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!