Oyster Bay, NY

Friday morning, it was still raining, so I hibernated.  After the rain let us in the late morning, Peter dinghied into the hamet of Cold Spring Harbor for a haircut.  After lunch (and a visit from the pump-out boat), we pulled up anchor and motored the few miles over to Oyster Bay, anchoring in the bight west of Cove Neck.  The sky seemed to be brightening in the north, but it really didn't clear up until after sunset.  Before that, we took the dinghy into town, tying up at the Oyster Bay Marine Center.

Oyster Bay, particularly Sagamore Hill, was the home of Theodore Roosevelt, so the waterfront park through which we strolled honors him in name and with a sculpture installation consisting mostly of rocks from places that were significant in his life.  The walls of the restaurant we chose for dinner, Canterbury's Oyster Bar and Grill, is lined with photographs, magazine covers, political cartoons and paintings of Roosevelt and his family and friends.  How could one not have oysters in Oyster Bay?  Well, it is easy if one is a vegetarian like me, but Peter had some for an appetizer and found them delicious.  We were just finishing up our meal and having the leftovers boxed when a couple of musicians started setting up to perform.  We were assured that we were welcome to stay, but we felt compelled to order dessert, a wonderful creme brûlée/cheesecake combination with melted caramel and fresh whipped cream.  After the first set was over, we pulled our overly fed bodies out of our seats, walked back to the dinghy and motored back to Mantra.

Today was a sightseeing day, all about Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919).  First we visited Sagamore Hill, his home and property on Cove Neck about four miles from the center of town.  When Teddy was 15, his father established the family's summer residence at Oyster Bay, and Teddy and his siblings loved exploring the nearby fields and woodlands of Cove Neck.  In 1880, the year he graduated from Harvard, he purchased the 155 acres of Sagamore Hill with his fiance Alice Hathaway Lee, whom he married later that year.  He kept 95 acres and sold the rest to close relatives, so his six children grew up surrounded by aunts, uncles and many cousins.

Teddy Roosevelt's home at Sagamore Hill

Plans were completed for the house but construction had not yet begun when his wife and mother both died on February 14, 1884--his wife from kidney disease just 48 hours after giving birth to their daugher Alice, and his mother from typhus at their home in New York City.  Devastated by the double loss, Roosevelt had the house constructed at Sagamore Hill and arranged for his sister Anna to take care of the baby and move into the house while he sought refuge on his ranch in the Badlands of the North Dakota for the next couple of years, although he returned to New York often.

In December of 1886, he married his childhood and family friend, Edith Kermit Carow in London, and in the spring of 1887 the couple moved into the house, which remained their home for the rest of their lives.  As the 26th President of the United States, from 1902 to 1909, Roosevelt believed the office was a full-time, full-year job (Other than Lincoln, previous presidents had taken the summer off.), and Sagamore Hill became known as the Summer White House.  Many national and internationally historic events occurred here.  In August of 1905, for example, Roosevelt met separately with envoys of warring Japan and Russian in the library and then brought them face-to-face, starting a peace process that resulted in the Treaty of Portsmouth on September 5, 1905, that ended the conflict and earned Roosevelt the Nobel Peace Prize.

He enjoyed and took great pride in his public life and political activities, but he valued his family most of all.  He stopped work at about 4 p.m. every day to spend time and play with his children.  Although he loved to read to them, he particularly advocated what he called "the stenuous life" and joined them in outdoor games, hikes, swims, boating excursions on the bay, wood chopping, hikes and horseback riding, which he loved.  He was also known to instigate pillow fights through the halls of the second floor of the house before bedtime.

Tidal marsh at the base of Sagamore Hill by Cold Spring Harbor, where Teddy and his family enjoyed the water

Although as a child he suffered from acute asthma and spent most of his time indoors with books, he led an extremely varied, involved and active life as an adult.  In government, he served in the New York State Assembly, on the US Civil Service Commission, as NYC Police Commissioner, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, as Governor of New York, as Vice-President, and as President for two terms.  He wrote over 30 books as well as numerous articles for magazines and newspapers during his lifetime.  He was a cattle rancher in the Dakota Territory, a heroic leader of the 1st Volunteer Cavalry Regiment (the Rough Riders) in Cuba in the Spanish American War, a big game hunter, an explorer and world traveler.  But, as the guides at the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site emphasized, he was a devoted father who put family above all else.

He supported U.S. involvement in World War I, and all four of his sons joined the military.  His youngest, Quentin, an airman, was shot down over German-controlled France late in the war, in 1918.  The death devastated his father, who was already suffering physically from severe arthritis as well as from previous wounds and tropical diseases that had never entirely healed.  He died in his sleep at Sagamore Hill on January 16, 1919, of a pulmonary embolism.

His funeral was held at the church he, his wife Edith and their six children had always attended, Christ Church and buried a mile away from the church and just a couple miles from his home at Youngs Cemetery.

Christ Church in Oyster Bay

In the morning and early afternoon at Sagamore Hill, we learned these details about Theodore Roosevelt and much more during a tour of the house, a visit to the museum and a stroll to Cold Spring Harbor on the trail the family used to reach the marshes and beaches.  Hungry but determined to soak up as much history as possible, we took a Lyft back into town, quickly purchased enormous ice cream cones (our lunch!) at Carvel's, and joined the 2:00 ranger-led tour of the heart of the village of Oyster Bay, where our knowledge and appreciation of the man only increased.

Afterwards, we stopped at a hardware for items for the boat and then at a little cafe, Sweet Tomato, for homemade soup to balance out the ice cream before returning to the boat.  It was warm enough to take a shower on the swim platform at the stern of Mantra, and we still had plenty of hot water from running the engine for an hour yesterday to reach Oyster Bay.  For the past few hours, we have been piddling and going chores.  For the first time, I am using the washing machine on the boat (because we are out of underwear!) and it seems to be working fine.  We wish we could say the same about the relatively new batteries, which are not charging or discharging properly, stymying Peter, who can usually figure these things out.  Because of their unreliability (or complete failure), we have been very conservative about using power, so I am charging my computer now while we have the generator running in order to run the washing machine.

