First day of our trip from Stamford, Connecticut to Punta Gorda, Florida… well, actually we left Stamford, CT yesterday on 11/21 and cruised across Long Island Sound to Oyster Bay, NY returning my towboat to Oyster Bay. We needed to depart at 0400 to have a favorable current through East River and Hell Gate… that was a too early our normal end of season routine… Normally, we would leave from Stamford towing the towboat… Once out into Long Island Sound, Susan would take control of SAILS and I would jump on the towboat and run it to Oyster Bay….then Mitch (my employer) would run me back out to rendezvous with Susan on SAILS. So, we left yesterday and spent the night in Oyster Bay… this also enabled us to have dinner with Mitch and his wife Donna which is always a pleasure.

Gorgeous sunset as we crossed Long Island Sound with the New York City Skyline... :)

We departed this morning from Oyster Bay a bit later than planned at 0440 and headed out to Long Island Sound and west toward New York City. Even departing 40 minutes later than planned we still ran with a good boost from the current… hitting a top speed of 13 knots passing through Hell Gate. We carried the boost in speed well out of New York never dropping below 7 knots until well down the Jersey shoreline.

One whistle please... as we passed port to port with this gigantic container ship at the Verrazano Bridge exiting New York Harbor.

Of course as always the Jersey shore is filled with fishermen… this year seemed to be even more than normal and they all feel like they own the water and several of them would blowing their horns at us and waving us off when they felt we were too close to them.

Conditions offshore were not that bad… we had a west wind 15 to 20 knots and a southeast 4-6 foot swell but had a very long period…. Felt like you were being rocked in a cradle… and we hugged the shoreline eliminating any wave action from the west winds… the ride was not flat clam but very comfortable!

Arrived to our originally planned destination Manasquan at approximately 1400… made a command decision… continue to Atlantic City… another 7 hours or so but the sea state was pretty good… tomorrow could be horrible... ETA 2100.

We arrived to Atlantic City at 2110… winds had increased to steady 25 knots with gusts over 30 knots out of the WNW… We did nto notice any increase in wave height as we were heading into Atlantic City when this happened like someone turning a light switch on… We were securely docked at Gardner’s Basin at 2140. Our position tonight is N39°22.597', W074°25.264'. We traveled today for 17 hours covering 122.8 nautical miles averaging 7.2 knots.

We departed from Punta Gorda, FL on April 4, 2015 and arrived to Stamford, CT on May 5, 2015.

Overall: 32 days
Moving: 24 days
Stopped: 8 days
6 days MTOA Southern Rendezvous Daytona Beach, FL
1 day in Chesapeake City, MD waiting for weather
1 day in Atlantic City, NJ waiting for weather

Distance traveled: 1,689.61 statute miles
Moving: 221.67 hours
Averages:
70.4 statute miles per day
7.62 miles per hour
9 hours and 23 minutes per day

Marinas, Docks, Anchorages:
14 nights PAID docks
1 night PAID Mooring Ball
12 nights FREE docks
5 nights anchored

Departed Manasquan this morning at 0615 hoping that the seas had calmed down enough for us to continue to New York today. The SE swell was still present but not nearly as large as we had seen from Cape May to Atlantic City. I checked with the Admiral (Susan) and she gave me the “ok” that the seas were acceptable and we continued north bound for New York City.

We were close enough to New York that we were seeing the effect of the flood tide into New York Harbor and were seeing a nice boost in speed running over 7 knots all the way to Sandy Hook where we really got a boost pushing us over 8 knots all the way to the East River. It was still fairly early in the day and we decided to continue on to Stamford and complete our trek north today.

We continued up the East River and the current boosting us was soon gone and just before we got to Hell Gate we had the current turn on us and we were facing a 1.5 knot current through Hell Gate. Amazing how quickly it changes from slack to a 1.5 knot current within a few minutes. We had this strong current for only about a mile or so and it was down to maybe half a knot by the time we reached Riker’s Island and switched back to a boost once in Long Island Sound.

We arrived to Stamford, CT our final destination of the trip at 1545 and were securely docked at the Seaview House Marina at approximately 1600. Our position at the marina N41°02.387’, W073°31.318’. We traveled today for 9 hours and 45 minutes covering 71.6 nautical miles averaging 7.4 knots.