New Haven CT & Gale Warnings

We departed Harbor of Refuge @ sunrise this morning. We felt a sense of urgency due to a gale warning (gusts to 35 knots) which is in effect beginning Thursday afternoon. The cause is two separate low pressures that are having a complex interaction West of our current location.

Below is a rough depiction of our second leg of our journey South. Our course took us from Pt. Judith’s Harbor of Refuge, outside Fishers Island to Morris Cove Anchorage in New Haven, CT.

Today’s cruise was long but relaxing. The sun was streaming in windows making the pilothouse warm as we made way @ 8.5kts West down Long Island Sound.

We saw only a few sport fishing boats and had to dodge the occasional ferry crossing our path.

Every captain knows it’s better to take the stern of larger vessels rather than attempt to cross her bow. Ten or so years ago I had a close with a US battleship @3AM in pea-soup fog in Norfolk, Virginia’s entrance channel. Our close call was not a crossing issue but instead the warship was inbound in the channel and was not basting fog signals. After they suddenly appeared on radar from under the Chesapeake Bay bridge/tunnel we quickly blasted our horn. When they responded with their horn I swear my ears blew out. The warship quickly passed us not 100′ off our port beam (frightening in the fog). A shout out to that day’s offshore crew – Eddie, Sean and Amy who can attest to this poop-your-pants experience.

After this harrowing experience, we installed Kahlenberg triple trumpet air horns as well as AIS (Automatic Identification System) in Simple Life.

AIS equipped vessels can each view on their chart plotter the other’s vessel name, size, speed, heading and course-magnetic. AIS works by sending & receiving digital data over VHF channel 70 so that two ships can see each other on their chartplotter screens even without radar. I  have also learned to that programming your marine VHF with a MMSI # make ship2ship communications easier when it’s dark or foggy.

Tomorrow our plan is to push west down the coast of Connecticut with hopes of catching the 4.8kt ebb tide through the East River (where the dead bodies are found on many Law & Order episodes). Kelly & I always enjoy the East River’s Hell’s Gate (where the Harlem River meets the East River). Hell’s Gate is infamous due to the strong currents that mix in the way a washing machine mixes water.

We hope to make the Liberty Island Marina in Jersey City by sunset on Thursday. We’ll spend two nights at the marina while we wait for more favorable weather for our trip down the Jersey coast. Until then we’ll just sit on anchor watching the lights from New Haven.