We Are On the Move

Written May 25 – 26, 2026. Lived May 12 – 24, 2026

We are making tracks now. Since our first night at anchor in Jutland Creek, we have:

spent a night on a dock in Cambridge, MD; we wanted to see the town,
stayed at a marina dock in Worton Creek, MD; hiding from wind and waves,
spent a night at anchor in Cape May, NJ; preparing for the Jersey coast with a small weather window after a long day through the C&D and down Delaware Bay,
stayed two nights at anchor in Atlantic City; waiting out more wind and waves,
enjoyed a night on a mooring ball in Great Kills, NJ; after a long day before heading into NYC territory,
rocked through 6 nights at a marina in Newport (Jersey City), NJ across from Manhattan; great access to Manhattan, doing genealogy, visiting friends and sightseeing. Whew! Perhaps we are getting the hang of boating again, but it has been a process.

Getting a Pump Out of the Poop Tank

When we left Deltaville we were going to get a pumpout in the morning before we left. We prepaid at the marina next door the night before and were assured it would be up and running for our early departure. Nope, it turns out it was not and would not be staffed until 9 am. We were trying to leave at 7 to beat…. the weather on our first day out after so long. So we skipped the pump as we could get a pump at the marina in Jutland Creek before we anchored. Nope, the marina took the day off as it was Mothers Day. Just not there for fuel (which we did not need) or pumps. Two down with no luck. The nest day is Cambridge marina. We called ahead and they assured us they had a pump out. We are starting to worry a bit about getting a pump out. It works! We were so used to the Caribbean where everywhere is pretty much good to pump as it is mostly open water every day you move. Today, we are on the move and our first activity after 10 days since a pump out is to get a pump out before we dock for the night. We have been assured they have a pump out station open 24 hours a day. Fingers crossed.

Sorry, or perhaps happily, I have no pics of the pump out, but here we are docked at Cambridge.

Adjusting to Boating

Weather, wind, waves, rocking, stress, charting, repairs, …

It takes awhile to get back into it. The weather has not been kind, quite windy and recently VERY rainy in NYC, but I seem to have figured the weather pretty well. Except for one morning. Heading from Worton Creek to the C&D canal (that takes us from the upper Chesapeake to Delaware Bay), we had sustained 25 – 30 kt winds from the west. A fair amount of fetch across the Chesapeake on our beam giving us more rocking than we liked with 2 – 3 foot waves on our beam and gusts to 50 kts. Not pleasant, but it only lasted for about an hour. The kittens were not happy.

The marina was very protected from the wind and thus waves, but the water at this particular slip was 5 feet deep at low tide. We draw 5 feet. A very muddy landing. The power did not work, so we lived off batteries. Not the best spot, but it was calm. Jim particulary liked our dock mate, Redneck Girl.

With that we have tow of the fasteners that hold our solar panels on fail. They were likely already not healthy and this tipped them over the edge. All was fine, there are 6 fasteners on each panel and only 1 failed on two different panels. All was fine except when the gusts made a big slap on the pilot house roof. Very disconcerting. We did not have any for replacements but it turns out the US importer for this German product is in New Jersey, 10 miles inland from where we docked in Jersey City. Take the light rail, walk a half mile and get the replacements we needed. Perfect, and a trivial fix once we had the parts.

Our cove near Atlantic City. The tides herre are 4 – 4.5 ft, so they come roaring in a bit. That combined with the constant 20 kt winds made for some choppy waves. It was pretty calm on the boat but looking our the window was a bit incomfortable.

While waiting out a cruddy day of weather off shore, we tucked into a protected cove in Atlantic City. It is a crazy, narrow entry into a rather large cove. We had not attempted it before but multiple folks told us it was good and we did not like the river anchorage in at Atlantic story. We’d only stayed there once before and it was so full of drama. See The Ghost Boats in this post for more on our previous visit to Atlantic City. Although it was rather wavy as the tide came in, the waves in the river would have been much more and in the ocean, not at all to our liking. We managed a trip to the grocery store one morning and worked on boat projects.

