Day 2: Cape May to NYC

Eleanor Gets a Bite of the Big Apple

In my happy place with my best captain at the wheel, watching Lady Liberty and feeling the vibe of possibility—while we are absorbed in the daily routine of cruising, we are not unaware of what’s happening in Washington. My female freedom freak is ON. The only thing that could make it better is— nothing, absolutely nothing.

It wouldn’t be a cruise without a hitch or two. Casting off from Cape May got a little tricky when our power hook-up wouldn’t let go of us. We wrestled with it (mostly Jon wrestled with it while I searched for the dockmaster) before a friendly dock mate showed up with a wrench. And we were off. I helmed for a bit off the coast of New Jersey, checking out Atlantic City and Asbury Park, while Jon went back to YouTube University for a quick lesson in power cord repair.

Then under the Verrazano -Narrows bridge…

And into the traffic…

Four tugs plowing by us, amidst many tankers and ferries.

The Newport Marina manager, duck poop cleaner and tour guide, Mike, gave us a Jersey City greeting, complete with safety instructions.

Me: We have bikes aboard. Is it okay to ride around the city?

Mike: Yeah. Youkin ride a bike up der.

Me: But I mean, will we get run over?

Mike: Well, it’s Jersey City so you can’t promise a person you won’t get run over…”

We opted to walk to dinner…

View from our walk to dinner

Having lived in Jersey City for about 15 minutes in 1996 (the y.o. the launch of MSNBC) I was thrilled to not only see my old digs, but many, many neighborhood improvements.

I lived in these new-at-the-time apartment buildings, with a view of the then-WTC, in 1996.

Back at Eleanor, for a nightcap, as the many evening dinner cruisers slipped by….

AND NOW- A WORD FROM THE CAPTAIN:

When Terese launched this Substack site, my friend and fellow boater, Dale Mattison, wondered if we were furtively trying to start a GoFundMe for our diesel fuel bills. Actually, while Dale has a great idea there, that is not it. We are just ignorant about how to use Substack and haven’t figured out how to turn off their relentless auto-begging messages. Please just ignore them and register for free.

About thirty years ago I was talking with my friend and former neighbor, the late Chris Wood, about our respective project boats. Chris opined, “The problem with project boats is you never catch up.” He’s right of course. Boats break. Even new ones. The advantage of new is fewer things are broken at the start, so you can sort of keep up for a while. With an old project boat, something – sometimes many things – are broken so you always have something to fix. Hopefully not of the magnitude the break-down keeps you tied to the pier.

When we bought Eleanor four years ago, she was seemingly solid but in need of a lot of cosmetic help. We dealt with the major issues and got underway frequently as we dealt with the various deferred maintenance issues. Eleanor has been a great day boat for parties of up to twenty people, but we seldom got her underway for overnight cruises.

There is a huge advantage of an old project boat. You can’t really hurt her. Anything you do will only make her better. We have used the “patina of age” line a lot to explain away any warts. Thanks to YouTube University, and this new found fearlessness of tackling mechanical issues we have jumped in and fixed a lot of things…sometimes several times before we got it right. It has really been an awesome experience. But now we are ready to move on from fixing to cruising.

After an intense winter and spring of maintenance we came up with a reason to head out to sea. The International Women Writer Guild annual conference in Bristol, Rhode Island. As you have read, the first two days were really a repositioning of the vessel. We dashed Eleanor up the Chesapeake, out the Delaware to our first overnight in Cape May, for a run of about 150 miles in eight hours. The second day was another 150-mile run, out in the Atlantic and up the coast to New York harbor. Now we will slow the pace to more leisurely 30-50 mile days with time ashore to explore the coast of Connecticut.

As far as current projects, I decided when we got underway to just take a break. My perpetually unfinished to-do list will be waiting for me after we get back, or so I thought. I should have consulted Eleanor first.

The vacuum head pump is cycling too frequently, despite my replacing 80% of the parts in the system over the winter. Seems the other 20% are asking for attention. It’s currently working so I will address this in Bristol while Terese is at her conference. Requires pulling up the carpet, which means taking two doors off their hinges, so not a quick job. Then the shore power cable got stuck in the corroded power pedestal at one of our stops and while we got it out, the cable end needed rewiring which I was able to do underway while Terese drove.

That’s it from the bilge rat end of things. Back to the Cruise Director for more. Plus Terese is a better writer, as her numerous awards for “Finding Waypoints” attest! Available on Amazon and fine bookstores everywhere.