Hiding in the Chesapeake

 It has been a busy three weeks since my last post.  We have covered a lot of miles, and seen wonderful places.  Right now, we are happy to be hiding in the Chesapeake, while Hurricane Lee wreaked havoc in the North Atlantic for the past week!

From Portland, ME we stopped in Portsmouth, NH to anchor for one night, from there we traveled the Annisquam River to Gloucester.

People are clamming at low tide.

Interesting floating cottages.

Just WOW!

As we were leaving the Annisquam River we passed our friends Barbara and Ken on Northwind, entering the river heading in the opposite direction.  We couldn’t have planned that crossing if we had tried, which we didn’t.

The moorings in Gloucester Harbor seem kinda close! We are tied to a mooring, and this is the ‘ball’ for the boat that comes in behind us😬 good luck picking that up!

From Gloucester we visited Salem

The channel was marked far behind our stern, but many tour boats cut right across our bow.

From Salem we transited the Cape Cod Canal to anchor in Onset for the night.

Our next stop would be Woods Hole, where we planned to anchor and take the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard for the day.We could have taken our boats to the Vineyard, but strong winds were in the forecast for the near future so we didn’t want to waste the extra day that would require.

Fab Four on an empty ferry😁

Loved the Gingerbread Cottage community!

After a fabulous day exploring, and a good night’s sleep, back on our boats…we were off to…

New Bedford

Did you know that New Bedford Harbor is totally protected by huge breakwater walls and a hurricane/flood gate that closes?  We were there the night of the Super Moon, and they actually closed the gate to protect from ‘unusually high tide’…impressive!!

“The barrier extending across the harbor consists of a 4,500 foot long earthfill dike with stone slope protection.  The barrier has a maximum elevation of 20 feet and a 150 foot wide gated opening to accommodate commercial and recreational navigation.”  (nae.usace.army.mil)

 An off-shore wind turbine project was being staged here in New Bedford…impressive! Check out the local article

https://nantucketcurrent.com/news/first-vineyard-wind-turbine-heads-out-to-sea

The Whaling Museum was incredible!  So much to see…so much to learn…also…very sad! This heart was modeled from a juvenile Humpback…can you imagine the size for an adult?

The fishing fleet here is huge, and many vessels are rigged for scallop fishing.  Of course we had to find the seafood market, and guess who filled the freezer with fresh scallops…yum!

From New Bedford we took a side trip to Montauk to visit/meet Gail and Eddie’s friends, Pam and Steve.  They were wonderful hosts, and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit.

Montauk is a great town to visit…especially if you have a local connection!

After leaving Montauk, we planned to stop in Port Washington, but conditions were so calm, and the timing of the current was perfect so we pushed on to get East River and NY City behind us.  

Eddie and Gail decided to anchor at the base of the Statue Of Liberty, but we (having already experienced that, and deciding once was enough) continued on to Coney Island.

Flashback photo…this was taken on July 18, 2019…three weeks after I retired!

It was a cool experience, but tour boats and ferries made for a very uncomfortable evening.

This year we opted for our quiet hideout behind Coney Island.

Next stop…Barnegat 

There she blows!  Off the coast on New Jersey we spotted our third whale of this trip.

I was at the helm, and Keith ran to grab the camera.  As he waited patiently (with the lens zoomed out) the whale resurfaced right next to our boat…

Surprise…he just pressed the shutter button and luckily we captured this…no more than 10 feet from our port side…wow!

And now we enter Barnegat 

Keith and I needed a few beach days, so we stayed in Barnegat while Eddie and Gail continued on to Baltimore. Temps were in the 80s and the water was glorious.  This felt like our first glimpse of summer, with the warmest water and air temperatures we had seen since the Bahamas. We spent two glorious days recharging🌞

From here we hopped to Cape May, then through Delaware Bay to the C&D Canal. 

It’s wonderful to be back in our home waters of the Chesapeake, and spending time in the Sassafras River!