More Tales From The Swamp

Sorry everybody but we didn't have enough signal to add photos! We're off on our journey south leaving Beaufort! No contact for a while but will post photos once we reach safe harbor!

Here's what happened the past week while you were waiting!

After a brief one-night stay in Elizabeth City, we headed on out into Albemarle Sound in the direction of a little island called Colington on the Outer Banks. It was a solid day's motor where we rolled the jib out for a bit, but couldn't completely sail because there wasn't much wind. We arrived close to the island around 4 PM as the sun started to go down, but the journey wasn't over quite yet. There was serious shoaling all around the island that every single one of our charts (4 separate ones) had in a different place. This presented us with two options. We could 1) Just slowly nudge our way in towards the channel of the harbor where it looked like we could make it, and then if we ran aground, just back off and try another angle. Or 2) We could go all the way around the shoal, which meant heading south for another two hours and then having to come back up north for another hour. Of course we went with option 1: just go for it. We slowly made our way in towards the channel, seeing barely any water underneath our keel, but never touching ground. It was perfect! Right up until the channel that is...

After crossing this massive sandy shoal, the one place our boat decided to run aground was right in the entrance of the channel. Turns out the shifting sands of the Outer Banks hadn't left a clear entry for us in the marked channel, which we assumed was dredged. Never assume, ladies and gentlemen! We had to give the channel 4-5 tries, running aground each time, before we found a thin little channel on the outside of the marker buoys. We made it into the very calm peaceful waters of Colington Harbor where they allowed us to anchor right off of the yacht club and bring our dinghy into the dock. We stayed there for a night and the next morning went out and hit up the staple spots one must see and do while in OBX. We went to this place for breakfast, the motto of which was simply "biscuits and porn."  It is a gas station that is famous for delicious breakfast sandwiches, and like any gas station, their selection of adult magazines. Nonetheless, great food. After that we went to the Wright Brothers Memorial and climbed all the way to the top to see where they actually launched the first plane. It was a rather cloudy day but once we reached the top it seemed to clear up and we could see the ocean around us!

We then headed back to the boat to head out while it was still high tide, as to ensure that we wouldn't run aground this time. And of course, after running aground 4 more times, we finally found that little channel and made our way out towards Alligator River.

As night fell, we made it all the way past the Alligator River Bridge, right to the entrance of the small canal that headed through the swamp again. We dropped the hook for the night and cooked up a fantastic meal of deer and potatoes that our good friend Wiley had given us before we left Colington. I had never had deer before but I cooked that up something nice, if I do say so myself! Even had some leftovers that I threw in omelets in the morning.

We cruised down the Alligator River keeping a keen eye out for alligators, but no luck! We ended up stopping at the R.E. Mayo docks, an old shrimp boat dock and seafood company that lets transient boats tie up for very cheap. We ended up even getting a few pounds of fresh jumbo shrimp and scallops for practically nothing!

The next day we headed out early in the morning and out into more open water, allowing us to roll the jib out. The local fishermen definitely looked surprised to see a sailboat actually sailing the narrow channels as we dodged their various boats and crab traps. It took most of daylight for us to get into Morehead City, NC, where we found a nice anchorage right off of the main street downtown. We went into town in search of bacon (to cook up with those scallops of course!) and then right back to the boat for the feast!

The next night we decided to go into a place called Portside Marina in Morehead to refill our water tanks, diesel and give the batteries a full charge. It was a very nice marina, run by and older couple who just gave off that awesome southern hospitality charm. After filling the water tanks, though, we found out that our tank up in the v-berth was leaking something fierce, all of which was draining right out of our bilge. This meant Will had to do one of his favorite projects and go and hang upside in the v-berth hatch for a few hours while making the repair. Although he didn't enjoy it, he did it! We sealed it all up and filled the tank again with no leaks this time around. We spent the rest of the day wandering around town looking for a somewhat close grocery store, although there was none. so we headed back to the boat to cook up some supper.

As the sun went down on the horizon we could see a crowd gathering right on the dock outside our boat. Could this be our entourage of reporters coming to ask about our voyage to come? Nope. Just everybody gathering for the annual Christmas Parade. This wasn't your average Christmas parade like they have in NYC with huge floats and giant balloons. This one took place on the water. With boats. And lots of Christmas lights and music. It was awesome! Something the whole town seemed to come out and gather for. Perfect timing for Will and me.

We took it easy the next morning, doing things like our laundry, taking showers, checking the weather, and then cast off the dock because of our 11 AM checkout time. Instead of heading back to our anchorage, we opted for the change in scenery and decided to head over to the town of Beaufort, NC. Right across the river.

At this point we had decided we were going to leave Tuesday. After looking at all kinds of weather charts and plotting programs, this is where our weather window seemed to line up best. We took Monday to take a cab ride to the local library so Will could get some work done and so we could have a solid Wi-Fi connection to plot our full course. After that we walked over to the grocery store, which was a little ways down the street, which had the fantastic name of Piggly Wiggly Grocery. We spent about two hours and two hundred bucks and have enough food for a small army. Of course it was dumping rain the entire ride back so by the time the groceries got back to the boat everything was pretty soaked and we were pretty beat. We threw everything in plastic bags, stowed it, threw a movie on, then fell asleep.

Donate Now

Hey Everybody!
Check out our new "Donate Now" tab at the top of the page! If you click on this you will be redirected to our Team JDRF personal fundraising page where you can donate, and keep track of how much money we raise for T1D research! Please donate to a great cause! This page will eventually fully replace our GoFundMe page but for now if you would like to donate to JDRF, you can do it directly through the donate now tab. If you would like to donate and help us out on our adventure, you can donate to the GoFundMe!

