I will try to recap the last 3 days in short order.
First, this might be one of the best boat names I have come across: "Julie Said Yes!". I love it. It sums up how a lot of us ended up having a boat.
My journey started very late on Sunday (4/28). I flew from Wilmington around 7:45pm up to ISLIP airport on Long Island, NY and didn't get in until 11:30pm. This not my normal routine as I like to get to the boat early to complete my inspection and get ready for the first leg of the voyage, but prior commitments kept me in Wilmington until late in the day. Gene, the owner, was very understanding and we did our inspection and had a brief chat, before we called it a night. His brother Chris had already called it a night, so those introductions would wait until the morning. All of our dialog leading up to the this point along with a spotless survey led me to believe that there would not be any issues with the boat which turned out to be the case.
We were up at 6:00am the next morning. I got to meet Gene's brother Chris who was making the passage with us. Gene and Chris are as good as they come. Both guys have a great sense of humor, so I knew this was going to be a fun trip. We were now just waiting on a fuel truck to top off our tanks before we left.
The fuel truck was right on time showing up at 6:30am. By 7:00 we were topped off and ready to roll. Just one small issue, Hurricane Sandy has left the great south bay a total mess and Fire Island Inlet is almost impassable. I had spent a few hours on Sunday afternoon making phone calls to obtain some local knowledge on how to get out the inlet. I got very lucky and spoke to Capt Paul at Sea Tow. He agreed to meet up with us at the mouth of the Patchogue River and lead us out the sound and through the inlet. We waited for Capt Paul to give us a call and at 7:50 we shoved off the dock to begin our journey.
Capt Paul did a great job of leading us out and at 8:50am, we cleared the Fire Island Inlet sea buoy and had nothing but 160 miles of open Atlantic Ocean between us and Cape May, NJ. The seas were a bit bumpy running 3 feet with an east wind at 10kts. The 44 Sea Ray took the seas flawlessly and we had a good run down to Cape May.
We came in the Cape May inlet at 2:30 after 170 miles from Patchogue, NY. The boat was thirsty and needed some more go-go juice to get us the last 72 miles to the top of the C&D canal. We pulled into Utsch's Marina in Cape May and took on 242 gallons before heading back out. We were racing to make Summit North Marina before they closed at 6:00pm. We had called ahead to let them know we needed fuel and we made a slip reservation for the night, so we were feeling really good when we got to the marina at 5:50. Unfortunately for us the fuel dock was closed (they let the dockhand leave early) and the restaurant was not open on Monday. I guess they didn't really want us to spend $500 bucks at their marina. So we turned the boat right around and got back on the C&D and ran a few more miles to the Chesapeake City Marina & Inn. There was no fuel, but at least we were going to get a nice meal. The Inn was great and we had a fantastic meal. By 9:00pm it was all over but the snoring.
The next morning we were up at 5:30am and off the dock at 6:05. We knew we needed to stop one more time for fuel since we were not able to top off the night before. We had quite a bit of fog, rain an mist on the Bay all day long, but the Raymarine Radar was really dialed in and we had a clear picture that allowed us to run hard all day. By 8:15 we had already covered 55 miles and were pulling into the Bay Bridge Marina on Kent Island, MD to take on our last bit of fuel before finishing the Chesapeake Bay and running up the Potomac River.
After the fuel we were on the Bay again at 8:50 making our way for the last 160 miles. We turned at Point No Point Light into the Potomac River around 11:30.
Then a funny thing happened. I had given a call to a friend of mine in Wrightsville Beach that I knew was traveling up to DC on his trawler. He had left our marina about 2 weeks ago. I gave him a quick call to see if he had made it yet. Come to find out he was about 10 miles ahead of us heading up the river. So as luck would have it. We got a few running shots of each others boats.
We pulled into Belmont Bay Harbor marina at 3:00, right on schedule. I got to met Julie and we settled "Julie Said Yes" into her new slip. We finished 452 miles in just 2 days. By 5:00pm I was in a rental car driving back home to Raleigh. This was just a great trip that could not have gone any better. Thanks again to Gene and his brother Chris for a most enjoyable voyage.
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