The wind will be too light for the next couple of days for sailing, but we will pull up anchor and move on nonetheless.

There are no photos right now due to inexplicable technical difficulties!  (Now there are!)

Sunset, Oyster Bay

Cold Spring Harbor, Day Two

With the exception of the noise of an occasional jet heading to or from JFK or La Guardia, the only sounds are chirping crickets and the slurping of gentle waves lapping against the side of the boat, just like yesterday evening.  It will probably remain peaceful tonight, but last night we could see flashes of light behind the clouds from distant storms to the north which made their way south to us just as we were going to bed.  Rain started to pitter-patter on the deck above us and quickly turned into cascades of water which sounded as if a tap had been fully opened directly above us, as thunder grumbled and the lighting flashes became brighter.  The wind clocked to the north with the storm and came howling through the mouth of the bay all night, but our anchor held and we slept peacefully.

Cold Spring Harbor

The skies cleared in the morning, revealing an azure dome punctuated with a few puffs of white.  After puttering around and having brunch, we got the dinghy in the water and set off for the hamlet of Cold Spring Harbor.  The land was purchased from the Matinecock Indians in 1650 by English colonists, but it was only used for farming, milling and fishing until the 1820's. Then, it became a prominent whaling port, and nine ships sailed from this harbor to hunt for whales in the Atlantic, the Arctic and the Pacific.  The town thrived until the profitability of whaling was abruptly curtailed with the discovery of oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859.  Main street, now a tree-lined, quiet street lined with homes and small shops, was much more lively in the whaling era, when it was nicknamed "Bedlam Street" and boasted several brothels and bars.

House in Cold Spring Harbor

Our first stop was the Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum, a small place full of a great deal of information and exhibited items.  There is an original 19th century whaleboat equipped with original gear, scrimshaw, models, harpoons, whale bones and two narwhal tusks, and impressive exhibition about the role of women in the whaling era.  In the Long Island-New England whaling era, the first woman went to sea with her captain husband in the 1820's.  Women had to choose between remaining at home waiting for their husbands' return for three to five years or go to sea with the captains. (No other men were allowed to take their wives and families.)  If they stayed home, they were often dependent on monetary advances against their husbands' income from the voyage, and many of them became entrepreneurs, opening boarding houses, restaurants and stores and taking in work in their homes.  Some became teachers or other professional women, something that was rare at that time.  By the 1850's, one out of five of the whalers from the area setting off to sea left with wives and sometimes children of the captains aboard.  At the museum, there were many excerpts from letters and diaries detailing their experiences and impressions.

Next, we visited the Dolan DNA Learning Center on Main Street, which contains, among other things, a replica of the model built in 1953 by Francis Crick and James Watson at the Cavendish Labortory at the Univeristy of Cambridge.  After their collaboration, James Watson returned to the United States, where he was a professor at Harvard.  He had first visited the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a respected institution even then, in 1948, when he was studying genetics with Salvador Luria.  In 1968, he became professionally associated with the laboratory here and worked here until 2007.  He was instrumental in developing the mission of the laboratory, to diagnose and treat cancer, neurological diseases and other illnesses through the study of molecular biology and genetics.

After our brief visit there, we stopped at Sweetie Pies, where we shared a delicious apple pie.  Then we took a short walk through the woods of Cold Harbor State Park and stopped in the gorgeous new library, stately on the outside and elegant and welcoming on the inside.

Reading room at the Cold Spring Harbor Library

Now, my computer is almost out of battery, so I will end this here.

Cold Harbor Springs, New York

View from our starboard side as we pulled up anchor in Manhasset Bay

This morning, in Manhasset Bay, we got the dinghy back on the foredeck and pulled up anchor at 10 a.m. in order to head north across Long Island Sound to City Island, a part of the Bronx.  We docked at the City Island Lobster House just after 11 a.m., with help from Peter, Jane's husband. We had arranged to rendevous with Virginia (Peter's mother's cousin) and part of her family from Australia:  her daughter Jane, Peter and their 14-year-old daughter Frances.  Luckily for all us, Virginia, who is 89 years old and lives in Syracuse, is good with social media and the Internet.  She alerted us to the fact that Will and Caitlin would be in Brooklyn in addition to letting us know about Jane and her family's extended holiday.

Mantra getting ready to dock at City Island Lobster House

The four of them went to see the New York City Ballet perform at the Lincoln Center in New York City yesterday evening.  The production was "dazzling" according to their reports and it was a highlight of Frances' vacation in New York because she trains and practices for many hours everyday with the goal of becoming a professional ballerina.  One of her teachers used to be with the NYC Ballet and Frances will be performing in one of the ballets they saw last night, so it was very special for her.

The four of them joined us on the boat to take a look around her.  As we sat on deck, we could not help but notice the noise of the firing range for the New York City Police Department is near City Island.  The practice sounded like continuous fireworks, so we ate inside the quiet of the restaurant, which was lovely.  The food and service were wonderful, and we enjoyed spending a couple of hours talking about family, travels and plans for the future.

Virginia in the cockpit of Mantra

Peter, Virginia, Jane, Sherri, Peter and Frances at the Lobster House

After they left, Peter and I walked a few blocks to a bait and tackle shop to get ice for our perishable food as we still do not have a functioning refrigerator.  Along the way, we saw some lovely old homes.

At 2:30 p.m., we cast off from the dock without any assistance, motored through the channel and then, within a half an hour, set our sails and headed east on Long Island Sound at an average speed of 8 knots.  We anchored well before sunset, at 6:00, in Cold Springs Harbor.  It is calm and idyllic here.  Along the shore and partially hidden in the trees higher up in the low hills are grand and elegant estates.  There are boathouses larger than the homes of most people dotted along the sandy shore.  New York City seems far away although it is only a few miles to the west.

More from Manhasset Bay

"It was just on such a blustery day as this that Owl's house blew down," Peter recalled this morning, referring to the Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh.  Indeed, the sustained wind since the wee hours has been around 13 knots, with gusts up to 25.  The rain has been almost constant, and the overhead hatches are leaking again on the table and the floors in several places, so repair of those has moved up on the to-do list.  Despite the fact that it is only 70 degrees, Peter is switching on the air conditioning for a while to get some of the dampness out of the saloon and cabins, where we are sheltering for the day.

