Cruising along the East Coast and Bahamas

Approaching Havre de Grace

We’d always zoomed through the upper Chesapeake and now it was time to explore a new place, Havre de Grace at the mouth of the Susquehanna River. The Susquehanna is what makes the Bay the Bay, providing over half of its fresh water. One of the oldest rivers in the WORLD, it flows for 464 miles from New York, to PA then into MD. The mouth is small near Havre de Grace and dams are used to control the water flow during rainy times and spring flooding.

But the question is- how do you pronounce Havre de Grace?? If you say Haevre de Grace (long A sound), with a French pronunciation of Havre, then you are technically accurate but you will not be mistaken for a local. According to Southern Living’s extensive research into the correct pronunciation of “southern” city names, the city’s name gets all run together with the “de” sounding like “t”. So you say it, “Haverty Grace”. Bet you feel better knowing this.

The town-sized city of less than 14,000 offers a walkable downtown area, a small maritime museum, a duck decoy museum, a boardwalk and the very popular Bomboys Ice Cream mega-parlor with their large fudge and candy shop right across the street. Yes to ice-cream, no to candy shop.

We choose Tidewater Marina because not only did they have fuel, they had room for us. Billy was fun at the gas dock and he found us an easy side tie dock in their basin furthest away from the “more active” rack storage small boat basin.

We exited (on foot) the marina (a gated secure fenced in place) and turned left to head toward the point where we’d spotted the little lighthouse. The Maritime museum was just my size and priced to entice, so in we went.

Havre de Grace’s First Family -John & Elizabeth Rodgers. Looks like the house still stands.

We always wonder about the process of crabbing, fish-trapping, oystering and lobstering and how the various nets, traps, etc look below the surface. The below was informative and we learned something new. Retention is another thing. 🙂

A peek at “below the floats” of gillnetting.

Benj- this one’s for you. Some may recall the 3 sheep Benj raised a few summers ago.

North Washington St is where the action is, if you can call it that. The Vineyard Wine Bar left no doubt that they were highly rated and it looked enticing, if not a skosh out of place in this town, er city. But well, you know us and if there’s donuts around we point in that direction. Golls Bakery; talk about old fashioned. More like out of the Twilight Zone of the 60s/70s era. Family owned and operated since 1930, the place looked like not much had changed in many years, including the prices.

Excellent tradional bakery in Havre de Grace

Excellent traditional bakery in Havre de Grace

We didn’t think much would be available at 4pm and the current owner’s nephew assured us Saturday morning would bring a huge assortment of temptations. With a nod to Terminator our “we’ll be back” must have been believable.

Clever name for a very interesting store

The Rodgers home survived the 1813 burning of Havre de Grace. Dating from 1787, this is the town’s oldest documented structure.

We found the Rodgers home across from Laurrapin, our selected dinner spot on N.Washington. They wisely/kindly defined the word, and we both agreed while memorable, it didn’t quite reach the laurrapin-ness of Spoon River in Belhaven, NC.

Dinner- Farm to Fork on N. Washington St

Appetizers and entrees were mostly reasonably priced as were the creative cocktails. As you can see we couldn’t resist a delectable dessert, or two. The cheesecake was not your run-of-the-mill kind, but a goat cheese cake. A bit of tang as expected and very tasty. I still remain a fan of the artery clogging heavy New York cheesecake. 🙂 Some day I will be able to make one again.

The flourless choc cake was akin to solidified hot fudge sauce- yummy

We spotted a sign at the small park next to Tidewater: Farmers Market Sat 9-12. Lucky us, we seldom run across a market and this one was so convenient. Our morning just got better-the plan to raid the bakery was enhanced by a market opportunity.

And there we are, essentially next door.

How close can you get?

The Vienna bread at $1.95 from Golls was a steal. Hearty and flavorful, with a soft crust, it made excellent french toast. The bacon/cheddar/chive scones and pasture eggs purchased at the market.

More doughnuts and raisin sweet rolls are missing from the photo

Stomachs full and the bread basket stocked, we headed out back into the Bay our bows pointing toward the South River, which can you believe is the next river south of Annapolis?

Russ worked long and hard for this shine. Pretty good teamwork getting those boot stripes on straight.

