For most of our journey, there will be a few instances where we will have deadlines or “target times” for reaching destinations. For example, sailing into a new challenging anchorage late at night or simply to time the tides/ current in rivers, bays or cuts. This sail plan was the latter case. Fighting against the tide while traveling up the Delaware bay/river is not desirable. Add wind against tide and it can make for a very unpleasant experience. Our target time to reach the most southern tip of New Jersey, Cape May, between 7-11AM EST, the following morning. We planned to use slack tide (no current) and then a gradual following current up the Delaware river. Only at noon on Friday, we still had very little wind leaving New York City and it was predicted to decline further throughout the day.
Hopeful, we hoisted the main sail and unexpectedly timed the exit perfectly. A large freighter had just left and the three more cargo vessels and ships were lining up for entry to the Hudson.
We continued “motor sailing” and started a 3-hour rotating watch schedule. We were able to stop the motor (running on a single engine by choice) for a few hours. I napped to the gentle quiet rocking of the boat without the thrum of the starboard engine. My first watch would start at 3 PM. It was a clear day and my watch was uneventful.
When the wind speed dropped, we lowered the foresail and kept motoring. We needed to maintain at least >6 knots. After dinner, I banked another hour of sleep, having learned the importance of getting rest for overnight passages. When I woke, we lowered the saloon table and set up a temporary bed so that we could each rest nearby during the overnight passage and continued motor sailing. In hindsight, we should have converted the table to a bed right after dinner so that Scott could go directly to bed at 9PM (my next watch). Besides, it’s a novelty to have a giant sofa/bed here instead of the table that we work and eat at.
At 9:30 PM, I quietly shared a peak of the stunning red half-moon slowly moving up from the horizon with our daughter. The moon shades changed to light orange and then to white/grey about an hour later. She was already back in her cabin. I thought already off to sleep (She just informed me. Not!). I enjoyed the bright moon on a night watch. Actually, to be honest, I greatly prefer it to a pure black sky even though the stars are less visible. Only once, off the coast of Atlantic City, was I startled by the pop-up of a huge target on radar screen indicating “something” about 2 miles east of our position. It was probably interference, OR a pod of dolphin or whales OR a submarine. It kept appearing and disappearing. No. Probably interference. (Yes, we saw a submarine, last year during the day, in Long Island sound so, while unlikely, it is still possible.) I still couldn’t physically “see anything” on the horizon. The large radar target fluctuated in and out but stayed more than 1.5 miles away. I let the captain rest. I doubt he was sleeping. He relieved me from my post at midnight. Despite putting on an extra sweater and spending my last hour navigating from inside the main saloon (with 15 minute deck checks to look around outside), I had started getting chills from the cold night air. It was a pleasant surprise to remove my offshore life vest and climb into a “pre-warmed blanket” at the end of my shift.
OMG….. I overslept. I have never overslept for a watch! This was a first! At 2:42 AM, I woke up to my phone alarm. I remember shutting it off, rather than hitting “snooze.” I set my apple watch timer. I thought it would be okay if I rested for 10 more minutes. Right? Suddenly, Scott is nudging my shoulder and gently saying “There is nothing wrong, but it is time for you to start your watch.” FYI: it was now probably about 3:15 AM, maybe even later. He said that he could see the timer on my wrist still chiming away. “Done.” The text that appears across the screen. I had fallen back to sleep. I was out cold. I felt disoriented, and simultaneously guilty and embarrassed. I took over and let him crawl into bed. Because I overslept, I decided to let him sleep in a bit the next morning. If we had been on a longer passage, this would not be allowed. It only creates a vicious cycle. But I knew we had plans to be at a dock the following night and so I let him sleep a little later. I enjoyed the morning dawn. He woke around 6:30 and was able to view the beautiful sunrise with me.
I set another alarm for 7:20 AM. We had agreed to both be awake for the rounding of Cape May, which we did “right on time” around 7:45 AM. We were “cutting the corner” so to speak. Scott had taken this route with our delivery captain (CaptainJoshMetcalf.com) last fall. Scott said that we probably would not have tried this route on our own but given the calm sea state (this should not be attempted with waves), he felt comfortable navigating through the shoals, albeit with two pairs of eyes. Last year, he found it a “bit nerve racking to be so close to the coastline. Those lights to the east were not buoys. They were car headlights.” Captain Josh had used this route before. There was plenty of water below the keels. Scott remembers a feeling of concern when he heard the breaking waves that dark night last October. Seeing the waves on the nearby shore in the morning light was a less threatening perspective. We enjoyed watching several dolphins catch their morning breakfast as we carried on up the bay. There was no wind. We dropped the main sail and motored on, we were making very good time.
Next stop: Chesapeake City.