NYC. That’s all you need to say, isn’t it? Instantly recognizable. We are here and we are safe.

Unfortunately, we got our brains beat out getting here: two hours of fog, four hours of huge rollers. One of them so severe it actually lifted me off my feet and dropped me back to the deck.

Here’s the funny thing we almost got Riley and Neeve (two of Steve’s gorgeous 23-yr-old restaurant employees) to come along on the trip to New York. Good thing they chickened out.

We left at seven and cleared Sandy Hook (New Jersey’s northern tip) at noon. Less than an hour later we were passing the Statue of Liberty, and we were tied up an hour after that.

Here’s the magic part Judy Galloway a friend of mine for 40 years brought a four course dinner down to the marina. What fun!

Here’s Judy with Guinness, plus a shot of the amazing cake.

I don’t think you can see the incredible details in this cake, but it is made of layer after layer of crepes, with vanilla cream in between. Each crepe is paper thin ( how do they make them so thin and yet so strong?), and there must be 30 layers!

It was a very nice evening, and now here we are, with Riverside Drive on our port side and the Hudson river on our right, listening to Paul Desmond. I know I’m lucky!

Today’s trip could not have been much smoother – a great birthday present.

It is a bright sunny day – so sunny that as we left Cape May – heading east out of the inlet, we could hardly read the instruments. Then we turned north, set the automatic pilot, and three hours later we were at the Little Egg Harbor Inlet.

I wouldn’t say that the ocean was calm, but it was mostly big swells that passed under the hull from the starboard quarter. Kind of like a slow roller coaster. But not enough to strain the boat. Kind of normal for the ocean.

Even better: Steve came out in his boat to meet me and guide me to the marina.

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Some fun stuff from the trip up:

• love my new watch. I’m talking to one person, and texting others. Everyone calling or texting to say Happy BD.
• The ocean was so manageable (and so empty) that I moved back to sit in one of the lounges on the bridge deck – right behind the captain’s seat. Very comfortable, with a great view of the wake streaming out behind us. And the motion of the boat is diminished, because you are at or near the center of motion. Guinness came back to join me, and I think it was better for him as well.

First, I want to assure our followers that we are fine. I did not have a single symptom!

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Now, back to our regular programming:

If there is an uglier, more boring, more annoying body of water than Delaware Bay, I hope I never have to cross it. More about that later.The first part of the day was smooth, all the way up the Chesapeake Bay and through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. When we reached the Delaware Bay, however, the tide began to ebb (toward the south). Normally, this would be a good thing, because it would speed our progress. Unfortunately, the wind was from the south (in opposition to the tide), and it began to pick up as we went along. 5 knots. 10 knots, 15 knots. When the tide and the wind are opposed like that, it creates very choppy conditions. Two-foot seas, whitecaps everywhere, with a very sharp wave frequency. Not life-threatening by any means, and not the worst we’ve seen, but very uncomfortable nevertheless. And hard on the boat. Guinness was very unhappy.

It also slowed us down. We made Cape May at 2PM, instead of 1 PM as I had expected.

But…we made it! And we are safe and sound in a very nice marina. We also popped over to The Lobster House for takeout: a lobster salad sammy and a blueberry cheesecake as our reward.

So…all is well!

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we are off to Beach Haven to celebrate my birthday.

I want to begin this post by thanking all of you who called or wrote expressing your concern about my health and the wisdom of taking this trip. And I want to reassure you all that I am now feeling fine.

As you know, I had serious reservations about it myself:

When I left on the Key West trip, I felt ten years younger than my calendar age. Totally fit. Totally competent. I knew I could handle the boat, and I was confident that I could handle the navigation. These recent seizures, however, sapped my confidence. I was tentative. Timorous. Not a good way to set out on a solo journey.

Two days ago, I called my doctor about increasing my med dosage. Instead of 900mg per day, I am now on 1300, cleared to go to 1800 if I need it. At 1300, I feel totally different. My energy level is back, and my focus is sharp. I’m pleased with my planning, and the boat is fully prepped and provisioned. I reckon I am 95% OK. The last 5% is just because I am still watching all the time to ensure that my mind is clear and my body is fit. And of course, 95% for me is like 132% for a normal man my age!

So, we are leaving tomorrow for Cape May. Then Beach Haven for my birthday on the 12th, then NYC. All that time, I will be close to home, and I can always just pull into a marina and hole up if something doesn’t feel right. I have lots of friends who have offered to come get me if need be.

But I don’t think that’s going to be necessary. I feel really good.

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As soon as I post this blog, I will be going to the yacht club crab feast, then early to bed for an early departure. It’s good to think about being on the road again.

Love to all from me and Guinness!

Here’s the new itinerary:

It looks like ourMaine trip will take six weeks. That’s a lot shorter than the Key West trip, which was 5 months. Nevertheless, it took a lot of planning. I have all my marinas reserved, except for part of the trip home, which can wait – there are bound to be many changes before then.