After four weeks hauled out Twins and crew were ready to find a happy place on the water. NOAA and other weather sources indicated several days of benign traveling conditions. That clever Captain devised an aggressive schedule that would land us near the C&D Canal at the end of the third day. I mean is he crazy? Getting up at o’dark thirty?? This guy hates getting up before 7:30!! You’d think we were going to be flying out on a tropical vacation. But in all fairness, I am ALL for calm traveling conditions and since we were ready to go; let’s do it.

Each day brought rougher conditions than the previous, but with luck, skill and damn long days we covered 317nm (that’s 365 landlubber miles) in three days, anchoring in the upper Chesapeake’s Bohemia River Thursday, September 22 at 5:15. Whew.

Wow, what a way to start what I call PDQ Yr 2, but you can also call it Nomad Yr 7 (4 yrs s/v Ortolan, 1 yr m/h Anne Bonny and this will be Yr 2 with m/v Twin Sisters). Getting to be so many years I am losing track.

Kitchen Little- place of birthday breakfast dining- as we pass by on Sept 20

Kitchen Little (with blue awning)- place of birthday breakfast dining- as we pass by on Sept 20

We left Mystic very early so that we’d have time to pop up the CT River a few miles and fuel up at Old Lyme Fuel Dock, which saved 20cents/gal. Long Island Sound gave us no trouble plus a bonus of favorable current most of the way to our anchorage immediately before the Throgs Neck Bridge.

M/V The General- the first of what will be many interesting vessels we see along the way. Yes a tree

M/V The General– the first of what will be many interesting vessels we see along the way. Tree at stern?

Fish going crazy!

When Russ started looking at the things we always do, like; current, especially in New York’s East River (which isn’t technically a river) and Hell Gate; weather (wind, waves, rain) and offshore conditions, we got a surprise. The United Nations would be in session that week and on various days much of the East River by Roosevelt Island would be closed to pleasure craft. Between the short good weather window and the need to get past the UN before 9am, we needed to end Day 1 as close as possible and the moderate-sized anchorage next to the Throgs Neck Bridge was as close as you could get.

The night was very calm but boy the highway noise never let up.

Sunset as seen from Little Bay anchorage next to bridge

Just before 7am. Looking back at Throgs Neck Bridge. Three photos with our devices; Russ had the winner

Our Coast Guard small boat escort past the UN building. Keeps them from getting bored.

On the Roosevelt Island side, more enforcement vessels wait to enforce the 9am west channel closure

Our goal Day 2 was Atlantic City. The inlet is decent, not great, but boats have two places to anchor. One is subject to current so you will swing when it changes, and the other is tricky but you are more protected. We chose tricky and protected.

Waves and outgoing tide made for a slow soppy ride- but we sped up

Waves and outgoing tide made for a slow, sloppy ride- but we sped up

We are heading for the narrow cut between the grass and the beach

As often happens, we are entering a very narrow entrance, trying to follow stakes that mark the way in and a tour boat is coming out on our left side. We move right, too much and almost run aground in mud. Russ quickly reverses and I firmly indicate we NEED to go toward where that boat had been. Leaving the next morning at low tide- oh I didn’t say that we’d come in one hour before low today- was really going to be “fun”.

A red-sky-sailors-delight sunset behind Harrahs

Departing the Atlantic City anchorage at 7am. Followed the stakes and the path out was obvious.

We moved along at 3000 rpm which means roughly 13kts, headed for the tip of Cape May, then rounding up into the Delaware River. With wind and waves behind us the ride was OK but rougher than yesterday. Rounding Cape May was quite unpleasant as the wind and waves were more broadside, and larger. Russ mentioned later that we often hit 19kts down a wave. Once further into the River we slowed down and by golly the forecast was accurate and by noon we’d reached very mild conditions. Ahhhh.

A bit of sun and all was pleasant on the often yucky Delaware. Sorry George. An incoming tide moved us along with an extra 2kt boost and we realized we could also have a favorable boost through the C&D Canal if we continued on, so we did.

Wowza! What a start. Three days from Mystic, CT to the Bohemia River on the upper Chesapeake Bay. We did it! The re-balanced props boosted our speed and we are finally in line with other PDQ 34s. Burned a bit of fuel as expected; price one pays for smokin’ at warp speed!

Cruising along the East Coast and Bahamas

Living the nomad dream in our Manta powercat Twin Sisters

Havre de Grace

“Smokin'” or “Warp Speed”: same result!

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