Thank you all!

Diabetes Daily

Sam Fifer grew up in a little town in west Connecticut–nowhere near the ocean–but he spent his summers in Nova Scotia where his friend Will Daniels was born and raised. The pair has been sailing “practically since we started walking” and have been in love with the sport since day one.

During one of his summers in Novo Scotia, Sam was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 11, but it has never interfered with his love for the water.

After finishing college, Sam and Will focused all of their energy on being out on the water, working on various boats, as sailor instructors in the Virgin Islands and in other bodies of waters: Will worked in “river restoration” in Novo Scotia.

“This summer, I moved back to Nova Scotia where we both lived in Mahone Bay on our boat, a 1982 C&C 32 named Tilikum,” explains Sam. “We’ve always had dreams of long distance sailing. We sat many nights in the garage talking about various islands we wished to visit, routes we wanted to take, and things we desired to see. We read all of the tales of great adventurers like Joshua Slocum, Francis Chichester, Robin Lee Graham, and their sailing escapades. These stories are what has inspired us to undertake this voyage, you only live once right? There’s no time like the present.”

Today, Sam and Will are raising funds through GoFundMe to sail around the globe, journaling their adventures at Sailing for Type 1 Diabetes.

In this interview, Sam talks about juggling type 1 diabetes as he sails his way around the globe!

•••

Tell me a your “diagnosis story”…how old were you? Were you terrified? How did your diagnosis impact your goals as an athletic person? 

Sam: When I was 11 years old my family and I took a vacation for Thanksgiving up to Nova Scotia Canada for a week or so. Along the 19 hour drive up is where I began to feel somewhat “off.” I kept having to tell my dad to stop the car because I had to pee every few hours or so, which seemed semi-normal to all of us at the time. And also I kept drinking lots of water (like two cases of 24 bottles in a day).

We figured these two things were just related to each other at the time because I didn’t really show any other signs of being sick. We got up to Nova Scotia and things started to get interesting. I no longer could drink the regular tap water from our sink because I complained of it tasting almost soapy. This resulted in us having to buy one of those purified water towers that you have to buy water from the store to fill.

This was fine for a while, but then it got worse. I started to feel very cramped in all of my joints, making moving a little harder and still kept drinking and peeing all the time (like every hour). This is when we finally decided it was time to go home because something was indeed wrong.

The trip back was brutal. I turned a ghostly pale white/grey in color, could barely move, still drinking and having to pee every 20-30 minutes and feeling very nauseous and throwing up a bunch of times. I couldn’t eat, could barely even stay awake as we made our way back Connecticut where my parents immediately took me to our doctor.
They couldn’t figure out what it was at first because there was no history of diabetes in my family so they almost ruled that out right away. After testing my blood sugar at the doctors office, the doctor said my parents needed to take me to the hospital immediately. We went to the nearby hospital where I was immediately brought into the ER and hooked up to IV’s and given insulin.

Apparently my blood sugar was in the high 1300s and I was about a day away from a coma. Scary stuff! I was terrified and confused. As an 11 year old I had no idea what was going on and had never even heard of diabetes. At the time, I didn’t realize what I had, and how this was no a life long disease I had to deal with.

I was in the hospital for a week and missed a bunch of school. Finally I went back to school and noticed everybody treating my a little different. Like I had just been given cancer or something. Every teacher was constantly asking if I felt okay and making sure I ate properly and such, but I still didn’t really know what I was dealing with. I went back to the hospital a few times for more training on giving myself shots and testing my blood and regulating food intake and such and that’s where I finally realized a little what I had.

I rejected the fact that I was a diabetic, of course as I went into those rebellious teenage years and my parents tried to help me so much, but I didn’t want to believe that I had this crutch. I didn’t stop doing sports at school or really change my lifestyle at all because I didn’t want to show my friends that I was different.

I hated being a diabetic. I still hate it, but over the past few years I’ve grown up both mentally and physically. I know fully understand that this disease isn’t going anywhere and I have to man up and deal with it. I wish I could have realized this years ago of course and not scolded my parents for only trying to help keep me alive and rejected anybody who tried to help me, but I guess that’s just the way it went down.

Now I have purpose though. I got tired of hearing from doctors “oh, there’ll be a cure in five years,” “five years,” “five years.” That’s all I kept hearing. Now I’ve decided to try and help make a difference in the best way that I can. I’ve gotten my A1C down significantly and am generally feeling a whole lot healthier and that I have a little more control on this. I still have a ways to go but I’m keeping my head up, and now taking any help I can get!

In a nutshell: can you describe your sailing expedition? What are you hoping to accomplish?

Sam: Our expedition has three goals. The first goal is sail around the world!

The two other goals we’ve set while we do this adventure are raise as much awareness and as many funds as we can to let people know a few things. This disease exists and to be fully honest, sucks, but you can’t let it get in the way of your life.

Life is possible, even as a diabetic. We fly a JDRF flag in every port we cruise into which catches people eye and they come up and talk to us. Through our story is how we’re spreading awareness and through our blog and website is how we are raising funds. We plan on taking the next 3-5 years to complete this venture and breaking it off into sections. My friend and I are at the point where we don’t have many ties in our lives right now so we figure we might as well take our time and enjoy it!

What are the biggest or perhaps scariest challenges when it comes to sailing with type 1 diabetes?

