October 2nd – October 20th

Continuing on our journey south with Beth & Steve, we stopped in Stamford CT where courtesy of my brother Peter’s good friend, we were once again able to tie up to the Stamford Yacht Club dock. We had a wonderful dinner in downtown Stamford, where Peter was greeted by the bartenders with huge hugs and warm greetings (of course!). Stamford provides a great jumping off point to get down to the East River and through Hell’s Gate which you have to time carefully as the current can reach 4 knots. We entered just after slack tide and had a lovely cruise down the river, around the Statue of Liberty and back to the marina where we tied up among the Brooklyn piers with a cool view of Manhattan.

We spent two great days in New York City: we had wonderful dinners at local restaurants in Brooklyn, walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, ubered up to Central Park on a beautiful sunny day to meet my brother Mark for lunch – and made a quick stop into St. Patrick’s. Having spent the week with us, Beth & Steve had to head back home. They helped us off the dock at first light and caught the train back to Boston.

As we were leaving New York Harbor we passed under the Verrazano Bridge, looking up there was a guy working on a trolly under the bridge and he gave us a big wave and a peace sign!

We had an easy trip (mostly motoring as the wind was light) down the coast of NJ with a quick stop in Barnegat Bay and then on to Cape May where we decided to sit out a passing weather front. That gave us the chance to explore the downtown Washington Square area and the beach front which was absolutely beautiful.

Another early start to round Cape May Light and head up the Delaware River. It was quite brisk at first with the wind “on our nose” and choppy seas, but we were able to reach the C&D (Chesapeake & Delaware) Canal as the tide turned mid afternoon and make the 20 mile trip through to reach the Sassafras River and set the anchor before the sun set. As we headed down the Chesapeake on our way to Annapolis we passed the channel entrance to Baltimore Harbor where we could see the damaged Francis Scott Key Bridge. Hard to believe we had traveled under it just a year ago. We arrived to Annapolis and a very crowded anchorage ahead of the annual Boat Show – but got a great anchor spot right off the US Naval Academy where we heard reveille every morning.

We spent 2 days at the Annapolis Boat Show and got a lot done – we were able to visit with several vendors as we continue to update and upgrade Carried Away. We bought a spinnaker from a local marine shop that sells “lightly” used sailing equipment – it was a quite a chore to look over such a huge sail (1800 sq ft!) but we are glad to now have a down wind sail.

We connected with our Salty Dawg friends at the annual dinner where Paul and Sheryl from Distant Shores fame were the guest speakers. Julie and Jeff McPeek came down from Alexandria for a visit – we could not believe after 22 years of working together and talking almost every day, that we had not actually seen each other in over 2 years!! It was great to catch up. We saw our Marblehead friends the Halsteds and the Bloxhams and caught up with the Van Alstines who are just a few years behind us in their plan to buy a catamaran for retirement – so fun!

We made several stops heading down the Chesapeake including a couple of days at Solomons Island MD. We anchored in Back Creek close to the Calvert Marine Museum so we could take our dingy in for a visit. We loved this museum – we were especially fascinated by the Paleontology exhibit. The Calvert Cliffs on the Chesapeake hold amazing fossils from the Miocene period (which was 25 Million years ago!). You can see and touch so many fossils and they do a great job of showing the time line of evolution over the past 4.5 BILLION years in the Time Spiral – so cool – we’ll definitely go back again.

We made a couple of more stops working our way south to Norfolk VA where we had planned to leave the boat while we flew off to Lake Oconee, Georgia for a weekend visit with Trevor and Sarah at Kathy and Matt Mannelly’s beautiful lakeside home. We had an amazing weekend – their home is gorgeous and has every toy/game imaginable – fitting for their very active and sporty family! We got to play pickle ball and a round of golf as well as see where Trevor and Sarah will be married next year – we had an amazing time!

Once back to Norfolk we decided to stay an extra day so we could go see the USS Wisconsin at the Nauticus museum. We only had a couple of hours but were amazed by the massive naval warship – its size and history (active in WWII through Desert Storm) was just incredible. Another museum we wish we had more time for.

Yesterday we moved the 10 miles up to Hampton, VA where we will ready ourselves for our offshore passage to Antigua. Our intended departure date is 11/1 – which we need to make in order to get back in time for our niece Casey’s wedding, so fingers-crossed weather will be in our favor.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned …… we will try to update before we venture off shore.