A blustery, rainy day on Manhasset Bay

I have not been keeping up with this blog when we have been anchored, but Peter assures me that I have enough data on my plan to use the hotspot on my phone to post, so I am giving it a try.  I return to my narrative, as we departed from Cape May.

Within an hour of weighing anchor in the harbor, we were well out to sea and sailing up the coast of New Jersey.  With 10 knots of wind behind us, we lowered the jib and put up the big blue and red spinnaker.  We were averaging 8 knots over ground.  Ula had made sandwiches before we left the harbor, but she decided we didn't have enough and went below to make a couple of more.  This was a mistake.  She didn't look well when she came back on deck, and soon she was hanging over the lee side emptying her stomach.  Unfortunately, she never felt better until we arrived at our destination.  Peter was coping, Enis had taken a dramamine before departure and I was feeling fine.  (I only darted down below, having learned from past experiences, to use the head and check the chart.)  Enis and I decided we wanted something to eat in the late afternoon.  After a few bites of pita bread and hummus, my stomach rebelled also, and I made it to the lee side but not over the rail, so a couple buckets of water were needed to clean up my mess!  But I felt fine afterwards.  Peter went down below to rest as the sunlight faded.  The wind and waves built up and the three of us on deck marvelled as we surfed down the side of waves at 12 knots.  In our excitement, we did not consider the effects of the gusts on the spinnaker.  Ula and I were both lying on the cushions in the pilot house and Enis was at the wheel when we all heard a loud ka-boom.  I thought we had jibed, but what the three of us saw was the enormous spinnaker floating on the surface on the lee side.  I yelled for Peter. Without panic, we all went into action.  Enis brought the boat closer to the wind.  The rest of us put on our life jackets and headed to the foredeck, where we manually hauled the water-weighted foresail up on deck.  Fortunately the sail had not become entangled on the keel or the rudder and the cloth was not damaged except for one small hole.  The wire cable at the top of the sock had frayed and severed, which is what had caused the sail to collapse into the sea.  Within a half an hour, we had the spinnaker secured on deck and the jib up and were sailing at a steady speed of 8 knots.

The wind continued gradually to rise to 25 knots.  Prudently, at 9 p.m., we put two reefs in the sail.  Despite the strong winds and 4 foot seas, I was tired enough to sleep, although fitfully, below in my bed, and we were not heeling enough to require a lee sheet.  I just started out in the middle of the mattress and rolled from one side to the other when we tacked.  I missed the drama of entering New York Harbor at night, dealing with the waves and ship traffic near the entrance.  I did get up before we reached the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, hanging like a glittering diamond chain between Staten Island and Brooklyn.

Verrazano Narrows Bridge from the deck of Mantra (difficult getting a sharp photo from a moving boat in the dark)

The Statue of Liberty from our anchored boat

Sunrise over the city

We were all on deck for the remainder of the trip to the Statue of Liberty in the dark.  There were a lot of large anchored cargo ships but not much traffic after the entrance, and we were all excited to see the Manhattan skyline emerge from behind the bridge and loom larger and larger as we approached our anchorage.  The sky was just beginning to brighten with natural light when we dropped anchor behind the Statue of Liberty at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning.  We tidied the boat up and stayed up to watch the sunrise over the city before all going to bed for a few hours.

To me, it didn't make sense to only look at New York from the boat at anchor, so in the afternoon, we pulled up anchor and motored to ONE 15 Marina between Piers 4 and 5 on the Brooklyn waterfront at the south end of the East River.  The flow of the river, which is not actually a river but a strait between New York Harbor and Long Island Sound, made docking in this marina, which does not have a true breakwater but only a barge anchored at its entrance to protect it from currents and wakes, a challenge, but we managed to move the lines from the starboard side to the port side as the boat swung around.  We found the floating docks to be as rocky, if not more so, than the boat, so we were walking about like drunken sailors.

After we got everything secured, we left the boat for the Brooklyn waterfront, which has been transformed over the last decade or so into a public areas including pedestrian paths, bike paths, play grounds, picnic areas with charcoal grills, soccer fields, roller skating rinks, ramps for kayaks and other sports venues.  There are small beaches and lots of trees and plants.  It was a sunny afternoon, with the temperature in the low 70's, the the waterfront was packed with adults and children involved in a variety of activities.  The majestic Brooklyn Bridge was to the north, the skyscrapers of Manhattan loomed on the other side of the river and the Statue of Liberty welcomed immigrants to the south of us.  We encountered a small, free concert at the end of one pier, part of the Brooklyn Americana Music Festival.  People had come with chairs and blankets, and children were dancing and frolicing to the music.  We continued on to the heart of DUMBO, which we have visited in the past to enjoy Bargemusic.  We were beginning to feel hungry and consulted Yelp to help us choose a restaurant.  The two restaurants with the most stars in the immediate vicinity had long lines of people queuing.  The restaurants were neighbors, and the lines passed each other going opposite directions.  We decided that the food could simply not be worth that kind of wait and backtracked to a pizzeria we had passed which was around the corner.  Even though it had only three stars, we had no complaints about Ignazio's, and the pizza was delicious.

We strolled back along the waterfront to the boat and toasted our adventure from Baltimore to New York with a good bottle of red wine and then went to bed early and slept well.

Peter had heard from his Aunt Virginia in Syracuse, New York, that Will Fisher (Peter's second cousin or something like that) and his girlfriend Caitlin would be arriving in New York City on Saturday, so we had made arrangements to have breakfast with them in Brooklyn Heights on Sunday morning.  Ula and Enis packed up, not allowing us to shanghai them for more sailing, and we walked with them to the Clark Street subway station, where they were catching a train into Manhattan to have breakfast with a friend before getting a train from Penn Station for Baltimore.  Ten minutes later and just across the street, we met Will and Caitlin at Clark's, a restaurant popular for its breakfast fare.  The food was good and Caitlin was not disappointed in the size of the meal, which she had anticipated based on the tales she had heard.  Afterwards, we walked to the boat.  Caitlin was not very comfortable with the rocking, and they wanted to explore more of Brooklyn and find the school where Will would be taking a computer course for three months, so they did not stay long, but it was serendipitous and delightful that we had a chance to meet in New York.