There was not any place to officially tie up our dinghy to do a shopping trip. So, we beached it with our anchor buddy out the back (see the little white spot behind the dinghy? Off we walked to the grocery store, a half mile away. Picked up a few groceries and came back to our 700 pound dinghy sitting in the mud. The tide was out where the white spot is. Yikes! We huffed and puffed and managed to wrangle our dinghy back to the water on a falling tide. Remember the 4 foot tide? If we did not get it back to water quickly, it would have been stranded for probably 6 – 8 hours by which time it would be dark. Another stupid mistake by the novices.

And to add insuylt to injury, we managed to get our prop tangled in the fishing like of the guy trying to catch dinner. he’d had not luck and then we stole his line. Here is the mess I got out of the prop once we were back at the boat. Lure and worm included. Atlantic City just is not our spot.

While we waited out the weather in Atlantic City, Jim and Tori installed a louvered vent into our salon settee to provide more intake air for our diesel heat. Tori is such a good helper!

There are so many things to re-learn. We are no longer in open ocean and thus we have to pay more attention to the water. Yes, there could be a cargo container in the ocean we are going to hit, but very unlikely. More likely to hit a big floating log, buoy or small fishing boat in rivers and canals.

Docking is always a new experience in that every day is a marina we’ve probably never been to. Thus, maneuvering in the marina around other boats, wind, current waves, docks, slip size, …. and on and on. I have to admit, we are both a bit rusty but are getting it figured out. No harm done but the last two dockings I aborted the first attempt and took a new approach. It reminds us that each day after boating we should be doing a debriefing. Our learning Captain drilled that into us but the drills have faded.

But We Have Had Fun Too!

I’ll focus on two stops, Cambridge, MD and New York City. Probably the highlights of our atops so far

Cambridge Maryland

We’ve visited many of the cute towns on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, but had not been to Cambridge. It fit the bill for moving us north, not too far off the Bay, providing protection from the wind, a pump out! And being a cute town.

Cambridge was founded in 1684, being one of the oldest colonial cities. Harriet Tubman lived here and it still has many old homes. Sadly, the Harriet Tubman museum in town was closed (there is a broader underground railroad trail but one needs a car for that), but there were several informative plaques around town and a very moving statue of her.

A very loving, larger than life statue. At the base are all the shackles of those who have been rescued from bondage.

There were several good resturants in town, one where we had dinner and another that was a surprisingly good wine bar which had a tasting while we were there. We’d stopped in for a glass of wine being tired of boxed wine and wanting a good glass but ended up doing their tasting. Lots of fun, good wine and we ended up buying several boxes of wine that were much better than what we’d been seeing in the groceries.

Our little French tasting, including a reasonably priced Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

And Then There is New York

I’d mentioned earlier, our first stop after docking was to a manufacturing company 10 miles west in new Jersey to pick up the fasteners to re-secure the solar panels. There are so many different transit systems, trains, Path, Port Authority, … Sometimes they share terminals, other times not, but in any case, each has their own ticketing. Luckily, one can now just use Google Wallet to pay (or Apple Pay for that crowd). Not the cheapest, but the easiest. Our dockage was in an ultra-new redeveloped area of old derelict freight docks in Jersey City that was known for rats, crime and general nastiness. It is now million dollar condos, restaurants, malls and easy access to Manhattan.

The view of Manhattan was…. nice.It could get a bit rolly in here from all the ferry traffic, but in general, it is one of the calmest marina’s around NYC. And proximity is everything.

We literally walked around a building and could get on a train, transit to anywhere. 20 minutes to Manhattan for $3.50 or to Brooklyn, same price but 40 minutes.

We must have ridden 20 or 30 subway and Path trains and boy did we get to see humanity. The whole concept of people tied to their phones and being alone in the world collide on the subway and streets of New York.

It seems somewhat verbotten to take pics of people on subway cars, so this will hve to do. Think of a car packed to the gills with people sitting and standing, or a much less crowded car as well. Just replicate this person, over and over in the car, or walking down the street, ear buds or muffs in place. You NEVER look at anyone and definitely don’t talk to anyone.

