Southbound Journey (10/25/20)

Hi everyone,

The Margarita is Southbound on our journey to Virginia first leg.

Ed decided 2 weeks before we departed to redesign the engine room. It was a huge project to take on just before leaving, but Ed pulled it off. He is unbelievable; he says he loves to challenge himself…

He ripped out all of the fuel lines to both engines and installed all new fuel lines… Installed two new sea strainers… Installed a step fuel filtration system…

Took both generators completely apart and rebuilt both of them… Installed all new shut-off valves and labeled them all…  A lot of other details as well… Installed wooden seats over the areas so he had better access to get into difficult areas.

Just a lot of work and it all came out really nice and now there is a lot of space down there as well.

Sunday, October 25:

We pulled off the dock in the morning. Long Island sound was really nice, really clear skies.

We saw a huge submarine being escorted in by two huge tugs. The men were on top of the sub, really cool to see.

Great start to our journey.

I just couldn’t believe this…

A chickadee flew under our front windshield and hung onto our windshield wipers. It was so cute and so small.

I said “Wow, what does this mean?” I knew it was something but my books are home.

Then about an hour later, Ed said, “Meg look, look!” The chickadee returned and started flying up and down on our starboard side of the boat, peaking into our windows.

Omg, it was so cool.

My girlfriend Rena sent me a text and said, “The chicadee knows we are a light on the ocean!”

I loved that.

We pulled into safe harbor Capri in Port Washington, NY, and fueled up. We docked the first night, due to us not wanting to drive through East River in the dark, and also Ed wanted to check all of his work that he did and make sure there were no issues.

Great marina, and we made dinner on the boat and checked the conditions of the next day.

I said to Ed, “I like this marina, it’s better then Rat Island.”

Ed said, “Meg, Rat Island was free…”

I started cracking up.

You boaters get it…

“It’s NY,” I told Ed , “Everything in NY is expensive.”

Monday, October 26:

We took our time getting off the dock due to the tide and current being against us going through East River.

When we did go through, the fog was pretty thick, but not a total white out.

We headed to our anchorage at Sandy Hook and the waves were pretty high and the wind was strong.

The waves on the Jersey shores were 10 feet and I wasn’t interested in going out yet.

Sandy Hook had 7 other boats anchored in there along with a huge ship, all waiting for the weather.

At the moment we are cruising the Jersey shores heading to cape May. We saw dolphins and I’m searching for a whale.

Big rollers out here… It’s the Jersey Shore…

“Sea” you soon,

Meg