Stratford, CT

We had a slightly rough crossing of Long Island Sound on Monday, August 4 as we headed from our Oyster Bay anchorage to Safe Harbor Marina in Stratford. It was sunny but a bit cool especially for Stephanie who was sitting on the shady side of the fly bridge and was somewhat inexplicitly freezing, while Lynn who was sitting in the sun was just fine!

Once we crossed the sound it was smooth sailing up the Connecticut coast past Stamford, Westport, Fairfield, and Bridgeport.

As we arrived at Safe Harbor Marina on the Housatonic River in Stratford, the current was fierce.  Jonny tried three times to get into our assigned slip but it was way too risky. We asked the marina if we could tie up temporarily at the T dock which they easily agreed to. Lucky for us they let us stay there overnight so we didn’t have to wait to move at slack tide.

                                     

We showered and got ready for Jonny’s cousin Steven to come pick us up. He came by around five and after showing him Zendo, he drove us to Fairfield to visit his mom who unfortunately is not doing very well. We did have a nice visit with her which was important for us as she is getting up in years and it’s not often that we get to see her.

Afterwards, we went to Steven and Ann’s home where they have the most beautiful garden.  Steve’s sister, Abby and her husband Rich met us there and we all enjoyed a bottle of champagne together.

From there we headed to a very good Italian restaurant in Stratford called Biagio’s Osterio.  We had a very lively evening reminiscing and regaling each other with funny stories.  The evening ended with Steven and Ann bringing us back to Zendo where we stayed up late drinking brandy and port.  Unfortunately we completely forgot to take pictures - apparently we were having too much fun!

Oyster Bay, NY - Official Start of 2019 Cruise

The 2019 cruising season officially kicked off on the weekend of August 3 when Lynn and Stephanie joined Jonny aboard Zendo at Liberty Landing Marina in Jersey City.  For the past three weeks Jonny had been traveling solo from Zendo’s winter berth at Olverson’s Marina on the Chesapeake north.  Lynn was stuck in Miami overseeing the final renovations of the recently purchased condo there.  After flying to Philadelphia and staying at Stephanie’s, we finally joined Jonny in Jersey City where we had a celebratory dinner at a good Italian restaurant.  Not only were we celebrating being together and the start of a family vacation, but we also toasted Stephanie’s brand new job (still at Aramark) and promotion to General Manager!

We will have a week together cruising Long Island Sound and culminating in Jonny’s family reunion in New London.

We left Liberty Landing at 9 a.m. on Sunday, August 4 for a gorgeous cruise up the East River
passing many of NYC’s iconic landmarks.

 

 

From there we headed over to Oyster Bay on Long Island where we originally intended to visit Sagamore Hill, Theodore Roosevelt’s home.  Unfortunately, we were late arriving and the tickets were sold out for the day, but we made the best of it at a lovely anchorage surrounded by hundreds of sailboats.

                                      

   

 We swam and paddle boarded to our hearts’ content. So relaxing!

Afterwards we dinghied over to the village of  Oyster Bay and found our first brew pub of the trip followed by a dinner of some of our favorite foods - clam chowder, steamers, fried oysters and crab
cakes.

We managed to miss a rain shower and returned to Zendo for a relaxing evening of Scrabble on the
aft deck surrounded by a beautiful sunset. What a great way to start our official summer cruise season!
   
                                   

Callao, VA - Our Journey’s End

Our original plan for the day was to cruise halfway to our final destination of Olverson’s Lodge Creek Marina on the Yeocomico River off of the Potomac.  We didn’t leave until 10 because we didn’t expect to have a very long day.  As we got underway the bay was calm and the weather was beautiful. 

We thought conditions were going to deteriorate and Jonny was concerned about how bad the seas could get as we crossed the Potomac. But the weather continued to be nice and the bay was amazingly calm.  After a lot of discussion we decided to just make it a long day and go all the way to Olverson’s.  This was a bittersweet discussion because it would mean ending our seven month cruise a day early and we were not anxious for it to end. But it made the best sense and that’s what we decided to do.  Lynn joined Jonny on the flybridge for the remainder of the day because it was warm enough to be up top and we wanted this last experience for our journey.  She is knitting an afghan for Stephanie which is serving a dual purpose of keeping her warm in these cool temperatures.  It has to be finished before we get to Florida because it’s much too hot to work on it there!

We arrived at Olverson’s  around 6 and tied up at an outside dock. We had to wait until the next day to see if we could get into a covered slip without taking down our bimini.

Once we got settled in we celebrated the end of our wonderful journey with a cocktail.  We traveled 4,658 miles since we left Miami on April 17.   It’s been a fabulous trip and we are sorry to have it end.  We’ll look forward to planning for our next big cruise.

In the meantime we would be spending the next several days at Olverson’s  prepping the boat for the winter.  Jonny had hoped to work with someone at the marina to do it with him so he could do it himself next time.  Unfortunately there was no one available to do so.  The regular mechanic was recuperating from hip replacement surgery.

Olverson’s is in a very remote part of Virginia and there are very few resources here other than a hardware, grocery, and Dollar store.   Fortunately, we have MTOA friends, Liz and Steve, who are keeping their boat here for the winter.  Because they are from Minnesota, Steve is very familiar with winterizing boats and has offered to help guide Jonny through the process.

Jonny got to work the next day draining the fluids from the engine and adding gallons of antifreeze.  Zendo will be in a state of upheaval for the next couple of days while he finishes winterizing and we pack up our belongings.

Poor Georgio is having to be ultra flexible in finding places to perch!

Another MTOA member had left their SUV here and needed someone to drive it to Miami since they were spending the winter in the Keys.  This solved our problem of how to bring all our belongings back to Miami.  Our plan, if all goes well, is to start the drive home on Monday and hope to be back in South Florida by midweek.  

