Kentucky

We stopped for the night at Anna’s cousin’s house in the mountains of Kentucky. In the morning I went for a walk as the valley fog was slowly lifting. Here are some views of life in rural Ky.
The "holler" was filled with mountain fog as I walked down the road.
This old car sat in a front yard.
Up on a hillside were these llamas!
An old shed slowly falling down.

Hurricane

Well, for once I’m a bit worried about the Goose. Irene is headed right for the marina that the Snow Goose is in. The last time that they had a hurricane come on this track the marina was under 3 feet of water! We picked Deaton Yacht Service (run by John and Karen) to store the Goose at because they don’t just leave the boats in their slips, if a hurricane is going to hit they pull every boat and block them on shore. By now the Goose is out of the water and solidly blocked for the duration of the storm. It gives a real peace of mind to trust the place that you leave your boat. Thanks John, Karren and everyone at Deaton's!

Back in Oriental NC

This isn’t exactly what we had planned for the end of our summer but it's what it turned out to be. Instead of heading further north after NY City, we took the Goose “back to the barn” and will leave her at Deaton’s Yacht Basin for the month while we are back in Michigan. This decision saved us from having to find a secure place to store her up on the east coast and the cost of a rental car both ways. It also puts the Kentucky part of the family on the drive home so that Anna can get a little “grandchild and great grandchild time” in. When we return in September, the Goose gets hauled for a round of major work... Oh joy.

More maintenance

I’ve been including different maintenance items that that have to be done around the boat on the blog. I hope that it gives you a feel for what life is really like on board a boat. Some things are routine and some are a bit unusual. Today, I had to repair the outboard engine, twice, before I got it to run properly. We picked up some bad gas, or maybe I got some rain water into the tank. Either way, the engine wouldn’t idle properly. I ended up having to remove the carburetor and cleaning out the tiny idle circuit jets. It’s times like this that I’m glad I bought a 2.5 HP motor that weights only 30 lbs and not a 10 HP that would take two guys to haul on board.

Flies

We pulled up really close to shore on the west side of the Pamlico to escape the winds and spend the night. During the night the wind went almost calm and the bugs from shore invaded the boat. In the morning when I went up to haul anchor and start south, there were hundreds of flies, mosquitoes, and any other type of biting winged thing that you could think of. Anna wouldn’t even come out of the boat! I defended myself and steered the boat but in the course of the battle, two of our loyal companions died, ‘Destruction’ & ‘Missed Again’. (We name our fly swatters). Today, the bugs won.

Norfolk

Norfolk is one of the Navy’s main bases on the east coast. When we went by this year, there were two aircraft carriers in port along with a large number of other warships either sitting at the docks or undergoing re-fits of some kind. It’s really impressive to slowly motor by these very real symbols of America’s power.
The nuclear carrier Ronald Reagan.
The nuclear carrier Enterprise.
Lots of ships lined up.
I don't know it's name but it sure is ugly!

Pamlico

I dislike the Pamlico Sound! When we sailed into the Ablemarle Sound this morning the wind was 10 to 12 kts on the beam… Just about perfect. When we got to the Pamlico it went up to 20 kts right on the nose. It made for a wet 15 mile ride across the Sound.

Sights of New York

Here’s just a splattering of the sights that we saw around New York.

Riding the subway was an adventure in it's self, Which line, where to transfer, the crowds and of course the artwork on the walls added up to a unique experience all of it's own.





After the train ride, we headed for our destination and were greeted by the famous stone lions of the main library, and the magnificence of Grand Central Terminal, WOW!



Everything wasn't grandeur though, a lot was strange and mundane.


At a stop in a China Town grocery store there were so many vegetables that I'd never seen before, such as this?

Oh, and I found my next gift project, an unusual yet to me beautiful basket.

Trail hiker

Sometimes you say to yourself “What are the odds?” Well, that was my feelings when I was in the transportation museum in Grand central station and I ran into Timber. Timber is the trail name of the Appalachian thru hiker. He has already completed 1500 miles of the trail and was on his way home to Alabama. This is what I might look like about this same time next year!

New hat

Not all maintenance is on the boat sometimes other things need a stitch or two too. My hat was getting frayed so I sewed on a new edge to the hat.
It’s not white like the old one but I think that the green goes good with the white. It’s nice to have a sailrite industrial grade sewing machine on board just for these emergencies.

More Maintenance

Even in the big apple the need for maintenance never lets up. This has been a triple whammy though. Along with the regular monthly maintenance that needs to be done, the engine and transmission came up for their scheduled oil change and the semi-annual maintenance list needs to be done. A few days ago I was in the engine compartment most of the day. Today, it’s the sails that need work.

I had to sew on new sail slides and replace many of the nylon webbing that hold the other 40 slides in place.

Down below, Anna helped me repair the Genoa sail, it had several small tears that needed to be re-stitched. Now, I only have a couple more days of “scheduled” maintenance a then, I can start in on the un-scheduled maintenance jobs. Oh Boy!

The Big Apple

It’s been a long week of travel. We’ve moved from Washington down the Potomac, up the Chesapeake Bay, through the canal to the Delaware Bay and down it to the Ocean. We sailed up the New Jersey coast and last night arrived in NY City. It was a long trip made even longer by the notable absence of wind or when we had wind it was straight on the nose. The area is filled with shipping and recreational boaters and tides are in the 5 foot range, the inlets are partly shoaled with wicked currents so channels and inlets are a real challenge. Still, we saw our first whale so; it was well worth the effort involved to get here.
We ran right through a sailboat race off the New Jersy coast.(Because of our more norther latitude the sailing is "up hill" as you can see.)
This was our view to starboard while crossing the main harbor channel in New York City.
You can't see it very well but on the left hand side is the empire state building. We're here!

Shipping!

Lots of shipping occurs on the Chesapeake and the Delaware Bays. We were passed by many of them some throwing huge bow waves. You always had to keep a good lookout for these guys Even though you are only moving at 6 MPH they might be going 14 MPH towards you making a 20MPH closing speed! Oh, and they don’t always stay in the channel so running outside of the channel might not keep you safe. At one point we saw 8 ships ready to head up the Delaware Bay. A very busy place. Here's just a few of them.






About a 3 foot bow wave! It tossed the 16 ton Snow Goose all about.