Publish Date: Monday, October 12, 2009
Location: Coast of New Jersey
Coordinates: 39° 15.016′ N 74° 27.455′ W
Our original plan when we left Portsmouth, Rhode Island yesterday (Sun) morning was to cruise to Cape May, New Jersey, arriving late tonight (Mon). However, we studied the weather this afternoon, and it looks like there is now an opportunity to cruise down the coast of Delaware/Maryland and into the Chesapeake Bay before it gets nasty out here. The weather window starts to collapse Tue evening, and we should be headed into Hampton Roads on our way to Norfolk by the time that happens. So our new plan is to cruise through the night tonight (Mon), and arrive in Norfolk Tue evening around 9pm. We may get a little beat up Tue afternoon, but nothing dangerous.
The main reason to keep going is to get to Norfolk, which is technically “Mile 0” on the Intra-Coastal Waterway. Once we reach Norfolk we have two cruising options on the rest of our voyage south: on days with mediocre weather we can make progress by running on the inside, on the ICW; on days with good offshore weather we can run on the outside, perhaps overnight if the weather allows. The key point is that our cruising schedule would be mostly in our hands instead of Mother Nature’s hands.
Our general schedule when we do overnight cruises works like this: During the day, all three of us rotate watches based on whatever is going on. Usually nobody has to stand watch more than 2-3 hours during the day. At night, Kathryn and I split the night watch: I stand watch from 9pm-3am, which works well for me because I’m a night owl; Kathryn then stands watch from 3am-9am, which works perfect for her because she likes the morning and the sunrise. Each of us can get about five hours of sleep during the other person’s watch, which is plenty, especially since we usually take a nap sometime during the day. Ayla usually goes to sleep about 10pm, and sleeps through the night — lucky duck! Soon she’ll also be doing night watches.
So off we go into the night, again. See you in Norfolk!
You guys are most definitely migrating south!
Very cool. We were wondering if Ayla did any watches, now we know. I’m surprised at how much progress you have made south in such a short period of time. Basically you’ve crossed from Southern New England to the north edge of what is the South all in just several days. Thanks for the waypoints. Very nice if one develops an addiction to reading this blog, which I have! 🙂
David,
I thought we might see you on the Chesapeake, as we are heading south as well. Yesterday we went from Baltimore to Cambridge…on the Choptank River. I, too, see the weather window closing, as the Chesapeake will start to get nasty this afternoon as well. We are planning on heading either to the Salomons, or Deltaville today, and will be in Norfolk this weekend.
Bob & Deb Koerner
M/V Headquarters
great plan!!!!! If you can make it, go for it. Good luck.
We are curious as to how you are accessing the Internet on your voyage. Is it mostly satellite service? And what sources do you use for your weather forecasting?
Teenagers need lots of sleep.