Sam: The challenges for sailing with Type 1 are similar to the everyday challenges everybody on land has to deal with, only we don’t have constant access to a pharmacy or a store. I’ve had to battle with insurance companies trying to override my prescriptions that I can basically stock up on all of my supplies for months. I’ve had to make sure I essentially have 1-2 things of instant sugar a day in case I go low.

I have 20 vials of insulin all kept in our boat refrigerator that we had to enhance to ensure it will always be cold. I have 8 months supply of pump supplies all kept in a lock tight, dry container because things tend to get a little wet on a boat—haha! It is rather daunting though. I ask myself every day what might happen if I run out of supplies or sugar while I’m out at sea. The key though, is preparation. Prepare for the worst and you can only go up from there. There is no such thing as over preparation when it come to this stuff, and for that reason, our boat is sitting a little low in the water with how much supplies we have on board.

What is one of the scariest or most challenging moments you’ve personally experienced on the open water as a person with type 1 diabetes?

Sam: My number one scariest challenge I hope to never have to deal with though, is if we have to bail on the boat. If our boat sinks on us, we will have to go to our life raft. We have what is referred to as a ditch bag that has everything essential to bring with us if the boat sinks, even supplies and insulin. My fear though is say we are at sea and don’t get rescued for longer than a week?

Say we have “Castaway” situation, then what happens then? You try not to think about that stuff, as hard as it might be, and all you do is prepare for it. If you dwell on things like that, then you’d never even leave homeport!

I haven’t had any scary moment yet, but something is bound to happen at some point. My sailing partner is educated in what to do if bad things happen and I trust him with my life!

The hardest part about this journey I would say, is just starting it. It took a lot of courage to just go out and do it, but that’s what I’m here to show people. It is possible. Life is possible! Don’t let diabetes get you down.

Best of luck to you!!! Safe sailing!

Photos courtesy of TeamTilikum!

Dismal Swamp Diaries

Hello all! We have arrived here in Moorehead City, NC yesterday evening. We have had terrible/no wifi connection while traveling through the swamps so we are a little behind on our blogging. Here is an update up to Elizabeth City. We will update you with the rest very soon!

Portsmouth was a fun time! We stayed at a free wharf for 2 nights where the glow from our very own 50ft tall Christmas tree illuminated the boat the whole night. It's really bizarre for me to see Christmas trees, lights, and decorations going up as we travel South while the weather warms up all around us. Feels a little more like Easter than Christmas.

We managed to get some work done on the boat while we were here. We rewired the running lights for the 2nd/3rd time. We gave Tilikum a little bath, replaced the fuel filter and the fuel strainer, and we even topped off the engine oil. While exploring Portsmouth, we also managed to find a dinner-theater where you can sit at a table inside of a giant theater and order dinner and drinks while a movie is played. Sam and I arrived in our finest sailing attire consisting of diesel soaked shorts, long sleeved shirts with plenty of holes, flannel vests, ball caps and Nikes. Turns out this place was a little higher class than we thought and we caught a few looks. Nonetheless, dinner was cheap and the movie was good. Successful "bro date".

The next morning we took off, leaving Portsmouth in our wake and headed for Mile 0 of the Inner Coastal Waterway. We were motoring along through the highly restricted US NAVY base area near the beginning of the ICW in Norfolk, VA, bringing back that nervous feeling while looking up at all battleships and aircraft carriers towering over us and seeing the NAVY Police boats wizzing by with their machine guns. Then, Murphy's Law came back for another visit. We were thinking to ourselves, "wow, this would be a terrible place to break down." In fact, I think we even said it. Sure enough right at that moment, our trusty ol Yanmar diesel we've come to name Barnsworth, or Barney, decided to quit on us. He sputtered a bit, revved down and up a few times, and then spit out so much white smoke that it felt like we were back in the fog that Nova Scotia is so famous for. We immediately killed the engine and waited for the fog to dissipate. Then came the realization again.  We're right in the middle of the channel, broken down, drifting towards one of the "restricted" areas that completely surrounded us. YAY! Luckily there wasn't any wind so we drifted up the channel a bit while I was down in the engine compartment figuring things out. As I was down there Sam was up top on watch. And of course, without waiting very long, a US Navy Police boat with 2 massive machine guns mounted on the deck came barreling down on us. They flew up to us, circled around, and then pulled up aside. Two guys about our age were operating the vessel and they popped out of the cabin and asked us what we were doing. Like we'd be casually hanging around a restricted area, but hey they were just doing their jobs. We explained to them how our engine quit on us and were trying to fire it back up. They gave us the whole, "Well this is restricted waters" and "you can't be here." They told us to move and we had to reasonably explain to them again how our engine wouldn't start. Finally, we managed to negotiate our way into firing up the engine really quick and scooting over to an area to drop the hook so we didn't impede traffic while they stood watch. I quickly figured that I probably overfilled the oil pan when we topped it off in Portsmouth leading to some oil overflow burning up in the chambers (hence the white smoke). I pumped out some of the oil which took about 20 minutes and re-checked the levels. Seemed all good! We fired it back up and bid farewell to our heavily armed friends on our way to our first draw bridge!

We arrived at the first drawbridge which was a double. Meaning it had a low train bridge and then a higher car bridge right next to each other. The train bridge raises when there are no trains, but the car bridge goes every hour. We were there at about 8:20 so the car bridge was down, but the train one was open. So we decided to go for it. We eased up to the bridge at speeds approaching a snails pace. Looking skyward praying that we would fit. We didn't... We bounced off the bridge with a dull thud ringing through the metal beams as cars zoomed by overhead. We were too tall by about a foot. Fail.. We backed up and waited patiently for the bridge to open at 9 and then headed through on our way to the Dismal Swamp!