I am planning on 12 days to reach Portland, Maine, allowing extra days to explore Newport, RI and Boston, MA. These layover days also provide a cushion in case we need a weather delay. I need to be in Portland by 7/23, because my friend Connie is flying in from Aspen to join us for a week, and I don’t want to leave her sitting alone on a pier in Portland! It is usually a mistake to put yourself on a schedule, because you simply cannot control the waves and weather. And yet, here we are…

As I write this on Thursday, 7/8, the weather forecast looks pretty good. Tropical Storm Elsa will be up in Maine by tomorrow night, and I can follow her up the coast with just the usual threats of afternoon thunderstorms.

The first three legs are fundamental to getting things off to a good start:

• First, we have to get from the Chesapeake Bay to Cape May, at the southern tip of New Jersey. This requires us to head north to the top of the Chesapeake Bay, then east through the Chesapeake&Delaware Canal, then south down the Delaware Bay to Cape May. The Delaware Bay can get sloppy, because it’s shallow, and wind can create a nasty chop. But it can also be as calm as a millpond. We’ll see. We’ve done this leg before, and that helps.
• We’ll exit Cape May on the ocean side, and head north to the Great Egg Harbor Inlet, where we’ll duck inside to celebrate my birthday with our Key West marina friends Steve and Jane in Beach Haven.
• On the third leg, we go back out of the inlet, back into the Atlantic, and run all the way up the New Jersey coastline to New York Harbor. I’ve done this before, and it is easy if the sea conditions are moderate. Once we get to New York Harbor, we are in inland waters – until we get to Cape Cod. We travel up the East River, east across the length of Long Island Sound to Greenport (it’s on the northern fork of Long Island), and on to Newport and Onset, MA. I chose to stop in Onset because I like the name, and because it positions us to transit the Cape Cod Canal the following day. I am a little apprehensive about that, because the Canal handles a lot of commercial traffic, and there are strict rules for transit. But I’m sure we’ll be fine.

Once we exit the Canal, we head straight for Boston, and then we are outside (in the ocean) the rest of the way to Portland, ME.

We’ll spend the next week exploring many of the most charming harbors in and around Penobscot Bay:

• Boothbay Harbor
• Rockland
• Rockport
• Camden
• Castine
• Pulpit Harbor
• Buck’s Harbor

These tend to be on everyone’s “Must See” list.

When Connie leaves on the 31st, we’ll head farther east, and we’ll spend five days exploring the area around Mt. Desert Island and Acadia National Park. It’s a famously picturesque cruising ground.

We hope to turn our bow toward home on Friday, August 6th.

Let me hear from you if you have any “insider” tips about places to see and things to do!

We’ll post again in a couple of days.

Hi Everyone,

We’re planning to leave for Maine on July 11^th – just a week from today!  It’s the day before my 77th birthday. We’ll be gone for about six weeks.  Back in mid-August.

I can’t believe it’s just a week away; I sometimes feel like I just got back from Key West.   Also, my planning has been rather time-compressed; I did most of it over the last two weeks. 

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So what’s the problem?

Here’s the reason it feels time-compressed: I haven’t really been myself the last three months.  Since the day I returned from the Key West trip in April, I have been having “seizures” – not Grand Mal seizures, but episodes where I get a thrumming in my ears, and then a severe headache, and then I just get “frozen” and can’t seem to control my voluntary muscles.  I am conscious – and standing –  but I just can’t think straight or move my arms or legs.  I’m just frozen. I am conscious of the fact that I am frozen, but I can’t do anything about it. Weird, huh? Very unsettling. These episodes last about 2 minutes, and then I am OK.

It does not happen when I am seated (as in driving the car), but it did happen once while I was driving the boat. So it seems like it has some type of blood pressure connection – (stand up, get dizzy.) But my blood pressure is and always has been fine.

I have had every type of cardiological and neurological test imaginable (2 CT Scans, 3 MRI’s, EEG, EKG, Doppler Ultra Sound my carotid arteries, etc.), and I have an Echocardiogram of my heart scheduled for Tuesday. All the tests to date indicate that I am in excellent shape.

So…No obvious cause for the seizures, but my cardiologist has me very focused on hydration (which affects blood pressure) (who knew), and my neurologist has me on medication (Gabapentin) which should address the headache and seizure symptoms. Amusingly, this is the same drug I give to Guinness to lower his anxiety for vet visits and grooming.

We are still tweaking the dosage, and I am hopeful that I’ll be OK by next week.

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I realize that the earlier paragraphs sound very scary, and I won’t go unless I am asymptomatic!

But if we pull this off, we will have done the entire East Coast of the US.  I am estimating it’s about 5,000 miles round-trip, including the Key West leg.   (I said 6,000 in my earlier email, but I over-estimated.)  And we will have done it solo.  At 77 years of age.  Pretty cool.

It should take about 10 days to get to Maine.  Then we kick around up there for two weeks and take another ten days to return. ( I plan to publish our Float Plan in a day or so. )

I am really looking forward to going, and I have put a lot of effort into the plans.  But please be assured that I will not put myself, or Guinness, or Freedom at risk! I am prepared to abort the trip if I must.

As always, I welcome your comments on the blog posts.  They make me feel like I am away but not alone.

