With our sights set on the Caribbean for winter 23/24, we headed off from Marblehead on Thursday September 21st (our 32nd anniversary ) with good friends (and great crew!) Scott & Kimberley Fillenworth. We left early on a beautiful fall day (little wind but lots of sun) and made it through the Cape Cod Canal by early afternoon, anchored by Bassett’s Island on the west side of Red Brook Harbor on a beautiful calm night and celebrated the beginning of our southern adventure and our wedding anniversary!

The next destination was Newport and while we were excited to stop in for a day or so, we had to extend our time there as the rain and wind from tropical storm Ophelia kept us tied up in port. Not a bad place to be “stuck” as we had a great slip at the Newport Yachting Center. It was quiet in late September (though they still had daily weddings) and lovely to be right down town. We watched the college football games at O’Briens and stopped into the Newport Sailing Museum – which has amazing interactive displays and so much wonderful sailing history. We of course had some great meals in town – our favorite was BarCino (5 stars and 2 $ signs -the perfect combination!) where we had excellent food and an awesome server – a great time and we highly recommend it. While we were anxious to get moving – we really enjoyed our time in Newport.

We then headed to New Haven, CT where we found a lovely spot to anchor and finally saw the sun! More rain was due so we headed on to Stamford, where were able to tie up to the Stamford Yacht Club dock thanks to family friends who called ahead. Stamford saw over 7 inches of rain and we were glad to be safely tied up. We also were able to have a couple of dinners with my big brother Peter, making the “lay days” a lot of fun!

Finally the weather cleared enough to head for New York City. This has been a bucket list of mine for a long time – to sail down the East River and pass Lady Liberty – and it did not disappoint! It was an absolutely amazing day. We passed yachts racing as we passed down through Long Island Sound, we passed Laguardia, Rikers Island and Throgs Neck and eventually through Hells Gate which is known as a a treacherous area due to very heavy currents. We were fortunate to have overcast skies and light winds and we timed it to have the current with us the whole way through.   We chose to slow down and sail slowly through to appreciate the majesty of the Big Apple – so glad we did (we kept one engine on for safety).   Billy played Alicia Keys’ remix of Empire State of Mind as we passed through the East River. We were all a little speechless! It was exciting to see all the NY Ferries darting back and forth shuttling people from Manhattan to the boroughs. Passing Wall Street and finalizing arriving at the Statue of Liberty was simply amazing!

We took a slip at ONE-15 Brooklyn Marina and loved it! It was not inexpensive (nothing in NYC is!) but It was easy to get into – the breakwater protected us (mostly) from all the East River traffic and provided an amazing view of NYC – especially at night!

We enjoyed a wonderful visit with Olivia Fillenworth and her roommate Mia and then had dinner Brooklyn at Sociale (thanks for the recommendation Sammy T!). The next day was Sunday and Kimba and Scott had to fly back home – they were troopers for spending 11 days with us most of which was rain and pretty cold – but think the final arrival into NYC mad hit all worthwhile. Billy and I took advantage of being right downtown and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge on foot to have lunch with our Maid of Honor (the OG Kate Jones!), visit the 9/11 Memorial Park (also on my bucket list) and have dinner with Kyle, Reese and Nick. The Patriots stunk but that gave us more time to talk and enjoy a family dinner. Amazingly as we ubered back to the marina there was a huge fireworks display which went on for 30 minutes right over the river and in our view – what a treat and perfect finish to the NYC trip.

The next phase of our southern track was to get from NYC to Baltimore by Thursday Oct 5th so we could fly home for a wedding Saturday (Yahoo!). We were blessed with calm and clear days – we put in two 65 nm days first to Barnegat – which while beautiful is known to be treacherous – we had a great recommendation for an entry track from Clare Hollywood (SV In Balance) – but neglected to follow it on the exit and ran into a crazy ocean surge – but Billy handled it beautifully (no pictures of that as I was holding on so tight!). Day two was to Cape May where we anchored off the Coast Guard Training facility and loved hearing the chanting and cheering of the trainees.

On Wednesday Oct 3rd we rounded Cape May and headed up into the Delaware where we hit a heavy bank of fog in a very busy shipping channel! The fog cleared and we made it into the C&D (Chesapeake and Delaware) Canal which was long but beautiful. Quite different than Cape Cod canal as much of it is natural with a few small communities and ports along the way. Once in the Chesapeake, we headed south into Sassafras River and anchored for the night – it was beautiful and calm and just 35 nm northwest of Baltimore.

Several people asked “why are you going to Baltimore”? And the answer was that we needed to get close to an airport and find a spot to leave the boat for a few days while we headed home. And honestly we loved it! The trip into the city inner harborwas so cool – lots of shipping traffic but a wide easy channel. We stayed at the Anchorage Marina lwhich we loved – great staff, laundry, walking access to everything (Grocery Store, West Marine and Ace Hardware) and only 25 minutes from the airport – everything we needed. We had a blast at the wedding (congratulations Cristin and Nate Gaull!) and returned on Sunday October 10th and spent a couple of days working on (seemingly never-ending boat) projects and provisioning. Next we’re off to Annapolis Boat Show and getting ready for the transit to Antiqua with the Salty Dawg Rally – more on that in the next blog.