For those of you who may not know what the Inner Coastal Waterway is or what most refer to as "the ditch", it's basically a series of canals that vary in width and depth. For the most part, it's pretty shallow and pretty thin. This waterway goes the whole way from New Jersey to Florida. It's a very common route for boaters headed South when you don't want to take the offshore route. If I had to describe what traveling through the canal is like, I would say its a lot like playing that game Minesweeper, except the mines are submerged logs and there are almost no clues for where they are located. So as your traveling along the canal often, especially with a 6 foot draft, you'll feel thuds on the keel the reverberate throughout the whole boat and your body.

But, it turns out the Dismal Swamp isn't so dismal. We saw the name on our charts and figured it would be dark, filthy, and the type of place that would be perfect for the setting of a bad horror movie. In reality, it was a beautiful river that had brightly colored trees forming a tunnel through the woods. Houses, roadways and walking trails followed it in tandem for most of the way. All in all, it was a really great way to be crossing state lines.

We hit our first lock and drawbridge on the canal and met some of our fellow cruisers who are also headed South for the winter. One thing we have come to realize is that we are basically the "babies" of the ICW cruising world. You don't really see (at least so far) anyone out here that is younger than 40. So we've been mostly making friends that are from a generation or two ahead of us. Despite our young age though, our sailing experience and abilities are as good or better than a lot of people out here. We have met a lot of newbies to the water while traveling along the canals. We actually met one guy that bought a sailboat one week before he took off on the ICW headed south. Awsome! We haven't met anyone that has come as far as us this late in the season though.

We motored along the canal until it began to get dark when we pulled into a river that joined in with the Dismal Swamp Canal. We drove up this small swampy river for a few hundred yards and wedged our 6 foot keel into the soft mud which held us in place (so much for that slick bottom job). Even though there was no wind, current or tide, we dropped our anchor just for good measure. As the sun set we fully took in how weird it felt that our 32 foot ocean going sailboat was sitting in a swamp 15 feet from shore on either side. There were all kinds of noises coming from the swamp like hundreds of little swamp creatures moving around all night and who knows what else. That night the crickets were almost deafening!  We made some dinner, hung out in the pitch black cockpit trying to spot light some gators (no luck yet). Then we went to bed as it began to pour buckets of outside. Our first actual drop of rain since we left Nova Scotia.

We woke up the next day and motored into Elizabeth City which was about 2 hours away. We approached the Elizabeth City Bridge where a really cranky bridge operator grudgingly allowed us and the 3 other boats we were then traveling with through. We tied up to the free slips that Elizabeth City offers and stepped ashore to meet some more fellow cruisers that were also tied up there.

Back in the swamp

Been back in the swamp for the past week with little connection to the outer world, eating great seafood, deer and even hoop cheese. Moorehead City tonight where we'll have the full post for you guys!

Set and Forget

Will reminiscing on his time spent in the Big Apple.

Our trip from New York to Norfolk, Virginia was great! As the old saying goes, we had fair winds and following seas basically the entire time.
We motored our way out of the Lincoln Harbor Marina and down the Hudson, passing great landmarks again like the Freedom Tower and the Statue of Liberty, dodging ferries, freighters and police boats the whole way. As we approached the Verrazano Bridge, the exit of New York Harbor, we took one last look back at the city and bid it a fond farewell. We then hoisted the sails and set a course for Virginia.

Last view of  Lady Liberty

The wind was in our face for the first portion so we had to motor sail for a bit, but we knew as we headed further south, the wind was going to shift to our stern and we would get our first chance at some downwind sailing. After a few hours the wind did exactly as we hoped, so we eased the sails and turned the engine off. It was blowing a very easy 10-15 knots and the sea was beautifully calm, perfect conditions for our autopilot Jeeves to handle. We basically adopted the phrase "set and forget", meaning set the sails, set the autopilot, and forget you even have to do anything because the boat is doing all the work for you! This allowed us time to relax and enjoy the three day journey we had ahead of us.

Blissfully calm.

The first night was great, but definitely cold! The wind and seas remained calm, coming from just off of our starboard stern quarter, putting us on a nice broad reach. We maintained a boat speed of 6.5 knots the entire night, occasionally having to dodge some massive freighters and tankers along the way. We even had a few dolphins come and pay us a visit, swimming along side the boat under the glow of the almost full moon!

It was so cold we even had to bring our sleeping bags up into the cockpit during the night watch.

The wind and seas held right up through the next day until night fell upon us again. The wind shifted to our port stern quarter, forcing us to jibe and the sea rose to some steep 3-4 foot waves. Basically, it got a little rough. Nothing Jeeves couldn't handle though! For the most part...
Jeeves has this one little weak point where this small metal pin holds the whole mechanism together. It's already busted on us once, so it was almost expected when the seas picked up. The pin snapped, causing Will to have to drive for a bit until he woke me up for my watch. We swapped the pin with ease, having done it already before and kept on cruising. Despite the seas picking up, the wind still held at around 15 knots and the full moon lit up the ocean, without a cloud in the sky.



