We did our first overnight passage from Great Kills Harbour, Staten Island to Cape May New Jersey. We started out the afternoon of September 16th and arrived shortly after 1 pm the 17th. We were a little less than an hour away from Cape May, and Phill flicks on a local radio station – “Crystal Blue Persuasion” was playing.

Not sure if it was the song, or the fact that we’d just accomplished our first big passage, but being munched by biting flies in Lake Ontario, filthy and wet in Little Falls, notched (and disappointed by the dodgy dinghy guy) in Newburgh, bucked in Manhattan, and the reminders that ease is hard to find on the boat, all came into a certain warm, sunrise-coloured perspective. I was once again persuaded (not that I ever really doubted, mind you) that this really is a great way to spend a year of one’s life.

A little more on what we’ve been up to, if you’re interested.

79th Street Boat Basin (12th – 15th of September, 2012)

I already told you about our arrival to and departure from the 79th Street Boat Basin, but I don’t think I described too much yet about our stay in Manhattan.

The night we arrived, I had a little stand-off with two very large New York City racoons as I was trying to dispose of a bad of garbage. They hissed, I stood my ground, garbage was deposited.

The next day, we did some laundry, boat chores and updated the blog. We had a picnic in Central Park.

This is a part of having a limited budget I actually really like – being inspired to pack breakfasts/lunches, etc. to take along rather than just doing the easy thing and eating out (hopefully this inspiration will survive going back to work in less than a year, but we’re not talking about that right now). We toured the city a little as we made our way down to the West Marine on 37th street, where we bought some charts we were missing, diesel engine oil and I forget what all else (the total was $255.98).

Then we met our friend Wade and got caught up a little. He took us to Caracas Arepa Bar for dinner – it was very delicious. We hope we can meet again in a few months when he & Kim are ready for a break from the New York winter.

The next day (Sept. 14th), Phill met Artie from Long Island about a dinghy. It went well – Phill didn’t get that dodgy vibe he got from the guy in Newburgh, and the dinghy and motor were as advertised. After taking it for a test drive, ownership was transferred, Phill said thanks to Artie, and we were now with dinghy. Great feeling to be able to anchor out or pick up a mooring ball and not be marooned on the boat.

Tired of scrounging for free WiFi at coffee shops and dingy pubs, we took Wade’s suggestion and set out to get ourselves an internet connection from the boat.

We ended up getting a AT&T USBConnect Force 4G stick for which we can buy pre-paid data plans (no contract required). So far so good, but it was a bit of an ordeal to get it set-up. It’s not easy for a Canadian (or any non-resident, I imagine) to get a US data plan – prepaid, contract or otherwise. Basically, you need to have US address and the credit or debit card you use to pay for your data plan needs to match said address. We had to buy one of those pre-paid credit cards at a drug store and use the US address of that drug store to get it set up. If there is an easier way than this, please let us know.

Then we went to the Trader Joe’s on 14th street to stock up on some Three Buck Chuck (not for the connoisseur, perhaps, but If we’re going to be unemployed and drink wine, we’re drinking 3 Buck Chuck).

It was dark by the time we got back to the boat after all this. We stowed our purchases, tested the new internet do-dad, and went to bed.

79th Street Boat Basin – Great Kills Harbour, Staten Island (15-Sep-2012)

After The Great Escape from the boat basin, we went over to Jersey to refuel.

It was a swift trip south on the Hudson River, as we managed to time our departure to ride the outgoing tide.

We passed a huge cargo ship as we approached the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which separates Upper New York Harbour from Lower New York Harbour. Phill took a video, which we’ll upload to our new youtube channel, when we get around to creating it.

We arrived in Great Kills Harbour, Staten Island around 4 pm. We anchored along the northern edge of the harbour (which is the only place left to anchor in the sea of mooring balls). The anchor set on the first try (another nice boost to the confidence), we had a quiet, pleasant dinner (the boat was not buckin’!), did the Escape from New York post and went to bed.

Great Kills Harbour to Cape May, NJ (16th & 17th-Sep-2012)

We spent all morning getting the boat ready for our first overnight passage. There was more work than we anticipated – lots of friggin’ with the riggin’ as it turned out, because we made a few minor boo-boos when we stepped the mast in Castleton (Phill had to go up the mast to fix one of them…).

Everything was ready around 2:30pm, so we weighed anchor and motored over to the Great Kills Yacht Club where we met Peter.

We were on our way by about 3:30 pm. We hadn’t hooked up the new chart plotter yet (like a TomTom/gps navigator for your car), and we figured that we could probably use it on our first big over-nighter, so Phill got busy building a place to mount it, and doing the electrical magic required to get it working. It was up and running just as the sun was setting after we rounded Sandy Hook, NJ.

Not much else to tell you about our over-nighter. We did what turned out to be three-hour watches (Phill had a tendency to let me sleep longer that my allotted time). It was dark, time dragged a bit, but it was exciting enough that neither of us got anywhere close to falling asleep on our shifts.

We could see the lights of Atlantic City for hours in the distance, and the sun rose right about the time we reached it.

So “Crystal Blue Persuasion” was playing as we set our course for the inlet into Cape May. It was nice to get settled in the anchorage, despite the fact that we had a heck of a mess to clean up.

I was a little ashamed to post this picture because it reveals that we’re not running the tightest of ships, but oh well. It’s better to tell it like it is, I guess.

Chores complete, we took the dinghy to shore, treated ourselves to a cheap dinner out, then called it a night.

We stayed on board the entire day, Tuesday the 18th. As forecast, strong winds (25-30 knots, gusts to 45) blew the whole day. It was a bit nerve-wracking, but the anchor held (we didn’t budge, actually).

The weather isn’t going to be great to do the Delaware Bay until tomorrow, so it’ll be one more night here in Cape May. We’re going to refuel & re-provision, then take in some of the town (Cape May is the oldest seashore resort town in the US).

I’ve done this entire post (and a few others) using only a fraction of our data plan bytes, so good bye coffee shops & shady pubs, ’cause we have our own WiFi! Yippee! Why didn’t we do this sooner??? Too easy, I guess.