Caitlyn, Peter, Will and Sherri on the dock by Mantra, with lower Manhattan behind us

By 3 p.m. on Sunday, Peter and I were ready to cast off from the dock and head up the East River and through Hell's Gate to reach Long Island Sound.  As if "Hell's Gate" does not sound ominous enough, the guidebook is filled with warnings in bold and colored type about how treacherous the East River can be.  As advised, we donned our life vests (which we usually don't wear unless we are out at sea and outside the pilothouse), had a horn at the ready and were on full alert as we left the marina to go with the flood current up the river.  Unlike the previous day, it was overcast and dreary, so there were not many recreational boaters out and few jet skis.  There didn't even seem to be much commercial traffic.  Listening to the radio, we realized that we had just got out before the East River was closed to all traffic as delegations to the UN were arriving and being transported by helicopter to the headquarters on the Upper East Side.

We have navigation software that we love (Coastal Explorer) and plotting and maintaining a course with this aid is surprisingly easy.  The current carried us along and we breezed through Hell's Gate to Manhasset Bay, where we found it easy to anchor in sufficiently deep water with hundreds of boats on mooring balls between us and the waterfront of Port Washington.

Tomorrow, we will be leaving here, although the weather is not expected to be much improved, in order to meet Peter's Aunt Virginia along with her daughter Jane, son-in-law Peter and granddaughter Frances--all visiting from Freemantle, Australia--at City Island for lunch.  We will continue east on Long Island Sound from there.

Manhasset Bay, Long Island Sound

I am at the Port Washington Public Library.  Yesterday, at sunset as usual, we anchored in Manhasset Bay on the northwestern side of Long Island Sound.  Hundreds of other vessels, mostly sailboats, are anchored or moored in this large, protected bay.  F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby was set here, in two areas known as "West Egg" and "East Egg" which in reality at Great Neck peninsula to the west and Port Washington peninsula to the east of the bay.

Manhasset Bay at sunset

Millionaires from New York, including the Guggenheims, built mansions along the cliffs and shores of this bay, and many remain, as well as their exclusive yacht clubs.  In the early 1900's, the nearby Hempstead Plains to the south was considered the cradle of aviation.  Aviator and manufacturer Glenn Curtiss based his operations here in 1909.  The first plane the famous aviator Charles Lindbergh owned was a Curtiss Jenny.   His 1927 journey to France was in a Ryan plane; he took off from Roosevelt Field on May 20, landing his single-engine monoplane Spirit of St. Louis at Le Bourget, Paris the next day.  The Guggenheims offered him a retreat at their property on Long Island when he was hounded by the press and beseiged by the public after his return and then sponsored what was known as the Guggenheim Tour, in which the hero flew the Spirit of St. Louis across the country and back, touching down in 48 states, visiting 92 cities and giving 147 speeches from July 20 to October 23.

We slept well in the calm waters last night.  This morning Peter got up earlier than me, as usual, and spent a few hours adjusting the instruments.  When I got up, I went right to work cleaning the sea spray off the outside of the pilot house windows and the dirt and condensation from the respiration of four sailors over a few days from the inside of the windows and the interior structure.  It is gleaming gain.  In the mid-afternoon, we put the dinghy in the water and headed to Port Washington.  Yachting seems to be the mainstay of the economy now, but in the past, three other industries predominated:  boatyards, sand mining (the combination of fine and course sand was used in skyscrapers, sidewalks and tunnels in NYC) and oystering.

Now, I can backtrack.  We left the Anchorage Marina and Baltimore, after provisioning and cleaning the boat (and taking more photos of the sunset) on Tuesday morning, darting out just after yet another thunderstorm.  We had good wind most of the day for sailing up the Chesapeake Bay and anchored (yes, at sunset) for the night off Ordinary Point on the Sassafras River.  Enis was a great help with the sailing that day and throughout the trip to New York Harbor, and Ula provided us with delicious meals three times a day, spoiling both Peter and me.  I had been a bit apprehensive about taking on virtual strangers, but having them with us made the trip much easier and much more enjoyable, and we relished the long hours when we shared our personal histories and talked about sailing.

Last Baltimore sunset

Ula and Enis

Heading for an anchorage on the Sassafras River as the sun sets

The end of the sunset after anchoring

The next day, Enis, Peter and I arose at 2:30 a.m. and pulled up anchor by 3 so that we could continue the rest of the way up the Chesapeake, into the Elk River, through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal with a favorable current, down the Delaware Bay and into Cape May (New Jersey) Harbor before sunset.

We were able to sail most of the way, and the day was uneventful except for the invasion of the flies.  In the middle of the Delaware Bay, we first noticed a few flies and wondered how they had stayed on the boat from when we were closer to land.  Then, more and more flies came--hundreds of flies.  We started out battling them with our lone flyswatter and quickly improved our skills, but we were greatly outnumbered, and we really began to be annoyed when they started biting.  By then, we had closed up the companionway to keep them from invading the cabins below and Peter brought out the bug spray.  It was out-and-out chemical warfare from there.  Soon, we had them dropping like flies!  The floor of the cockpit, the seats, every horizontal surface was covered with dead bodies, and we resorted to using the handheld vacuum cleaner to sweep them up.  We had to empty it out many times and recharge it once.  By the time we reached the mouth of the Delaware, we had overcome the enemy.  The few that were left were dead before bedtime that evening.