We reached the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay at around Noon on Thursday and made our way through the massive bridge at its entrance. We kept the sails up but had to turn the engine on because we were fighting the current the whole way in. Despite it taking a while to get into the Chesapeake, we are proud to say that we had our first day where it was warm enough to wear shorts and a t-shirt! There is no photo provided, for our pasty white man thighs aren't the most photogenic right now. We made our into the Elizabeth river, passing these gargantuan skyscrapers as the sun fell on Norfolk. As we got closer, we came to realize that these were no tall buildings and skyscrapers, but massive Naval ships. The entire way into the dock at Portsmouth you pass these restricted areas with police boats cruising around on patrol, standing guard for these behemoth ships. Definitely a little nerve-racking, especially at night.

After a few hours of being our a best boat behavior, we approached the free dock on the Portsmouth side of the river and tied up next to some ferries that were made to look like old river boats. We then went out in search of some cold beer and some warm food. The town had this eerie deserted feel to it that night though. We walked around for a good hour and finally came upon the main strip. We walked down it and saw that every single restaurant was closed, and at only 7:30 at night!?! Eventually Will and I realized why. It was Thanksgiving of course!! So unable to find an open restaurant other than a Chinese food place, we headed back to the boat, cooked up some clam chowder, and passed out. Welcome to Virginia!

Big City Life

We took almost a two week hiatus on Fisher's Island, NY. This little slice of Atlantic paradise is located just off of the coast of Connecticut, on the outer edge of the Long Island Sound. Sam had a few doctors appointments he had to go to mainly to figure out how he was going to get his diabetes supplies in some not so easy to reach parts of the world. We also had some various things to fix on the boat, nothing to huge and had to do a trip into New York City to prepare for our arrival there. This Island is not made up of very many people, especially during the colder winter months, but every person we met there gave us a very warm welcome and treated us as one of their fellow islanders. It was great! We met some very awesome people who immediately showed support for what we were doing. They fed us, gave us help on the boat, and even a few had some inspiring tales to tell about life on the sea.

We left Fishers Island around 930am on Friday. We were generally headed towards NYC, but we knew that we didn’t want to go through the East River at night because we would need to time ourselves with the tides to make it through. So our plan was to head towards NYC down the Long Island Sound and drop our anchor somewhere near the mouth of the East River, get some quick sleep, and wake up the next morning leaving a full day to navigate the area known as Hell Gate in the East River. (sounds fun, right?)

Tilikum tied up to the wharf at Fishers Island Yacht Club

 We had a great passage averaging 6.5 knots with a strong breeze on our starboard forward quarter putting us on a close reach. Sailing was quite easy and Sam and I were having a great day listening to a New York Hispanic reggae channel, breaking into mini dance offs once every so often. There were a few other ships, but for the most part, we were all alone out there.  We were cooking along all day and well into the evening.

Tilikum pounding her way through the swell flying towards NYC. 

As the sun went down we began to see what we originally thought were stars, and later found out that they were in fact, moving across the sky and not stars, but planes. There were more planes in the sky than there were stars. It was nuts! You could see the halo of light illuminating NYC as we got closer.  The light continued to get brighter and brighter until eventually we could make out individual buildings and saw the entire NYC Skyline. In celebration of this milestone Sam and I celebrated by playing a game of Battleship.
Side note: Before we left, Sam and I had a debate about whether we should bring this game or not. I argued that it took too much space and that if it was dropped that it would explode shooting its little pieces everywhere in the cabin. Many of which would likely never be found again, or would end up in the bilge. Sam argued that it was a great nautically themed game that could provide us with endless hours of entertainment and that if dropped the tiny little plastic clasps that hold the case together would protect us from an explosion. On the way to Fishers Island from Nova Scotia the game exploded, twice.. and we still find peices of it almost everyday.
So in order to justify us bringing the game and picking up all the tiny little pieces, twice, we played the game, which I will admit was a lot of fun in the middle of Long Island Sound at night, even though Sam won.  

The first glimpse of the New York City Skyline from the Long Island Sound (Check out a cool black and white rendition on our Team Tilikum Facebook page!)

We arrived at a harbor called Glen Cove and could see from the charts that there was a breakwater that would give us a great anchorage, sheltering us from the strong North winds that were slaming against the shore. We tucked Tilikum in behind the breakwater and dropped the hook around 1230am on Saturday morning. We went below, made a little late night snack and then passed out very quickly.

We woke up the next morning at 530am to the coldest morning yet! It was that kind of cold where you lay in your sleeping bag watching your own breath waiting for the sun to come up to warm things up (a little), wishing that you could stay in your sleeping bag all day. It reminded me of  two years ago while backpacking on the Appaliachian Trail where I had the bright idea of deciding that it was warm enough that I would mail my sleeping bag home to "save weight". The next few nights I spent attempting to sleep with every item of clothing I was carrying on, with my feet stuffed in my backpack acting as a makeshift sleeping bag. I would lay awake most of the night just waiting for there to be a glimmer of light outside. 

However, on this day the excitement of going to NYC overruled the desire to stay warm, so we got up, bundled ourselves up like Ralphie’s little brother from The Christmas Story, started the engine, pulled up the anchor and headed straight towards the East River. IT WAS COLD!

Sam layered up as we sail out of Glen Cove having never even saw our surroundings in daylight.

Sam Quote: "The nice thing about 6 layers, is that you can't tell that I haven't showered in a week."