The Family Search

We made visits to two library archives, one at City College in Harlem and the other to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. My Grandfather (my Mothers Dad) graduated from City College in 1923, but I knew little of his degree except it being engineering. We were able to track each year of his 4 years there and discovered that he also received a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering. This was so exciting to me.

The next day, we visited Pratt. I knew my Grandmother (my Mothers Mom) had graduated with a degree in Costume Design (how a woman can dress fashionably and accentuate her natural beauty) in 1924. I’d suspected that somehow my Grandparents met through Pratt, but I did not know how. I learned that my Grandfather taught Engine Basics in the Science and Technology College from 1925 – 1926. I also learned that my Grandmother taught Dressmaking and substituted in Costume Design in 1925. My Grandparents met teaching at Pratt Institute! This was such exciting information for me as I try to piece together lives I knew very little of.

This is a picture from the Pratt archives. My Grandmother is not in it, but is is roughly of the era whe was there. It gives a sense of one of the required classes. Students had to be able to draw and represent people and design accurately. An interesting thing about Pratt is that it was multiracial from it’s beginning in the late 1800’s and strived to support students of all socioeconomic means.

Visiting these two archives and learning more of my Grandparents was a primary reason for stopping in “The City”.

Building Connections

You may remember a post from last October of the passing of Jim and my friend Mark Obenzinger shortly after our joint trip to Europe His son Eric lives in Manhattan and his daughter Rachael lives in Connecticut. We met them both when they came to Santa Fe to handle their fathers estate. We were not able to sync with Rachael while in Manhattan, but did see Mark twice along with meeting his wife Erica and daughters Abby and Sophe, and even briefly met his mother Stephanie, Marks ex-wife. The old adage is that there is nothing west of the Hudson and that those from Manhattan do not venture to New Jersey. It seems to be true, but Eric and Abby did make the trek to see the boat.

Eric and Abby enjoying dogs during our mini memorial Day boat cookout; just the four of us. I think Abby decided she liked the boat and kittens. Eric tells me she has been non-stop talking about boats and cats. As we headed north on the Hudson, we let Eric know we were near their home. They have a view of the Hudson from their condo. The sent us a distanct snap of Rincon and Eric said Abby waved goodbye to us. How very sweet.

We also made the treck north in the rain to Weehawken to visit Karen, a friend of Jim’s family. Karin has lived in New Jersey for many years now. Between her home and Eric’s in Manhattan, it was our first exposure to living in “The City.” Such a strange living experience for us. Too much humanity too close together for our taste. We did meet several people working in restaurants, one a First Nation guy from Oklahoma. We heard him talking about Oklahoma and then I just knew he was First Nation. Yup. He loves the bustle of New York. He tried moving back to Oklahoma but could not take it. After visiting Pratt we stopped into a place for Brooklyn pizza. Here the hostess guessed we were not locals. Hum…. Turns out she was born and raised in Las Vegas, NV but has been in Brooklyn for 30 years or so. Married to a local. She as adapted and loves it (Brooklyn is calmer and friendlier), but she clearly understood the differences between west and east.

The hostess at our Brooklyn pizza stop. We quite enjoyed chatting all things west with her. Much of the staff was from Guatemala and we had a nice chat in Spanish with the baker/gelato maker (odd as sweets and baking are not typically Guatemalan) who was from a town in Guatemala very near that of our friends Pablo and Lisette. We found so many small, momentary connections in New York. Rather nice!

Time to Move On

We did a bit of electronics and optical shopping (and spent a lot!), visited with a friend of Jim’s family from New Mexico and also went to see the Frick Collection. I was especially enamored with the 3 Vermeer’s and the many Corot’s in the collection. I was not very familiar with Corot’s work and found I was quite drawn to the peacefulness of it.

But, it is time to move north. The rain has stopped, the skys were clearing and we are now working our way up the Hudson to the Erie. But I’ll leave that for another post. Some closing pics.

Sylvia Crain – Hoy!

Life is about choice