Flies on the swim platform

Cape May Harbor has an easy entrance but not much space to anchor, particularly for a boat with a 6 foot draft.  We found a place just past the Coast Guard station, which is a major recruit training facility on the East Coast.  There was a weird current that moved Mantra around all the time so that we were never facing into the wind, but at least we were not sticking out into the channel most of the time.  Soon after we heard Taps, we settled down for a delicious dinner prepared by Ula in the cockpit.  We had just toasted to a successful voyage when we were accosted by a loud male voice emanating from a nearby and smaller sailing vessel.  In staccato sentences, he repeatedly accused us of harrassing him and yelled out for anyone to hear that we were dangerous.  He threatened to call the police and then it was quiet.  Only a short time later, he re-emerged from his cabin to shout out that he had called the police and given a report.  (He repeated every single acccusation and statement during this whole ordeal numerous times--just in case no one heard him, I guess.)  After we had finished our dinner and were cleaning up, we saw a Coast Guard cutter approach his boat and heard people on this boat talking with him.  They stayed there about 15 minutes and then came over to us.  They apologized to us for the disturbance this man had created, telling us that he was a constant problem and advising us to call them if he bothered us again.

The next morning, after we had listened to "Reveille" and "The Star-Spangled Banner" at high volume, we got up and puttered around.  Ula and I continued to find fly carcasses, and Enis and Peter got the dinghy off the deck and the motor out of the forepeak.

At noon, we dinghied over to another Sundeer boat, Pelican Express, which a couple from Santa Barbara have owned since it was built in 1995.  After we looked around their boat, the six of us dinghied into Utsch's Marina, where we left our dinghies in order to go into town.  Bill called up an Uber for the four of us who were older and Ula and Enis rented bikes.  We all met at the center of Cape May, Washington Street Mall, a two-block pedestrian area filled with restaurants and shops.  All of us hungry, we didn't waste time searching for a place to eat but chose the Irish pub where we had been dropped out.  It turned out to be a good choice, and we enjoyed a variety of food al fresco.  Afterwards, we walked along the tree-lined streets, past the lovely old homes and inns for which Cape May is famous, to the beach, where I dipped my toes in the ocean.  As we walked, we engaged in various conversations:  Jean and I about our families, Bill and Peter about boats.  Back at the Washington Street Mall, we succumbed to the temptation of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream.  Well-fed, Bill, Jean, Peter and I chose to walk the mile or so back to the dock while Ula and Enis cycled.  They picked up water, gas for the dinghy and ice en route.

Jean, Bill, Ula, Enis, Sherri and Peter after lunch

Houses in Cape May

Enis, Ula and Peter at Washington Street Mall

We were wondering if we would be verbally accosted again that evening, but all was quiet.  It was a bit chilly, so we ate down below.  As we were finishing our meal, we heard voices and went up to investigate.  The Coast Guard had been summonned for some reason by the crazy guy on the nearby boat.  I ease-dropped the best I could, catching some of the conversation.  They were obviously assessing him for suicidal or homicidal ideation because I heard them ask him if he had ever considered hurting himself.  I also overheard him promise that he would not call them again unless it was an "absolute, absolute, absolute" emergency.  I doubt that they believed that.

The next day (Friday, Sept. 21) we pulled up anchor around 8 a.m. and headed out to sea.  There will be more about this not uneventful sail to New York Harbor in a later post, because Peter is ready to return to Mantra, where we do not have Internet service.  Rain is expected all day tomorrow (Tuesday, Sept. 23), so we will probably remained anchored here for another day.

Cape May, New Jersey

A quick update, because Internet service is poor.  We escaped Baltimore two days ago, leaving right after a morning thundershower.  A few hours later, we encountered rain for a bit, but since then, we have left behind the rain and the humidity.  We anchored the first night out on the Sassafrass River on the northeast side of the Chesapeake Bay.  We pulled up anchor at 3 a.m. and headed to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, and after getting through that easily, we sailed down the Delaware Bay.  Toward the end of the day, the wind died and we had to motorsail around the cape, passing the historic lighthouse, and then go north for an hour before entering the Cape May Inlet.  We anchored near the Coast Guard station for the night.  More of our adventures here in a later post!

Fortunately for us, a couple in their thirties whom we met at the Anchorage Museum accepted our invitation to sail as far as NYC with us.  Ula and Enis have been a blessing.  Ennis is a very knowledgeable sailor and Ula is a great chef, so they have made life very easy for us.  We are delighting in their company.

I hope I will be able to post a lot more in a couple of days.  We leave tomorrow morning for a day on the open ocean en route to New York Harbor.

California Dreamin'

The sun came out for a couple of hours this afternoon, but otherwise it has been overcast or rainy most of the time.  Actually, rain is not that bad, and I can deal with overcast skies to some degree, but humidity is a bummer.  The high humidity seemed to abate yesterday, but it returned today, so that I felt damp just standing at a bus stop downtown!  In addition, our bath towels never dry.  More than sunny California skies, I miss the low humidity of the Sacramento valley.

Yesterday was another unproductive day for me.  I had walked around downtown so much the previous day that my pelvis was quite sore.  This is a leftover medical condition from my pregnancy with Matthew.  (He still hopes that someday I will forgive him!)  Medically speaking, what happened at the end of the third month of that pregnancy is that my hormones caused the cartilaginous joint that  joins the right and left pubic bones to become relaxed.  Walking more than a short distance for the last six months of pregnancy was painful, and the condition never completely went away, although I only notice it when I walk or run for miles.  So, I rested most of the day yesterday.  I walked to the post office in Fell's Point to mail a letter and helped Peter traced a couple of electrical wires.  That was the extent of my accomplishments for Tuesday.  In the evening, Peter and I walked along the waterfront in Canton and had delicious meals at the Boathouse Restaurant.  This was just a respite for Peter; he continued to work when we returned to the boat.

mobile in the entrance to the Baltimore Museum of Art

Today, I went to the Baltimore Museum of Art, which includes one of the largest collections of Henri Matisse paintings and sculptures in the world.  The museum has benefited from the philanthropy of many prominent Baltimore citizens, which explains why it possesses such an impressive number of pieces by Matisse and his contemporaries.  This part of the museum's collection was donated by the Cone sisters.  These two sisters, Dr. Claribel and Etta Cone, who came from a wealthy family, began their collection in the late 1800s while visiting Paris.  For the rest of their lives, they acquired works of art at home and during their world travels.  They became friends and visited the studios of many of the artists they collected, including Picasso and Matisse.  They amassed approximately 3000 objects, including 500 works by Matisse (who was Etta's favorite) and paintings by Degas, Gaughin, Renoir, Corot, Picasso, Cassatt, Pissarro and many others.  They apparently only purchased items which delighted them and used them in their apartments as if they were everyday objects.  The museum had a replica of one of the rooms in their apartments as well as an interactive video installation which provided a tour of their entire apartments (they had adjoining ones) showing how they displayed their acquisitions, including furniture, textiles, silver, pottery and jewelry as well as paintings, prints and sculptures.