The East River is known for its swift currents. There is one section on this river that is known as Hell Gate which is marked by the Hell Gate Bridge. This one section can have currents reaching and sometimes exceeding 6 knots! Just an FYI for people who might not know, this is fast. Tilikum can only go 6.3 knots with her engine on and with no wind pushing against her. So you need to time your passage through this channel carefully and if you hit it right, you can actually speed through it with ease. We hit it on and reached Speed over Ground (SOG) speeds of 11 knots. We felt like we were F1 racers watching the land fly by so quickly. At one point we were sailing alongside the FDR when we noticed that we were actually going faster than the traffic that was right next to us.

Comforting sights to see considering the recent events in Paris

NYC Skyline and the FDR Parkway as we raced the adjacent traffic down river. 

We eventually reached the heart of NYC near the Freedom Tower and where the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Governors Island are. There was a flurry of activity, numerous helicopters flying overhead, ferries zig zagging across the channel and police boats everywhere. It was quite overwhelming at the time!

Comforting sight to see considering the recent events is Paris.

The Freedom Tower

We turned around the Southern end of Manhattan and up into the Hudson headed for 79^th Street Boat Basin. On the way there we hailed them to alert them of our arrival and to see which mooring to tie up to. They replied that they were hauling up their moorings today and that there was dock space available but that it was around $100 a night.  We had heard such great things about the Boat Basin but this was triple what we had expected to pay so we decided to see what our options were. We pulled into Liberty Landing Wharf on the NY side but were quickly told that we needed to leave because they were closed for the season. So after some phone calls we decided to head up river towards New Jersey to where Sam's cousin kept his boat. On our way there we saw a few floating docks with plenty of open room on the NY side right next to Chelsea Pier driving range. So, we decided to give it a shot. As we pulled up to the wharf a French man came up to us. I said to him “Hey, we’re looking for a place to stay tonight, you know what the rate is here.”
He replied, “This place is closed but you should try Liberty Landing.”
I responded, “We tried that and they kicked us out.”
The French guy then said the magic words we had been hoping for… “Free.” He said “well that sucks, I guess you guys can tie up here then, I don’t care. Just remember though, if anyone asks, you never saw me.”
… Jackpot!
We quickly tied up the lines and began to pack up some things to take into the city. 

Our freebie birth on Chelsea Pier.

On the Road Again!

 

Next stop NYC! We want to thank Mary and Brad Burnham for letting us stay in their awesome place for the past two weeks, and Heather and Dave Burnham for helping us with everything and making sure we didn't go hungry! Also want to thank everybody else on Fishers Island that helped us and made us feel so welcome while we were there! Thank you all!!

NYC Meet and Greet

Had the pleasure of meeting up with Christopher, the Director of PR for JDRF in NYC last night. We discussed how to help each other out along the journey of Team Tilikum, where we will be promoting JDRF by telling our story to people we meet and through social media! We also personally gave him a check for $1000 as our first donation of many towards Type 1 Research! Every port we go into we will be flying a JDRF logo flag and rocking some "T1D Looks Like Me" shirts, courtesy of Christopher and his team at JDRF. It was great to meet you Christopher and we look forward to working with you along the way trying to turn Type 1 to Type None!

Murphy's Law

We woke up after spending our second night in quarantine and received a call from our customs agent who would be meeting us at the dock. He sounded very nice on the phone, asking us various questions like what our plans were and registration information. He told us the customs check-in fee was $19.99 and that's when we realized we had no cash on board. So, he let us go ashore and find an ATM. We walked down a long stretch of road in our full foul weather gear and deck boots which may have been an interesting sight to see for the outside world. Basically, we had the equivalent of snow pants and winter coats on. We finally came upon a gas station, got some cash and walked back to the boat to meet up with the agent. He arrived shortly after we got back and I must say, he was one of the nicest, most friendly customs agents I have ever dealt with. For those of you who've ever dealt with customs, it can usually be quite the ordeal. But this guy was great! He told us all kinds of stories and traded tips about adventures he had been on and was clearly jealous of our future sailing plans to come. All in all, customs took about 15 minutes, but still it was late in the morning by the time we were ready to cast off. We immediately started the engine after the agent left and hit the sea at around 11:30. We motored out through the hurricane gate and hoisted the sails. We hugged the coast for as long as we could, trying to get as high on the wind and as West as possible. Cruising at about 5.5 knots we made good headway towards the Long Island Sound and once again, the weather was B-E-A-utiful. Bright and sunny and a good 15 knot breeze. The wind direction wasn't quite in our favor though, so we knew we would have to tack a couple of times to reach Fishers Island at a half decent hour.

The weather held for us most of the day until late afternoon when the wind died off a bit. We didn't want to do the approach to Fisher's Island too late with all of the rocks, shoals and uncharted buoys around so we kicked the engine on and began to motor-sail towards Block Island hoping to get a few lifts in the wind so we could save some time.

Then this is where things got interesting.

Will and I are skilled in many aspects of sailing and cruising life. One aspect where we fall a little short, is diesel engines. Throughout our entire trip and even in the build up before we left, we talked about how we really, REALLY hoped that nothing would go wrong with our Yanmar 2GM diesel engine. One thing that we figured would be especially brutal, was that if we ran out of fuel and air got into the fuel lines. If this were to happen we would have to bleed the lines to re-prime the fuel pumps. We had heard from our friend Pat South that this was a particularly not fun thing to have to do, ESPECIALLY if you're out at sea. So neither of us knowing how to even do that, we went on about our journey just with the hopes that it would never happen to us. How could it right? Well folks, like the good ol' Murphy's Law we all learned about in high school, anything that's bound to happen, will happen.

