News 15
Baltimore to New York
It´s springtime in America. The winter had been long and hard, but with the sun coming up, we are ready for new adventures.First we have to do some serious work. The zincs have to be replaced and the bottom painted. Engine and folding prop need servicing. Half a year of steady life in a marina left its traces. Our "apartment" definitely needs reorganizing. It will take some time to regain our sealegs. By the end of April we say good bye to all the people, who made our stay in this strange city so easy and enjoyable. Once again we rent a car and drive to Hoopers Island, to meet these wonderful people, who really are in our hearts now. The fact, that we perhaps will never meet them again, is hard to realize. We really hate good byes and it takes us days to get over this loss.
some things need to be done
Marina
Delaware City
With promising warm weather we leave Baltimore and make our way through the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal to Delaware Bay the "iron genny" running most of the time. The Bay actually reminds us very much of home: the weather is nasty, cold, windy and wind against tide produce a nauseating chop. Like the river estuaries of Northern Germany. And to make things even worse it´s terribly shallow, just like the Waddenzee. When we reach Cape May we are exhausted. Here we go to one of the less popular anchorages and lie at least a bit closer to town. The season hasn´t really started yet and the other boats, mostly power, go to one of the expensive marinas. For four days we have to wait for a weather window to favour the 120 nm trip to New York and we do so very relaxed. Only provisioning is a bit difficult, the supermarket is miles away and we have to load the bike into the dinghy and ship it to the beach.
Finally the weatherforecast seems ok and we set sail, or rather switch on the engine in dense fog. According to the NWS this should lift soon, but meteorologists are also prone to human errors. For the next 24 hours we move north completely blind, except for the radar. A few times ships cross our course less than 50m away, we hadn´t even seen on the screen. A rather frightening experience. We see the Verazzano Bridge only as we pass underneath. But the Coast Guard had seen us. They board us, leave a black streak on our hull and traces of their military boots everywhere. For about an hour we get searched and interrogated, very friendly and polite, but they sure mean business. All thanks to 9/11. In the end we pick up a mooring at 79th St Boat Basin, not exactly a nice and quiet place, the tidal current runs with more than 3 kts at times, but only 5 min. from Central Park right in the middle of everything. Now we can start exploring this crazy Metropolis...
