I hope he was kidding. I talked to the man yesterday and he said they would be leaving this morning, just like us. We didn't see them this morning, so we don't know if they are ahead of us or behind. Regardless, we are keeping a lookout for them. It gives me a stomachache when I hear about boats in distress. Eventually, we heard that they called SeaTow to help them. We don't know if that means they have engine trouble, or if they went aground. Either way, it's not good news.
We have been sailing with the jib most of the day, but we had to be ever vigilant. There is a lot of traffic on the river, so we had to be careful when we had to gybe. Through the area near West Point the winds got very confused. It's a hilly area, so perhaps the hills were causing the problem.
We arrived at our anchorage at 6:30 in Haverstraw Bay. I hope it won't be too rolly, but we shall see. (We decided not to go to the other anchorage in the protected bay that Dave had suggested, because it was too unknown. We had no charts that said any depths, so we are playing it safe.). Time to make our stir fry supper. It was delicious!
Dave and Nicki decided to join us at this anchorage, too, so we have neighbours.
This is the first anchorage we've had on this trip.
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