The museum, through generous donors, also has works by Franz Hals, Rembrandt van Rijn, Titian and other European masters.  There is a large courtyard with the four walls surrounding it displaying beautiful mosaics from Antioch, which was destroyed by earthquakes in 526 and 528 A.D.  These pieces were recovered by archeologists sponsored by the Baltimore Museum of Art and three other institutions from 1932 to 1939.

Mosaics from Antioch

Mosaics from Antioch

Detail of a mosaic from Antioch

In the American wing, there are wonderful examples of the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany, beautiful silver pieces and entire rooms removed from 19th century homes and placed in the museum.  Apparently, it was a fairly common practice for patrons to donate whole rooms to museums in the early 20th century.

Oval room from a Baltimore home

There were a couple of special exhibitions as well as a wonderful collection of west African art.  Outside, there are two beautifully landscaped sculpture gardens with pieces representative of such artists as Calder, Noguchi, Lipchitz, Rodin and Henry Moore.  I explored the sculpture garden after the inside of the museum, delighted by the blue skies that had replaced the gray while I was indoors.

Part of the sculpture garden 

I rode the public buses today to and from the museum.  Previously, I had ridden the No. 65 bus, which was clean and went through nice neighborhoods near the waterfront.  On the buses I rode today, I was the only white person, and people only sat by me if no other seats were available.  Some of the neighborhoods we went through were dirty and derelict.  Most disconcerting, however, was that many of the passengers were grungy, drunk, high on drugs or all of the above.  At one point, there was a shouting match between two passengers.  The rides were not scary and I don't think I was in any danger, but it was not pleasant being on the bus or looking out the windows.  The waterfront is lovely, but a few blocks back from the harbor, things start to fall apart.

Peter is ready for dinner, and I am actually going to prepare somthing on the boat this evening!  Going out to eat most evenings is a break from the boat (particularly for Peter) but dinner in will be nice also.

Peter has had a relatively productive day.  The wires behind the electrical panel are all organized and tidy now.

Another work of art

It's Raining in Baltimore, Baby (Counting Crows)

I have had the song by "Raining in Baltimore" by the Counting Crows stuck in my head for the past couple of days.  The weather seemed to change abruptly.  Until a couple of days ago, Peter and I would go to bed each night with fans blowing on us and no sheets covering us, avoiding touching each other's sweaty bodies.  The last two nights, with all the hatches closed, we were shivering and had to get out the duvet to keep warm.

I was actually, for no apparent reason (since Peter has been doing all the work), feeling weak and exhausted on Saturday evening, but I planned to catch a bus to Penn Station and then the train to Union Station in Washington, D.C. to visit Lori for a couple of days.  I packed up a few things before going to bed and was ready to go.  But when the alarm went off the next morning, I was not feeling well enough to get up.  (It didn't help that rain was pounding down on the deck above my head.)  Peter even thought I looked like I should stay in bed, so I texted Lori and cancelled my trip.  I went into hibernation mode and slept for hours all morning and afternoon.

The rain let up in the early evening, and Peter and I walked along the waterfront in Canton, looking for a restaurant.  It was nearly 9 p.m., and most places seemed to be closing up, so we walked inland a couple of blocks and decided to go to an Indian/Nepali restaurant, the Himalayan Yak, which we had passed by a few times on the way to Nacho Mama's.  We enjoyed a quiet and delicious meal and then returned to the boat.  Despite the fact that I had slept most of the day, I was able to go right to sleep and didn't wake up until Peter's phone rang about 8:30 a.m.  I feel much better now.

It wasn't raining this morning, so I decided to head downtown.  I had told Matthew that I would help him as he chooses graduate programs to apply to, so I went to the large Barnes and Nobles in the Inner Harbor.  Unfortunately, there was nothing on the shelves for graduate schools.  With hours stretching before me, I set off exploring.  First I visited Westminster Burial Ground west of the downtown area, where Edgar Allan Poe is interred.  (The overcast, misty weather seemed appropriate.)  The graveyard was established in 1787 and was the premier place to be buried if you were a merchant, politician, statesman or veteran of the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812.  Poe was buried here in 1849.  In 1852,Westminster Presbyterian Church was erected over the cemetery, with brick piers straddling gravestones and burial vaults, so that some are now under the church.  Because Baltimore was expanding and land was valuable, the church chose to do this to protect the cemetery as well as establish a presence in this growing section of the city.

Edgar Allan Poe's grave

My next stop was the Baltimore Basilica, or the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the first Roman Catholic cathedral constructed in the United States (after the adoption of the Constitution).  The architect of the U.S. Capitol, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, designed this building, which some consider to be his masterpiece.  (Personally, I like the Capitol better.)  At the time of it creation in the early 19th century, it was the seat of the Diocese of Baltimore, which stretched from Maine to Georgia and west to the Mississippi and eventually the Louisiana Purchase. Archbishop John Carroll and Latrobe chose neoclassical architecture to reflect the style of the buildings in the new city of Washington, D.C.

Sanctuary of the basilica

Altar of the basilica

One interesting feature of the interior is the slave balcony above the entrance to the sanctuary.  The balcony had no seats and was considered the least desirable place for worship.  However, it was and is the best place in the cathedral acoustically.  I am not sure where free African-Americans (who made up one-fourth of the entire population of Baltimore in 1830) were required to be.  Perhaps none of them were Catholic!

