Monthly Archives: June 2021

Sheltering at Sea, Part 3: Staten Island to Atlantic City

Posted on June 28, 2021 by | 8 comments
Moon over Atlantic City

Sunday, April 5, 2000 HR (8 PM)

It’s not too cold. I’m not wearing my wool cap, and my nose and hands are warm. I’m in the stern cabin. Through the thick plexiglass port I can see a blurry moon.

We’re starting our second night in Great Kills Harbor in Staten Island. We arrived midafternoon yesterday. To Vov’s delight, we were able to anchor in the same spot he’d kept Nemo. The mooring field is empty-ish; there were a few boats moored, but most haven’t come out of their winter quarters yet. We could see a few people in the spit of land surrounding the mooring field, but they were distant and far off.

We used the time to catch our breath, and do some basic housekeeping. Vov fished, and caught five shad. We boiled them and ate them with mayonnaise. They were delicious, despite the mouthful of bones.

Fishing in Staten Island

It was surreal watching Vlad fish within the borders of New York City. Technically we didn’t need to, of course. We had plenty of food.

But it was a sort of test-drive for times to come… as was our laundry routine. Today was sunny, and we hadn’t had the opportunity to wash clothes for a week before we launched. So we washed laundry on the wings of the boat, and hung the clothes up to dry. To wash, we used buckets filled with seawater and biodegradeable soap, with our limited freshwater reserved for the final rinse.

Vov also repaired the rudder on my kayak; he’d brought his tools and fiberglass repair kit along with. Not something I would have thought of!

Meanwhile, I curled in my tiny cabin and worked. The aft cabin isn’t large enough to stand up in, although I can sit up straight (with crossed legs) in the middle, on the cushion that covers the entire floor. Most of the time I brace myself with my back against one wall and my feet against the far wall, balancing the laptop against my knees. It’s more comfortable than it sounds, and Mully often likes to crouch in the cave under my knees.

Today Mully explored the boat a bit more. He also ate (and by all appearances, greatly enjoyed) the shad. Now he’s with me in bed, alternately sitting on me, walking over me, and perched in very unlikely positions on the slanting walls.

Vov is asleep already in the main cabin.

We haven’t really talked about where we’re headed next, other than that the next sheltered anchorage is Atlantic City, a 90-to-100 mile straight shot down the coast. Vov thinks it shouldn’t be too difficult to do all in one go with the right wind, which should arrive very early tomorrow morning (between one AM and three AM). That sounds grueling, but he’s up for it; and not so long ago, during the Everglades Challenge, we were both sailing through the night as a matter of course. So he’s gone to be bed early to catch a few hours of sleep.

We both have a strong strong sense of urgency to get down south.

Staten Island to Atlantic City

Partly it’s the weather, which can be variable this time of year. Supposedly we’re getting snow again in the northeast, and high winds are on the way.

Partly is that we we won’t be into a really comfortable harbor until we’re in the Chesapeake Bay. And partly it’s the same uncanny premonition that’s driven both of us since before we met, the feeling that something bad was going to happen, and we needed to be prepared. What, exactly, that “preparedness” entailed we were still discovering. But heading south seems to be part of it.

Mully is restless. I need to let him out a bit more. But not just yet….

It’s quiet except for the sound of tires. Someone is driving on the spit of land close by. And the whir of the air vent that sounds like crickets.

The boat rocks in someone’s wake. It’s the last thing I feel before falling asleep.

Staten Island Sunset

Tuesday April 7. 2138 HR (9:38 PM)

Sound of tiller scraping across hull, lines slapping gently against mast. Beautiful full moon rising over the water. Wind blowing in background.

Yesterday was difficult. We sailed 95 miles from Staten Island to Atlantic City. It was sunny and clear (ish) but cold, with chop. Vov woke up and and launched at 0230 HR. I couldn’t sleep much after we launched, so I got up and tried to work. That didn’t go so well. I felt seasick staring at the screen, so I abandoned the attempt and clambered into the cockpit to keep Vov company.

We arrived in Atlantic City around 1730 and moored. It had been an… exciting ride. We’d averaged between 6 and 7 knots due south, but gone faster over the water when you factored in the jibing. (Jibing is like tacking, except you do it downwind, not into the wind). When the trimaran heels, only two of its hulls are in the water; the other one slices through the air above the waves. And (I would later learn), jibing is the most dangerous type of sailing. So all in all, it was.. exciting.

Today we rested. I worked (depleted all the batteries!) while V napped, showered, and strategized about the trip. For dinner tonight we had sardines and “rice salad” : Garlic, onion, corn, dill, rice, and mayo. I’m calm. Not yet sleepy. I work until midnight, until my laptop runs out of juice.

Atlantic City Sunrise

Weds April 8 0900 HR (9:00 AM)

Cool, overcast, light wind. Preparing to take shower, out on the wings. There’s enough privacy where we are anchored. To shower, we will heat water on the stove, and pump it through the 1-gallon manual pressure sprayer.

This morning when I woke up, there was a feeling of sunshine in the world beyond. Even though it was gray and cold outside, it felt like the sun was rising somewhere.