Sure enough, right as the sun ducked under the horizon, right off of Block Island, right in the middle of the New York shipping lane, the engine sputtered...

We heard a funky noise and the whole engine started to shake loudly, knocking us out of our relaxing daze as we cruised along. We immediately reacted and shut down the engine. We looked at the fuel gauge and saw that the fuel level was still at half a tank. No way could we have run out of diesel! Unless the fuel gauge busted on us while we were cruising down here? No way! Not us! Not Tilikum! We continued sailing for a bit, in the dark, in the shipping lane and finally got up the courage to restart the engine. It started just fine! Will said to let the engine idle for a bit before kicking it into gear so we did, and then it happened again. The engine sputtered, shook violently making the whole boat tremble, and then shut off on us. It had happened. The one thing we had hoped never would, did. We tried putting more diesel in the tank but why would it be that easy, right? There's a big difference between gas and diesel engines. When gas engine's run out of gas, you just put more gas in. When diesel's run out of gas, its a whole other story. You have to do something called "bleed the lines" which of course, we had no idea how to do. Basically, you have to get all of the air out of the fuel lines before it will start again. Bleeding the lines isn't an easy thing to do, and in a tight engine bay with rolling swell when you've never done it before (and without Google by your side) it's even trickier. I took over the helm from our auto pilot and starting to dip, dive, and dodge all of the now immanent tugs and barges that were heading right for us. Will hit the books. Though we had hoped it never would happen to us, like any good adventure you always prepare for the worst. Will had luckily printed off a massive Yanmar troubleshooting manual before the trip so he whipped that out as well as this other enormous Yanmar service manual. From the duct-taped spine to the faded covers and various years of coffee stains, this book looked like it had lived many lives. Will had some figuring out to do between these two textbooks. I guess those studying skills paid off in school because in about an hour and half of me driving the boat like mad through swell and tugboats with limited lights (our masthead, spreader and deck lights all shorted out) Will learned how to bleed the lines! The sweet purr of the engine as it fired up and didn't sputter out on us again was music to our ears! After a massive eruption of hoots, hollers, and high-fives we decided to drop the sails and motor straight for Fishers Island.

By the time we approached the island, the wind had died off completely, making the whole Sound glassy calm with not a cloud out in the midnight sky. The phosphorescence peaked up and you could see a solid blue stream coming off our prop behind the boat. We slowly navigated our way through the buoys and into the marked channel at the edge of the basin in Fishers, then motoring our way into the FIYC (Fisher's Island Yacht Club). We tied up the boat, and rowed across the basin to our little island oasis where we would spend next week or so. It was a very calm, beautiful ending to the first leg of Team Tilikum's journey.

So what went wrong?

Turns out you can't motor-sail while you're heeling the boat over 30 degrees for a few hours. We did that. So when we saw that our fuel gauge was at half tank we assumed it was fine. But, apparently when you're heeled over and the tank gets down that low, the fuel sloshes around in the tank which can cause air to get in the lines. SO, all we have to do now is make sure when we're motor-sailing that the fuel tank doesn't drop much below 3/4s full.

Lesson learned!

Capt. Sam

Quarantined

There's good news and bad news...

First, the good news. We made it to the US of A! This afternoon we cruised through New Bedford's quite substantial hurricane gate, dodging big fishing trawlers and long liners on the way. We had an excellent passage with almost no mishaps and what most would consider pretty good weather for the North Atlantic in November!

Now, the bad news. We are stuck in New Bedford, at the Fairhaven Shipyard wharf; not allowed to step foot off our vessel other than to tie up. Thats, right after 4 days of being at sea we have the pleasure of looking across the bay at all of the wonderful restaurants and bars, but we aren't allowed to step foot off the boat! Quarantined is the word we have added to our cruising dictionary. This basically mean's when you come in to port and aren't able to check in to customs quite yet, you raise a yellow flag and nobody is allowed on or off the boat. Real brutal to be able to smell the food and beer and hear the music blaring. But we are secluded to Tilikum until we check in with customs tomorrow morning. Here's the kicker, we missed them by 7 minutes!!! 

Oh well, we plan on making a mean meal, having a boat beer or two, watching some Netflix and getting a well deserved good nights sleep. 

Here's what we've been up to since we last posted on the blog. 

On Monday night, the night before we left. We finally managed to finish up the installing radar. One thing that Will and I have found is that Will has a tendency to rush through jobs on Tilikum, even jobs that require some extreme patience, like splicing and soldering a radar cable together. So we enticed our friend, Drew Moores over for some beers and thankfully he knew a thing or two about soldering and had way more patience than Will. The three of us managed to make every connection almost perfect and by the end of the night, we had a working radar! Thanks Drew!

The next morning Will and I woke up and got to work finishing the "last" project on Tilikum, the solar array. We had custom designed our own panel mount and had the stainless steel parts fabricated in Lunenburg. We installed two 100Watt panels in the rain that morning. We mounted them to the top of our bimini and so far they've been fantastic! They have been able to keep our fridge running (vital to keep Sam's insulin cold) and even run the house power for our things like our autopilot (AKA Jeeves), lights, satellite beacon, chart plotter, and all of our other gizmos. Nothing like some last minute boat work! We then spent the rest of the morning running around town completing last minute tasks and then left the Bridgewater Marina around 3 PM on Tuesday.