I then went across the street to the Enoch Pratt Free Library on Cathedral Street.  In January 1882, Baltimore hardware merchant and banking and steamship executive Enoch Pratt offered to donate and construct a central library and four branch libraries. (There are now 22.)   He stipulated that the libraries "shall be for all, rich and poor without distinction of race or color, who, when properly accredited, can take out the books if they will handle them carefully and return them."  After some debate, the mayor and city council accepted the gift and construction began later that year.  It opened in January 1886.  Currently, the first floor is being refurbished, so I could only peek at the lovely coffered ceilings, clerestory windows and woodwork of the central room.  However, the library was a great place to go, because, with the assistance of several librarians (I love librarians!), I was able to do research for Matthew and copy pages (which one of the librarians did for free since I didn't have a library card).  

It was only mid-afternoon, so I headed down to the Inner Harbor and walked along the waterfront.  On the south side, just east of the green terraced lawns of Federal Hill, I admired the exterior and outside sculptures of the American Visionary Art Museum.  (It was closed today, so I couldn't go in.)

Sculpure at the American Visionary Art Museum

American Visionary Art Museum

Baltimore has some free bus routes--the Charm City Circulator.  I took advantage of this and caught one from Harbor Place on the northwest corner of the Inner Harbor to Fell's Point.  By then, the prevailing mist had turned to a fine drizzle, but I had an umbrella, so I was prepared.

Peter continues to work on the boat's electrical system and navigation.  It wasn't broken; he just wanted to make some major improvements.  And, so, we are still in Baltimore.  We might have been able to depart in a couple of days, but now we have to take into consideration Hurricane Florence.  Following South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia, the State of Maryland today declared a state of emergency.  The weather is only going to get worse before it gets better, so we are staying here in Anchorage Marina, putting out extra fenders, doubling our dock lines and taking down anything that might get damaged by high winds, such as the foresail.

Meanwhile, our daughter Katya, in her last semester at the University of Hawai'i in Manoa, is in the path of the second hurricane in less than a month!  The campus was closed down for four days due to Hurricane Lane in August and now O'ahu is under another tropical storm watch due to Hurricane Olivia.  Yikes!

More History and Boat News from Baltimore

After the laundry was finished and Peter was wrapping up for the day, around 9 p.m., Peter and I walked to the nearby Canton Waterfront Park where there were two stages with live, loud bands along with food trucks and vendors.  The music was not appealing to us, but we found dinner at a Haitian food truck.  Peter had chicken and I had the Caribbean stable of macaroni and cheese, which was really delicious.  We walked back along the waterfront, enjoying a respite from the day's heat, chatted with Matthew when we returned to the boat, and then, of course, Peter had to work on one last thing.  I read until I fell asleep, not waiting up for him.

Canton Waterfront Park concert

We awoke early (for me, at least), at 7:30 a.m., with cool air streaming in through the open hatch.  What a relief!  It seemed like a good morning for Peter to go up the mast and for me to work on mending the mainsail.  By the time Peter got the boatswain's chair and his parts and tools ready, found the sewing supplies, lowered the sail, and explained the sewing project to me, it had already begun to get warm again, but not sweltering hot.  By mid-morning, we were finally ready to go, and I used the electric wench to haul him up to the second set of spreaders.  I then got to work on the sail but found it nearly impossible to pierce the layers of material even with a needle designed for the job.      It didn't matter though, because Peter had to be repositioned on the mast about every 10 minutes, so I ended up staying in the cockpit and reading while waiting for him to call down to me.  (I started reading a collection of short stories by William Gibson entitled Burning Chrome, which Matthew had recommended.  I do not usually read science fiction, but I have enjoyed some of the stories.)  When Peter had finished detaching the piece of damaged mast track and lowered it to the deck, I brought him down.

Peter high up on the mast

He looked at the sewing project and agreed we needed an awl.  Fortunately, he was going to the nearby and frequently visited West Marine for screws anyway, so he could purchase one.  But the welder called to say she had finished the piece she had been asked to make for mounting the screen for the computer on the nav table, so he had to wait for her.  In the end, it was a couple of hours before he completed his shopping trip.  By then, thunderstorms had moved in so it was too dangerous for him to go up the mast and too wet for me to sew the sail.  For Peter, the myriad improvements and repairs he can make to the boat are an endless supply of amusement and fascination (and occasionally frustration) for him, so he was able to stay busy below decks.  There is not nearly enough to distract me, and his projects have resulted in nearly every horizontal surface being covered with parts and tools, so the saloon is not even an appealing place for me right now.  I took a nap and, during a break in the rain, went to the Safeway across the street to get food and dry ice. Then I came to the lounge and watched the U.S. Open men's semi-final match between Djokovic and Nishikori.  Peter joined me to the last set, which we watched while eating a picnic dinner.

Peter's endless entertainment and the critical mess he creates

It was cool again this morning, but the wind was gusty, so Peter thought it was ill-advised to ascend the mast.  I decided to go to the B&O Railroad Museum, and I departed after we enjoyed the continental breakfast the marina provides every Saturday morning.  It is a good opportunity to meet other people in the marina.

Outside of Museum

The B&O (Baltimore and Ohio) Railroad Museum contains one of the oldest and most comprehensive (according to its own publicity) American railroad collections.  (Actually, it is fairly comprehensive regarding the development of railroads east of the Mississippi but has little to offer about western railroads.  Of course, the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento does not focus on railroads in the east--but, then, it doesn't claim a pan-American scope of coverage.  No need to quibble, though--they are both excellent railroad museums.)  The museum is located at the site of the historic Mt. Clare shops of the B&O Railroad.  From this place, in 1829, Baltimore businessmen, surveyors and engineers set about creating the railroad company, laying the first commercial long-distance track (about 30 miles initially) in the U.S. and building the first passenger station.  In the 1820s, Baltimore was concerned about losing out economically to New York and other port cities.  The Erie Canal, completed in 1825, and the proposed Chesapeake and Potomac Canal would take away trade vital to the development of the city.  The B&O Railroad was the response to this threat.