I felt Mully warm and solid against my stomach, a warm weight between my ribs and hipbone. He sleeps inside the sleeping bag in the mornings. We plan to sail to Cape May today, then anchor for a few days to wait out the winds.

A strong storm front is coming; 50-knot winds are predicted. It will be my first storm at sea (on a sailboat at least.)

Mully and sky

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Sheltering at Sea, Part 2: Escape from New York

Posted on June 14, 2021 by | 6 comments
Christina Rose (lower left, with sail) passing Manhattan. Photo by A.A.

We wake early.

So far, so good. Christina Rose had handled fine during the 7-mile Hudson crossing to Croton Point. We’d travelled at a speed of 8-10 knots, with a gusty, 20-kt wind. It was bouncy, but manageable.

Mully hadn’t enjoyed the trip.

He spent the crossing in his hull tunnel, a tunnel that ran about 10 feet from the stern cabin under one of the shelves in the main cabin. We couldn’t reach him there, but we could hear him (he would occasionally emit a quiet “miaow” in response to our frantic calling). He must have been cold and terrified, but after we anchored he crawled out and snuggled in the sleeping bag with me.

Now he’s sound asleep, and complains a little in his sleep when I try to pet him. The boat is creaking, with water sloshing around me. And the wind is alternately howling and huffing. The sky is gray and lowering, the water has ominous gray and white ripples.

But the barometer on my watch says the weather will soon improve…

Vov is doing something in the main cabin, I can hear him.

Moving carefully so as not to disturb Mully, I open one of the door panels and peer out.

Ah.

Vov’s dicing onions at the tiny sink. Breakfast will be potatoes with onions, bacon, and eggs.

The plan for today is to sail down the Hudson to Staten Island. Vov had an anchorage there, in Great Kills Harbor. It was where he’d kept his sailboat, Nemo, for many years. It was about 50 miles, a straight shot down the Hudson and New York Harbor.

The route. Today’s in yellow.

Then again, there was no guarantee we’d make it that far.

Was Christina Rose even seaworthy? She’d survived several nights in the water and the 7-mile crossing, but this would be her first real test.

And was it even legal to sail in New York, given the shutdown? Would we get stopped by the police? A few days before, the Coast Guard had issued a notification saying, effectively, that it would not be imposing any controls on boating traffic due to the pandemic. But New York City was, as promised, shutting down everything–including marinas, and so far as we knew, waterways.

If we made it… then what? We hadn’t really decided. The plan was to get out of the Northeast, but we hadn’t had much time to put more thought into it. We had friends in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. And there was always Florida.

But for now, the goal was to get past New York.

After breakfast, around 7:30, we set off. It was gray, raw, and overcast. We huddled in the cockpit, sipping the coffee V had made.

Manhattan ho!


It was strange sailing down the route I’d paddled so often. Under the Tappan Zee, the George Washington in the distance. Even for a spring morning, the traffic was unnervingly absent. The radio was silent, only the occasional crackle of life.

When would I paddle this route again?

As we approached the George Washington bridge, a thought occurred to me. My friend A.A. lived in Hoboken, a few blocks from the river. On impulse, I called her.

She was repairing her air conditioner, but dropped everything when she heard we were headed downriver. We wouldn’t be able to stop and visit, but at least she would see us as we passed Manhattan.

And, as it so happened, document the event (see top photo). We were almost too far apart to recognize each other, but we waved frantically and shouted.

The goodbyes, we later agreed, felt strange and solemn and scary.

We’d sailed from Croton Point to the George Washington bridge, but after the bridge we put on the motor. The goal was to get out of New York waterways as quickly as possible, before the police stopped us.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen, although it was impossible to miss us. We were the only boat on the water, which was uncharacteristically calm, with a glassy ripple. I’d never seen the river so empty, even in the dead of winter.

The familiar landmarks slipped by. Then an unfamiliar white box shape caught my eye. It was the hospital ship, the USNS “Comfort”, docked at Pier 90, just a few blocks from one of my paddling “home ports”.

Hospital ship on the Hudson

It was an eerie, science-fictional feeling to glide past a military hospital ship docked in Manhattan. We had no idea how bad the pandemic would turn out to be, but if the authorities believed we needed a hospital ship… that wasn’t good.

We continued down the Hudson, past the Battery, past Governor’s Island. True to my watch’s barometric predictions, the weather had cleared and it was a warm, slightly gusty spring day. Once we were fully in New York Harbor we cut the motor and returned to sailing. Although we hadn’t arrived in Staten Island yet, we were past the most sensitive area. If the police were going to stop us anywhere, it would have been in the Hudson near Manhattan. That they didn’t was a good omen.

One that we hoped would last for the rest of the trip!

We made it! Under sail once more.

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Sheltering at Sea, Part 1: Taking the Leap

Posted on June 7, 2021 by | 20 comments
We’re off!

“We could shelter at sea.”

The idea sounded crazy. Launch a sailboat from New York City, head south, and live aboard it for an unknown amount of time?

