Cape May to Newburgh, NY

Another perfect day aboard Bonnie Lee. We pulled out of Cape May at 8:00 this morning. The winds were calm, the seas were flat and there was very little humidity in the air. Ray and I had a beautiful ride up the Jersey coast to New York City. The New York skyline was as beautiful as I can ever remember. There were lots of small pleasure boats out in New York Harbor as we began our ride up the Hudson River.

We pulled into Riverfront Marina in Newburgh, NY tonight a few minutes after 5:00pm after cruising another 205 miles today. Ray's sister Terry met us tonight for dinner. She came with home made chocolate chip cookie for her big brother. THANK YOU TERRY!

The new transmission seems to be working perfectly and all systems have a green light. Tomorrow we run up to Coeyman's Marina where we need to have the radar removed to reduce our height enough to clear the low bridges on the Erie Canal.


Perfectly flat sea conditions coming out of Cape May this morning.


Barnegat Lighthouse


Lower Manhattan skyline

On to Cape May, NJ

So far, "knock on wood", the dynamic duo are having a great trip. We pulled out of Coinjock yesterday morning at 6:30 and started heading north. In the back of my mind I was hoping to get to Cape May, NJ, but things had to go right. Fortunately for us, everything did go right. We covered 230 miles over 12 hours and pulled into Cape May last night at 6:25pm. We didn't have any issues with the bridges and locks around Norfolk which helped. Then we got really good sea conditions. Seas started out flat coming out of the Chesapeake Bay and end up around 2 to 3 feet near Chincoteague Inlet and Ocean City, MD. Not bad at all and the boat continues to run very well with the new transmission.

Today we will head up the NJ coast to NY and then start our trek up the Hudson River toward the Erie Canal. We are not sure where we will finish the day, but we will put as many miles under the keel as we can.


Bonnie Lee getting ready to go back in the water after the transmission was replaced.


On Thursday the generator crapped out. She needed a new impeller as you can see many of the fins were missing on this one.


We saw this mega yacht as we came through Norfolk yesterday.




Saw this ship getting ready to enter the Delaware Bay.


Bonnie Lee tied up in Cape May, NJ at South Jersey Marina.

Back on the Water with Bonnie Lee

This is going to be a quick post, but I wanted to try and get everyone up to speed on this trip. I didn't mean to leave this trip in "limbo", but that is exactly what has happened for the past two weeks.

A quick recap: We lost the starboard pod/transmission on the trip from Charleston, SC up the east coast. We limped in on one engine and ended up in Wrightsville Beach, NC back on July 11th. From there it has been a long road to get the boat repaired. Long story short, the boat has a new transmission on the starboard pod and I picked the boat up yesterday, July 30th. This morning I departed out of Wrightsville Beach with an incredibly talented and resourceful first mate by the name of Ray Batt. Ray was kind enough to help me on very short notice to get the boat up to Buffalo. We ran the boat 232 miles today up to Coinjock, where Ray had the pleasure of partaking in the tradition of the famous Prime Rib. Boat ran great today without issue. We are hopeful for another good run again tomorrow. We might make it up to Cape May, NJ if the weather cooperates.

Our Luck Ran Out

All good things eventually come to and end and so did our luck with Bonnie Lee. We actually had pretty good weather to start the day. Seas about 2 to 3 feet with wind from the south, so we had the waves on the stern. We rounded the sea buoy at Cape Romain around 8:45. We had visions of a 250 mile day up to Beaufort, NC. It was not meant to be. At 10:00am we got an alarm on the Starboard pod; "High Gear Temp". We had to shut down the engine and limp in on one. Seas increased to about 4 to 5 feet with some big swells in there. We changed our course to Cape Fear and came into Southport Marina last night at 5:00pm after 146 miles and 10 hours. We made the best of a bad deal. We will run on one engine up the ICW to Wrightsville Beach today, about 35 miles where we will have more access to marine services. We should be able to have someone on the boat Monday to take a look and see if they can resolve the issue.

Favorable Seas take us to Charleston, SC

Another successful day on Bonnie Lee. We pulled out of St Augustine this morning at 6:55am to a beautiful sunrise and flat calms seas AGAIN! We set the one waypoint for Charleston Harbor which was 214 miles away. At 4:00pm on the nose we hit the inlet marker and came into Charleston Harbor. Seas were flat for the most part today, but by around 1:00pm the wind started to pick up and the seas began to build to 3 to 4 feet. They were not bad at all since it was a following sea, but tomorrow might be another story as the wind is supposed to shift to the north. We are tied up at Charleston City Marina tonight. It is hot as blazes here with temps in the low 90's and it feels like 100% humidity. I am wetter than the boat by the time I am done washing it.


A cargo ship this morning heading to Jacksonville.


This was a car carrier also heading to Jacksonville.


Not much to take pictures of today so....




You know I must have been bored to take a picture of a sailboat.


Fort Sumter, Charleston, SC

On to St Augustine

We had another successful day aboard the Bonnie Lee III. The A/C repair man came this morning around 9:30. He checked the A/C units and everything seemed to be working within spec. He then turned his attention to the generator which was cutting off due to lack of water flow. At first we thought it was an impeller, but it turned out it was a bad pressure switch. He got that all sorted out and replace the switch and we were underway from Port Canaveral at 11:00am.

We got out around the Cape and the seas were ideal. The seas were flat calm with light winds which made for another absolutely beautiful day at sea. We ran 132 miles up to St Augustine where we are staying at the Conch House Marina tonight. We got in just before 5:00pm. Tomorrow it will be on to Charleston, SC as the forecast is for another pretty good day off-shore. Just a few pictures from today.


A casino boat heading out of Port Canaveral.


The helm of the 541


Seas were so flat I had to take a picture.


Coming into the channel of the marina with the lighthouse in the background.




The Conch House Marina

Bonnie Lee: Ft Lauderdale, FL to Buffalo, NY

7/6/15 - I hope everyone had a good 4th of July weekend. Time for the work to begin again as I boarded a Meridian 541 in Lighthouse Point, FL today on my way to Buffalo, NY. Trip should take about 2 weeks and cover about 2,000 miles. The SPOT locator will be on and I will try and post some pictures and a write up of the first day at sea tomorrow.

7/7/15 - We had a great first day aboard Bonnie Lee III. We departed this morning around 7:15am and headed out Hillsboro Inlet. Seas were 2 to 3 feet and a bit choppy, but not really bad at all with the wind and waves coming from the Southeast. About 2 hours into the trip we had to dodge a huge thunderstorm cell. Fortunately the radar picked it up very well and I just ran east about 8 miles or so to get out around it. Once on the trailing edge of the cell I could start to head back north and gradually head east again toward the shore line. I haven't had to dodge a Florida thunderstorms in awhile, but it worked out very well today.

After the close encounter with rain and lighting, the seas got calm and we had a great run up the coast. The boat is running well except it is having a few A/C problems so we called ahead today to make arrangements to get the units looked at in Cape Canaveral. We pulled into Ocean Club Marina at 3:00pm today after 165 miles. We hope to get those fixed quickly and be on our way early tomorrow. Not too much to report today other than a few sea turtles and a couple of dolphins off-shore. The water was really beautiful today.


Departing Lighthouse Point this morning


Very hard to see, but we had a double rainbow as we went out around the storm cell


Tied up in Ocean Club Marina at Port Canaveral.