Sailing Swains

C&D Canal (Chesapeake City) We left the Cohansey River at sunrise after a windy bumpy night and headed up the Delaware Bay to the C&D Canal. It was a glassy-calm-uneventful-day and we motored the whole way, again staying just outside of the shipping channel. New Jersey was off our starboard and Delaware was off our port. We timed our trip so we hit the canal when the current turned in our favor.  There are places, canals, rivers and bays mostly where there are strong currents and we have to plan our days so they are going in the same direction as we are, if we hit them at the wrong time it can take us a lot longer to get to our destination.  After going all the way up the Delaware Bay and almost all of the way down the C&D Canal, we tied up at the small public dock at Chesapeake City. There were some tricky muddy shallows in the harbor, it reminded us of home! There was a beautiful park and a quaint old village to explore - the town dated back to the cons...

Atlantic City We left Sandy Hook started down the Jersey coast where our first stop was Atlantic City. We left before the sun came up from Sandy Hook. The sound of of dad using the windlass to pull up the anchorwoke me up. It was a chilly day so we all dressed warmly. It was even too cold to be barefoot up on deck. It was still dark when we passed New York City, and seeing it all lit up was so cool. It was a nice day for the trip we were doing, since it was not too windy or wavy, and it warmed up a little once the sun was up for a little while. We motored the whole way. Dr. Bob, who left a few hours after us, passed us in no time. His new power catamaran is so much faster than our boat so, unless he slows down a lot, he will be in front of us the whole trip. One thing that I noticed about the Jersey Shore is that everything looks the same, All the houses and few trees are about the same height, and everything is like the same color. The beaches looked very nice.   ...

Sorry about the delay, we have been having some wifi problems which have hopefully been fixed The East River was a trip that we had been looking forward to for a long time. We were exited, but also a little nervous about the currents and boat traffic. We got up (I did not want to but a metal pencil box fell on my head really early going through a big wake from a powerboat and after that I could not fall back asleep  😒 ) and left Northport at 5:00 am in the dark. It was a beautiful sunrise. It was cool to look at all the other boats and big barges and such as we headed into the East River. Stan really liked looking at different barges and tug boats. We passed a few lighthouses, one of which is extremely haunted because the British would execute patriots and soldiers there. It was called Execution Rock Light. When we got to the mouth of the East River it was very exiting. At one point, near the beginning, Rikers Island was on the port side of our boat, and there was a floating...

On September 30th we were in Northport, on Long Island in New York. There was an amazing farmers market there!!! We talked to the people at Sang Lee Farms who were so nice and have an incredible organic, sustainable farm, check them out here:  https://www.sangleefarms.com Some of our delicious produce we got from the farmers market!!  Fried chicken from the Hometown Bake Shop stand. Delicious apples from the Wickham's Fruit Stand. Yummy potatoes at the Sang Lee Farms stand. Lettuce from the  Sang Lee Farms stand. Tomatoes from the  Sang Lee Farms stand. Eggplant from the  Sang Lee Farms stand. Rainy day at the farmers market!!! The nice people from the  Sang Lee Farms stand. Yummiest lunch ever!!! Everything was from the farmers market.

We have partnered up with the 5 Gyres Ocean Plastics nonprofit who are on a mission to reduce the amount of plastics in the ocean. We are part of the 5 Gyres Trawlshare program to help with their studies they are doing to make an estimate of how much plastic is in the ocean. We do trawls with the Manta Trawl that they provided us with, and then go through the samples for plastics. We are every exited to be taking part in this important study!!! Data sheet from one of our Long Island Sound trawls Our data sheet from our Block Island trawl Data sheet from one of our Long Island trawls Data sheet from our Chesapeake Bay trawl Other data sheet from the Chesapeake Bay trawl One of our samples that was collected in the manta trawl. Going through one of our samples from the Chesapeake. My supplies that I use to go through samples and get all the little plastics out. The samples usually look something like this. One of our trawls in the Chesapeake....