We motored down the Lahave river and stopped in the LaHave bakery to say goodbye to some family and friends (Thanks everyone for showing up!) and then set a course for Cape Cod. The first night was great! Glassy calm and right out of the river we saw a pilot whale! With the breeze so calm, we motored for most of the night waiting for it to pick back up. Then around 1 AM on Wednesday morning the wind filled in from the northwest and we put up the full main and blade jib. As the sun rose and we rounded Brazil Rock near Cape Sable Island, we managed to see another pilot whale and a school of Tuna feeding on a school of smaller fish. They were jumping into the air doing some crazy aerial maneuvers for us too! It was a great sendoff from the last we would see of Nova Scotia for a while! The wind then died off again so we motor-sailed for most of the day and maintained a speed of about 5-5.5 knots.

On Thursday we got a great wind shift onto our beam and the wind also picked up to about 15-20 knots. In the morning, we had one of the great experiences that every sailor sees as a sign of luck. We saw two porpoises swimming along the mighty Tilikum, just off our bow! They hung out with us for a bit while we sailed where we actually managed to grab a few shots of them. Will and I tried to speak porpoise to them making Flipper noises but I don't think they understood... because all of a sudden they took off in a different direction. It was a great day though! We were under full sail, ripping along averaging around 7 knots and maxing out at 8.5 knots. It was awesome sailing and we were flying! Later in the day the wind picked up to about 20-25 knots and we put in a single reef in the main which balanced the boat nicely.

Early Friday morning around 1 AM, the winds picked up again from 20-25 to about 25-30 (windy!), so in the middle of the night Will went forward and put in another reef and furled up our jib about a quarter of the way. Then things got interesting. We had moment that got both Will and I's adrenaline pumping! At about 3:30 in the morning I woke Will up asking him very nonchalantly "Hey Will, is there supposed to be that much water in the boat?" At his feet there was about a half a foot of water covering the floorboards. Talk about a rude awakening!! He rose up out of his bunk faster than I have ever seen him move and started the emergency bilge pump without even saying a word to me. He told me later, "I scanned my mind thinking of what could have caused this: busted thru-hull?, deck leak?, plumbing failure? When I finally arrived on, "did I flick the switch back on the head after I used it last?". It turns out I didn't, I flicked the switch, pumped the water out and everything was back to normal." Turns out that that job of installing an anti-siphon on the head that we never got around to just made its way back to the top of our priority list. We closed off the entire thru-hull to prevent future incidents, and wont re-open it until the anti-siphon is installed. If that wasn't enough, around the same time we were running the engine to charge up our batteries and all of a sudden the low oil pressure alarm went off! Thank God it was an easy fix! We added oil and continued on sailing due West until we reached about 12 miles North of Race Point on the Cape. 

At this point we decided we weren't going to be able to make it to the Canal by night-fall and even if we did, we weren't sure if there was a safe anchorage or berth. To add to it, there was a small craft advisory for the area so we needed to make sure to find a good anchorage for the night. We decided to head for Provincetown. We called US Customs to alert them to our change of plans and they told us that it was fine just don't get off the boat and to raise our yellow quarantine flag. I grabbed a yellow Island Sol t-shirt and tied it to the side-stay, "That should so it".

We had an unfavorable wind direction heading to P-town so we decided to drop the sails and motor directly into the wind and swell at a slow and sluggish 2.5 knots. We beat through waves, bucking up and down for around 5 hours dodging fishing buoys the whole way until we finally reached Race Point. As we were about to round the marker buoy into Provincetown Harbor we noticed a couple hundred Gannets dive bombing the water spread out by about a quarter second. It was an amazing "Planet Earth esk" moment. As we got a little closer we noticed about 20 dolphins swimming along the surface where the Gannets had been fishing! What we surmise was happening based on our degrees in Planet Earthology, was that the dolphins had rounded up a school of fish and were picking them off one by one and as the Gannets plunged into the sea to pick off the others. What happened next was nothing but amazing and quite hard to put to words. Just as we noticed the dolphins, they noticed us and they immediately diverted their course to directly at us. Before we knew it there we 30-50 dolphins heading straight at us at mach 10! They swam as if they were going to ram the boat but then at the last second, they dove underneath us and began to swim along side. They followed us all the way in to the harbor and were so close that you could reach out and touch them!!

We finally arrived in Provincetown Harbor and hailed the harbormaster. They said that we were good to anchor wherever we would like as everyone else had hauled their boats for the winter. We set our anchor, made dinner, watched a movie, and got the first decent nights sleep in 4 days. 

Will and I have both learnt something about the ocean on our first real bluewater passage. Mother nature is awesome, yet unpredictable. The sea will beat you and test you, but only to make sure that you've got the right stuff to be out there. If you can take the beating and withstand the blow, she'll reward you with her beauty in the end!

We woke up the next morning at 5 AM and motor-sailed across the bay headed for the canal. We motored through the canal waving to people on the shore, and then motor-sailed the rest of the way to New Bedford. When we eventually arrived in New Bedford, we weren't able to hail a single marina or yacht club, so we just decided to motor up to the closest available wharf and waited for US Customs. 

Just after Will and I discussed our plans to take a bus into New Bedford to check things out, get a decent meal, a shower, and maybe a beer or two, we got a call from the customs agent saying that we missed him by 7 minutes and that we were not allowed to step foot off the boat other than to tie up and that we must wait for him until tomorrow morning to check in. 

So here we are, sitting on our boat, at a mystery wharf that we can't go up to the building to see if its ok to stay here, eating some mystery meats out of the fridge and drinking the last of our Canadian beer, and watching some Netflix. Actually, there are worse ways to spend a night than that I guess. 

Cheers, 

Capt. Sam