Annapolis, MD

We left Delaware City Marina at 8 a.m. on Monday October 22  after being up very late the night before.  When we went to go to bed at 10:30 we discovered that Georgio had left us a very unpleasant gift that had once again soaked through our bedding all the way down through the mattress pad!  Unfortunately we hadn’t noticed it when we arrived back at 4 the previous sfternoon because it had soaked through the elaborate pattern on the comforter which was no longer wet.  This was so frustrating on several levels including the fact that the comforter has to be washed in a giant laundromat style washer which of course it was too late to do!  So we stayed up late washing everything else in the marina’s laundry. (The photo is not even half of what had to be laundered!)

It was a long day of cruising as we headed to our final destination on the Chesapeake where we would be storing Zendo for the winter.  The weather was clear but  cold enough that we spent most of the day in the saloon.

We made our way down the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal with the current in our favor for half of the day.  The canal led to the Elk River which flowed into the Chesapeake Bay.  The waters were quite comfortable for most of the day until later in the afternoon when we neared the beautiful Chesapeake Bay Bridge.  It got pretty choppy at that point but we only had another hour before we would reach our destination for the day.

Originally we were going to anchor in Bodkin Creek but because we were making good time we decided to push forward to anchor near Annapolis.  

We found a very well protected anchorage in Lake Ogleton off the Severn River just south of Annapolis.  It was a lovely spot surrounded by attractive homes and no other boats were anchored nearby.  This would sadly be our last anchorage for this journey.

We are seriously working our way through our store of food. Lunch consisted  of chili that Lynn had frozen a couple of weeks ago and dinner was salmon, sweet potatoes and salad.  We were able to get TV reception now that we are back in civilization.  Our reward for the day was this beautiful sunset. 

Delaware City, DE (Philadelphia)

We left Cape May at 8:40 for our full day’s journey up the Delaware Bay to Delaware City Marina.  The weather was sunny and cool and Jonny went back and forth from the fly bridge to the saloon throughout the day.  The cruise was calm and uneventful with the current running with us for part of the trip.  We were excited about this trip because Stephanie would be picking us up so we could spend the weekend with her in Philadelphia.

We arrived at this familiar and friendly marina at 5:00, tied up quickly and visited with dockmasters Tim and Charlie who seem to always to be there when we are.

We decided to forego our usual visit to Lewinsky on Clinton and instead have our own  cocktail hour on board and work our way through the food in our refrigerator.  We still have a lot in the freezer which we need to consume because our journey is (sadly) almost over!

The next morning Stephanie picked us up.  Georgio was very happy to see her and gave her a big hug!

Then we left him onboard and headed into Philly.  On the way we stopped at a cool country market where we bought apples and veggies and Stephanie got a couple of pumpkins for Halloween.

We arrived at her very comfortable apartment just off beautiful Rittenhouse Square and were greeted by her cute kitty, Sasha.

That afternoon we headed over to Philly’s hipster neighborhood known as Fishtown.

There, we found a very cool pub called Jonny Brenda’s that featured all kinds of hard cider.  We had a delicious lunch and yummy ciders.  Our server was an engaging young woman from the Lake George area who was very familiar with the lovely town  of Vergennes, Vermont which was one of our favorite places on Lake Champlain.  The connection came up because one of the featured ciders was made in Vergennes.  As expected, a lively conversation about our journey ensued.

Upon returning to Stephanie’s apartment, she popped a open a bottle of Veuve Clicquot so we could celebrate her recent promotion and raise and her upcoming birthday.  We are so proud of her!  And later that evening we had a celebratory dinner at a great Italian restaurant in the Old City called Panorama.  It was exceptionally good and we obviously were throwing caution to the winds with our culinary indulgences this weekend!

Stephanie made breakfast for us on Sunday morning and we headed out for a brisk walk along the Schuykill River.

It was quite cold having dropped to the 40’s during the night.  Stephanie showed us the new building her company would be moving to by the end of the year and we walked back towards her apartment.  She is so lucky because she can walk to work now and when her company moves she will be even closer to the new building.

Philadelphia is a very beautiful city and she really loves living in one of the nicest parts of this historic city.

After a homey lunch at the comfortable restaurant across the street from her home, we loaded up her car and she drove us back to Delaware City so we could resume our cruise the next day.  We’ll see her next in Miami when she comes home for Thanksgiving.  A wonderful weekend was had by all!

Cape May, NJ

We held off leaving Atlantic City on Thursday morning October 18 waiting for a more favorable tide since we thought we might cruise on the intracoastal instead of the Atlantic.  The winds were expected to be higher than the day before which could make an ocean passage more uncomfortable.  And the tides were looking favorable for an inside passage through the skinny New Jersery intracoastal waterway.  Jonny kept going back and forth with the decision on which route to take.  The ocean passage could be shorter and easier if the seas weren’t too kicked up.  The intracoastal passage is shallow and twisty with lots of no wake zones and many bridge openings.  He consulted with the local port captain who pointed out that if the ocean passage was too rough we could always duck out after an hour and go into Egg Harbor and pick up the ICW there.  So we decided to try the ocean passage.

It turned out to be a great decision!  We left Atlantic City at 10 and Jonny hugged the shore since the wind was out of the west.  The seas were not at all bad and the weather was sunny enough that we spent most of the day on the fly bridge, though we stayed bundled up against the chilly temperatures.  We made good time and arrived at our Cape May anchorage at 3:00. 

We spent the rest of the day reading and relaxing.  

It was cool enough to warrant our leftover lentil soup and salad for dinner which was much appreciated.  Jonny finally turned on the generator so we could have some heat.  That evening we watched one of the movies Andy loaned us, an enjoyable British feel-good movie called A Street Cat Named Bob.