Never trust NOAA ! ! ! !

SHIP'S LOG:


Fred and I got off from TYC at 7:20am Sunday. we screamed down the Sound in 20 knots of wind to Milford and made it by 4pm . We went and had dinner with Bob and his wife, Livia, and made the mistake of eating to much "exciting food an d drink a tad too much.

We left Milford at about 10pm and screamed out into the middle of the Sound in 20 knots of wind and gusts of 30. We had some navigation differences and Bob wanted to use his experience and didn't quite trust the course I had laid in on the GPS. It was pitch black, except for the shore lights and the buoys we passed. we had the main up[ and it jammed and we couldn't get it furled. We used it and a 1/4 Genoa \and eventually got to Little Bay,just South of the Throggs Neck Bridge at 7in the morning(Monday). We anchored and fixed the main(I've had to do it before) retied stuff, re-stored stuff that got thrown around and up anchor about 8;30AM. We head down the East River and through HELL GATE. WE caught the flow and made an uneventful passage. It was really a great view of Manhattan.

By the time we got to the Varazzano Narrows bridge, the weather began to deteriorate. We put up the Jib and Mizzen and headed off down the Jersey coast. The light drizzle and 15 knots winds showed up and after a couple of hours deteriorated into a gale of 30 knots of wind with gust to 60! with 10-11 foot waves. We pounded in that for several hours while Bobby puked and Fred puked. Eventually we furled the jib, an exiting procedure in 40 knots of wind and went under mizzen alone. At times we hit 8.6 knots, under the mizzen alone!

Sometime in the morning 3-4 am, it was impossible to really steer the boat so we basically heaved to and left boat to fend for herself while we tried to sleep. The back cabin for some reason was a soaking mess and the forward cabin, near the working head, was pitching up an d down10 feet and smelled! So we slept on the floor in the main cabin and on the ex\tended salon bunk.

When the weather settled down abit25-30 knots, gust to 40, 5 foot waves, we decided to head for Atlantic City. We motored the whole way and got in ab out 4pm. We anchored in this little cove and once the hook was down, we unwrapped halyard that had broken loose and gotten twisted, repaired the bimini, cleaned up the cabin( everything and I mean every thing we had so neatly and carefully store was o n the floor), fixed the davits, and mourned the passing of the dinghy, which I had stupidly left in the davits and which had gotten a chamber punctured and decided that we would take naps before dinner. We hit the rack about 6:30pm and woke from out naps at 7am the next morning when the Coast Guard paid us a visit to make sure Fred was alive. His fiancee was overly concerned when he missed a check in time and contacted the Goast Guard. We they couldn't raise us on radio, they came looking and found us just after I had called them in response to the message on my phone.

Everybody called everybody to inform them that we were alright. Strangely when I talked to the CG, they were all that concerned. The officer said that he knew Camper Nicholsons and that it would take more that what we experienced to do them much harm . . . . nice to know.

After cleaning the boat up and having "breakfast" - that is whatever anyone could get down be it chicken pot pie or cashews, and a lot of water, we headed out of Atlantic City at 8;30 motoring for the" Magenta Highway" -= the course4 on the chart plotter to Newport News.

More next time. It;s a bitch trying to type on a moving boat!