The museum contains locomotives, rolling stock and artifacts (such as tools, time-pieces, dining car china, uniforms and personal memorabilia) relating to early American railroading, particularly the B&O, the Chesapeake and Ohio, the Western Maryland and other mid-Atlantic railroads.  (In a series of mergers and acquisitions in the 20th century, most of these would become the Chessie system and then CSX Transportation, which now operates about 21,000 miles of track.)

The Museum's main building, the roundhouse, is striking when entered.  Originally constructed in the mid-19th century as a passenger car shop, it was the largest circular industrial building in the world at the time, covering more than an acre and rising 125 feet.  Outside and in adjacent shops are more locomotives and rolling stock.  I took a tour of one of them.  Most of the information shared by the knowledgeable guide was focused on the engineering of the locomotives, and a lot of it was not that fascinating for me.  However, he did point out the automatic, continuous lubrication system for a moving part of a steam engine which was invented in 1872 by an African American engineer Elijah McCoy and his son.  Because this system meant fewer stops for lubrication and reduced maintenance, this invention was in high demand by the railroads.  It is postulated that the term "the real McCoy" is based on engineers asking if the locomotives they commissioned or purchased were equipped with "the real McCoy" in order to avoid an inferior product.

B&O Museum Roundhouse

One of the first B&O passenger cars for a short 30-mile run to Ellicott City, Maryland

Part of the museum is dedicated to the importance of the railroads, particularly the B&O, during the American Civil War.  They moved ordinance, food, uniforms, shelter, medicine and other supplies needed by Union troops.  The extensive rail system allowed for the speedy movement of troops, contributing to Union victories in the South.  Because of their vital role, the railroads also became targets; cutting off supply lines was an important strategy for both sides.  Confederate Colonel Stonewall Jackson's operations in Martinsburg, West Virginia (then Virginia) involved not only destroying tracks and bridges but, in 1861, stealing, one by one, 14 locomotives in all from the yard for use on Confederate railroads.  There were no tracks connecting Martinsburg to any Confederate lines, so the locomotives were disassembled and moved along a dirt road by teams of horses to Strasburg, Virginia.  As a result of the need to keep the Northern tracks operational, hundreds of men became trained in railroad maintenance and repair during the war and would later be able to use these skills to find employment.

Another exhibit focused on the role of African Americans in railroads.  Although some of them were highly skilled, they were not offered employment in management nor were they allowed to become engineers, conductors or firemen.  They were relegated to service jobs.  The Black men who were hired by George Pullman for his sleeper cars were chosen from former slaves, particularly house slaves who had been groomed to serve.  Although they were better paid than other Black railroad workers and indeed, better than workers in many industries, they worked long hours and had to pay for their own accomodations, food and uniforms when working.  In addition, Black passengers could not ride in the same cars as white passengers and were provided with inferior conditions.  In fact, in some cases, they were put in the smoking room of cars and had to sit, not even being allowed to smoke themselves, while white passengers used their area to enjoy their cigarettes and cigars. This discriminatory practice was unfortunately upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, establishing the doctine of separate but equal.

I have a hard time dealing with racial prejudice and exclusionary practices.  It seems morally wrong and just does not jibe with my personal experience.  My experiences with people of other ethnic backgrounds do not differ from those with people who look like me.  Here in Baltimore, I can see that there are still divisions.  I can see that people of similar racial or ethnic backgrounds choose to be part of homogeneous groups, but not necessarily exclusively.  I have found myself welcomed and accepted by groups of Black people when I am the only white person around.  When I left the railroad museum today, the rain was pouring and there was no designated shelter at the bus stop.  I was standing under a tree, which was doing very little to keep me dry, when a woman from a house across the street came out with two umbrellas and gave one to me to use while I waited.  She told me just to leave it on the sidewalk when the bus came and she would see it from her front window and come to retrieve it.  About ten minutes later, she sent her seventh-grade son out to stand with me, with the message that the bus would be arriving in about one minute.  She waved from her window as I boarded the bus.  I would have been drenched without her kindness.

Fortunately, the rain had become light by the time I got off the bus in Canton.  I realized that it was 20 minutes before 5:00, the time for mass at the nearby St. Casimir Church on Boston Street, which was constructed in 1925 and dedicated in 1926.  Peter and I had admired this large neo-Renaissance stone edifice, covering an entire city block, with its two 110-foot gilded bell towers, and realized that the only way to see the inside was to go before or after mass on Saturday or Sunday.  I seized the opportunity and was stunned by the magnificent interior.  A rectangular structure measuring 225 by 75 feet, the nave can seat 1400 people.  The large murals above the sanctuary were begun in 1939 and shows scenes of the Holy Trinity and various saints as well as scenes depicting Polish Catholic history and American Catholic history.

Sanctuary of St. Casimir Church

St. Casimir Oarish was an offshoot of St. Stanislaus Kastka Parish in Fell's Point at the turn of the 20th century. It served the growing Polish immigrant population of Canton (whose presence and influence in Canton and Fell's Point can also be noted through inscriptions on buildings marking them as such things as the "Polish Building Society").  In the 1930s, the parish had approximately 5300 members but is now down to 800.

The B&O Railroad played a significant roll in the Baltimore becoming a city populated by immigrants.  The B&O contracted with a German steamship line, Norddeutscher Lloyd, in 1868, to bring immigrants to Baltimore and carry wheat and other agricultural products as well as manufactured goods to Europe.  This mutually beneficial agreement resulted in Baltimore becoming the second largest eastern gateway for American immigration (after New York).  Germans were the largest group of immigrants in Baltimore already, and soon they made up one-fourth of all white people in the city.  Other Slavic people also immigrated on the Lloyd steamships, including Poles, both Roman Catholics and Jews, and they continued to move here through the first half of the 20th century.  Not only did these immigrants help to build the city, they supplied cheap labor to the plantations of the South, who suffered from a lack of laborers after the Civil War.

When I got back to the boat, Peter texted me to come up to the lounge for a party he had joined there. It really a family party for a woman who has just retired from the NSA (and lives with her husband on a boat here), but everyone was welcome.  I arrived just in time for the end of the party, when they were releasing butterflies by the water.

Butterfly release

Butterfly being released