But then, the world had gone crazy.

It was March 15, 2020. Vov and I had just completed the Everglades Challenge, his 7th (or 8th, we aren’t quite sure), my second. We were driving up from Key Largo, Florida to New York, catching up on the news.

We’d been out of contact with the outside world for over a week. Things seemed to have taken a dramatic turn for the worse: Apparently New York City was on the verge of being shut down due to the pandemic.

What did that even mean, “shut down”?

Would they close the bridges and tunnels? The downside to living on an island is that during a crisis, you can be trapped. I remembered what happened on 9/11, and fought back a rising sense of claustrophobia.

Over the 20-hour drive, we obsessively scanned the news and discussed our options.

We could shelter in my apartment, the larger of the two. We’d be reasonably comfortable.

But my apartment is just a few blocks from what was shaping up to be Ground Zero for the pandemic: Mt. Sinai hospital.

If this disease were as contagious as reported, we’d have an increased chance of catching it in the narrow aisles of the grocery store, in the apartment lobby, in the elevator…

There was always Vov’s apartment in Nyack. That felt safer, and it was just a block away from the Hudson River.

But it was a one-room efficiency; no way could I manage to work there if we were both staying there.

As we ticked off the miles on I-95, the idea of sheltering at sea made more sense. Particularly if, as Vov feared, the pandemic were merely a harbinger of total societal collapse.

I didn’t think that would happen, but I couldn’t say it wouldn’t. And even if it didn’t, things could get pretty grim. I’d read John Barry’s account of the 1918 flu. At least on board a sailboat, we could leave the country if things got really bad.

More realistically, we could head south, out of the early-spring gloom. Although we didn’t know much about this virus, it’s true that ultraviolet rays are generally anti-viral and anti-microbial. And even though the phrase “social distancing” was just emerging, it’s safer to be miles away from your neighbors than breathing the same air.

Still. Living on board a sailboat? For an extended, indefinite period of time? Vov had spent over a decade living on a sailboat, so the idea made sense to him. But me? Despite the fact that I’d spent the past five days as crew on an inflatable catamaran, I didn’t even begin to know how to sail. Could I work? What about Mully, the cat that found me?

We talked through the details. Mully could live on the boat with us. We could bring the kayaks, both for recreation and as dinghies to get from the anchored boat to land. We’d get solar panels, and batteries, so I could work. We’d stay near the coastline, so we’d be within range of cellular Internet services.

As the miles ticked away, the idea of sheltering at sea began to make more and more sense.

The only question was which sailboat.

Christina Rose

Vov had a sailboat, but it was in dry dock. It needed repairs to be fully seaworthy, and with a pandemic closing everything down, getting the equipment (not to mention launching the boat) seemed risky. We could afford a used sailboat, and Vov had the model in mind: an F-27 Corsair trimaran. The wings would provide stability for me to work (trimarans don’t heel the way monohulls do), plus extra living and storage space.

But could we buy and outfit a boat fast enough?

As I drove, Vov researched. We found five boats that might work: Two in Florida (now hundreds of miles behind us, and receding rapidly). One in Ohio. And two in Massachusetts. Ohio, like Florida, seemed too far away.

Vov made inquiries about the Massachusetts boats.

We arrived in NY late Sunday morning. By Monday afternoon we’d picked Mully up from the vet where I’d boarded him. We made a hurried sweep through the apartment and grabbed what I thought we might use.

Then we headed for Nyack: Mully, gear, and all.

Less than a week later, on Saturday March 21, we were in the yard of a friendly man named Dave, in Massachusets. We met his price for the Corsair, Christina Rose. He said we could pick it up as soon as the check cleared. We drove back to Nyack and began stocking up frantically.

Three days later, Vov drove to Massachusetts, put a fast coat of bottom paint on the boat, and drove back down to Nyack.

Meanwhile, I made a final visit to the NYC apartment and picked up anything I thought we could use. Before I locked the apartment up I took a long look around. When would I see it again?

No time to wonder. Curfew would start that evening, and the rumor was that the marinas would be shut down, too. We’d pulled the two kayaks out of John F. Kennedy Marina where we kept them, just hours before the authorities closed it.

But the private marina where we were keeping Christina Rose was beginning to push back. We needed to launch, and fast.

We got her into the water on March 27. We worked frantically finish stocking it, peripherally becoming aware of the illogical grocery store shortages: Water was rationed. Toilet paper was nowhere to be had (fortunately Vov had a supply of marine toilet paper.) Hand sanitizer was gone, but rubbing alcohol was plentiful (so we stocked up.) We also bought plenty of on canned vegetables and fish, along with rice and pasta. We’d bought a supply of freeze-dried food on the way north from Florida, so we had that.

By April 1 we were ready to launch. It was a cold, gloomy afternoon. With some trepidation, we motored out of the marina. Once out on the Hudson, Vov raised the sail. We were en route!

Who is “Vov”? How did I come to be completing another Everglades Challenge, this time on a sailboat? And how did we fare sheltering at sea?

Stay tuned…

Setting sail!

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