Well, we’ve reached the end of our journey – a trip that can only be described as EPIC!!!

I have to acknowledge that thousands of folks have done this trip; and thousands have done it many times; and many have done it solo, as I did. Nevertheless, for me it was a great adventure.

I was very lucky: I enjoyed great health and great weather for most of the trip (except for one flu episode, I never even had a cold). And I had the advantage of using today’s wonderful electronic navigation aids. It made me think about my father, who introduced me to boating. He had to do it all by dead reckoning!

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I know it will take some time and distance to assimilate it all, but I’ve learned a few things:

• The boat was perfect. Not too big; not too small. OK, I might like something a little bigger in rough seas, but it’s not in the budget.
• You can never have too many good charts and guidebooks
• It’s never too late to make new friends and forge new relationships.
• Spending the winter in Florida is GOOOOOD.

As I had hoped, it was a voyage of healing, and I feel like I’ve made the first steps toward the future.

I re-connected with family members and friends in a new, fresh way.

And I really enjoyed having Guinness with me…he makes friends wherever we go. He brings a simple joy to every new experience.

I tested myself and learned a lot about myself and my abilities. (and my shortcomings). In particular, I am much more skilled at planning routes and using the chart plotter. As I came back north, I reviewed some of the routes I had plotted before the trip, and they look amateurish.

The trip was not a walk in the park: whether you choose to go outside (in the ocean) or through the ICW, there are risks and pitfalls. In particular, the shoaling in the ICW can cause some panicky moments. Every morning begins with a thrill of anticipation and a pang of anxiety.

I was impatient on the trip south; wanting to get there. Much more patient northbound, because by then I had a pretty good idea how much distance I could cover in a day, and the routes were more familiar.

I was surprised by how much time we were alone on the water: frequently with no other boats in sight, and often out of the sight of land. Even on our last day, as we made our way up the Chesapeake Bay, we did not see a single other boat!

Were I to do it again, I would not change very much, except I might visit a few towns I skipped this time around.

The high points of the trip for me were:

• Key West
• Captiva
• Charleston
• Beaufort NC / Atlantic Beach
• Connecting with family and friends in Savannah, St. Petersburg, Naples, Venice, Ft Lauderdale, Isle of Palms, Palmetto Bluff, and Beaufort NC.
• Making new friends at the marinas along the way
• Accomplishing something I’ve thought about for a long time – and doing it on my own!

I have learned that I am fundamentally a solitary man, often uninterested in other people. But on this trip, I took the time to connect with other people, and I was pleased with the outcome: I liked them, and they liked me. I am going to try to be more other-focused.

And now, some thank-you’s:

I couldn’t have done this trip without the help of my neighbors Yvonne and Carol, who looked after my home and collected my mail.

And I want to close by thanking all my friends and family who followed my blog and supported me. I felt far away but never alone.

Today was gray and rainy and cold, but we made it!

Just 4 hours today, almost due north straight up the Chesapeake Bay.

I promise to write more later – thoughts about the trip, etc.

This is just to let everyone know that we are safe and sound.

Here’s what I dictated earlier today:

This morning, I’m asking myself why anyone would deliberately sign up for an experience like today’s trip: 7 hours of pounding into a sloppy sea.  All alone; no other boats in sight.  The answer is – of course – that it gets us 7 hours closer to home.  But Sheesh!

Sitting is uncomfortable; standing almost impossible without leaning hard into something stable.  Spray crashing over the windshield and starboard windows.  Windshield wipers going full time.

It’s not dangerously rough, but it’s extremely uncomfortable.

It’s 10AM: three hours behind us and four to go.

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Finally, after 4-1/2 hours, the seas settle somewhat, and the wind moves behind us.  It’s almost noon, the sun is shining, and the day is warmer.  Much more comfortable.  2-1/2 hours to go now.

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Ahhh. We are fueled and docked, Guinness had a chance to chase squirrels, and I am enjoying a Blue Moon and a BLT. Heaven!

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We just crashed for a two-hour nap. Feeling much better.

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I have a sense it’s going to be an early night tonight, and then we are off to Rock Hall. Should be a short trip, barring problems.

XXOO

R&G

Today was tedious, but not really exhausting…

We travelled from Coinjock, VA to Hampton, VA via the Albemarle & Chesapeake Route, also known as The Virginia Cut. The first half is cut through largely-uninhabited areas, but the second half, which is more populated, features a series of bridges which only open on the hour or half-hour. As a consequence, we wasted over an hour waiting for bridges to open.

The final stretch is the Elizabeth River, which separates Portsmouth from Norfolk, right at the foot of the Chesapeake Bay. It is a very busy area, with much military and commercial traffic. It’s also home to the largest naval yard in the world. Aircraft carriers, submarines, and all other sorts of warship line the river, housed in huge dry-docks (for repairs). It’s very industrial and very ugly.

We left at 6:30 this morning, and we tied up at our marina at 1:30. It’s a beautiful, warm, sunny day, and we are finally back in the Chesapeake Bay. I had an oyster Po’Boy for lunch, and the Chesapeake Bay oysters were delicious!

Just two more days to go!