Sailing a 22ft Cape Dory from Boston to Southern Florida
- Thread starter palcuz
- Start date
do you have a dink to get ashore. A must if anchored out. Provisioning will be tough as many anchorages are not close to stores.
viable provisioning will be:
cape may
Annapolis
deltaville boat yard, courtesy car.
Belhaven
Oriental
Beaufort NC
Wrightsville beach
Carolina beach
Southport sc
Georgetown SC
Charleston
Beaufort SC
thunderbolt near Savannah
st Simon
Fernandina
st Augustine
Daytona beach
Titusville
cocoa village
Vero beach
ft Pierce
Stuart
palm beach
after that I don't know
there is various levels of access at these places and some charge to go ashore
Delaware Bay: You can anchor in the Cohansy river about a 3rd of the way up the bay. also Reedy island about 3/4 up the bay. don't steer close to the islands, that is where the flies concentrate. you will go mad without an enclosure! once in the C and D canal you can anchor in Chesapeake city, about half way down the canal. You do need to allow for currents on the Delaware and the inlets of the NJ coast.
there are tons of anchorages down the Chesapeake bay.
it will get COLD. have a snowsuit on hand. wind chill will be brutal.
there are many places to sail or motorsail, especially for a small boat.
the one place you will have zero cell will be at the entrance to the Alligator Pungo canal.
viable provisioning will be:
cape may
Annapolis
deltaville boat yard, courtesy car.
Belhaven
Oriental
Beaufort NC
Wrightsville beach
Carolina beach
Southport sc
Georgetown SC
Charleston
Beaufort SC
thunderbolt near Savannah
st Simon
Fernandina
st Augustine
Daytona beach
Titusville
cocoa village
Vero beach
ft Pierce
Stuart
palm beach
after that I don't know
there is various levels of access at these places and some charge to go ashore
Delaware Bay: You can anchor in the Cohansy river about a 3rd of the way up the bay. also Reedy island about 3/4 up the bay. don't steer close to the islands, that is where the flies concentrate. you will go mad without an enclosure! once in the C and D canal you can anchor in Chesapeake city, about half way down the canal. You do need to allow for currents on the Delaware and the inlets of the NJ coast.
there are tons of anchorages down the Chesapeake bay.
it will get COLD. have a snowsuit on hand. wind chill will be brutal.
there are many places to sail or motorsail, especially for a small boat.
the one place you will have zero cell will be at the entrance to the Alligator Pungo canal.
if Delaware bay is tough current then you aint seen nuthin yet. Pablo Creek at the st John's river is my favorite, 6 knots on the ebb. and current tables are not always accurate, many are off by about an hour. aquamaps has good current and tide forecasting built in. you can use a tablet with a smart phone as back up.
One positive outcome of the pandemic for cruisers was the explosion of delivery services. We used Instacart for almost every provisioning trip. Easy, go online, select the food you want delivered and a few hours later it is at the dock. You will pay a little more for the delivery and some prices are higher with the delivery service, however when you factor in the time saved and the transportation costs (uber, taxi, Lyft) the difference is not that much. There are also beer, wine, and liquor delivery services. 
Add Mattituck, which also has an anchorage and dingy landing in walking distance to stores.
Very helpful advice-thank you. I'm keeping this thread and passing on the advice to my friend Guy, who is making the trip. All info will get passed along. Thanks again!
Trip Update
Hello all- thanks so much for all of the helpful replies. Guy will appreciate them.
Guy is still only on what we will call the first leg of many. He left Monday morning at 10am from Gloucester harbor/Ten Pound island where he was living on the boat. He had planned to reach Scituate Ma, or Plymouth but aa he got a late start and with S winds he had to reach long each tack. Please excuse my lack of sailing terminology as I am only a beginner (a friend of guy and student-I've only got 4 days sailing under my belt).
Guy completed a 22NM leg and chose to moor at Spectacle Island off of Boston harbor. Received a call at 1615 letting me know he was still 9NM off of Spectacle. He had been making 3.5Kt headway. I loosely calculate he had traveled 13KM until that point during the day with 7-12 kt S winds. He would call again at 1930 to report he had reached the island and sent the photo below looking at Boston. The total travel was 21NM.
He hunkered down for the day with low power for his cell phone. We exchanged some texts. He does not have a ton of electrical power and is mainly relying on a tohatsu 6hp motor that can put out up to 5amps to battery.
Now after sitting for a full day at the Island, he plans to motor out past the islands and then head S/SE to Plymouth Bay. Winds should be up between 10-15 kts with gusts to 25. I would imagine he will reef the main in this morning. My Calculations say this could be a 41nm leg to Plymouth harbor. I'd imagine he will get an early jump today.
Standing by.
Hello all- thanks so much for all of the helpful replies. Guy will appreciate them.
Guy is still only on what we will call the first leg of many. He left Monday morning at 10am from Gloucester harbor/Ten Pound island where he was living on the boat. He had planned to reach Scituate Ma, or Plymouth but aa he got a late start and with S winds he had to reach long each tack. Please excuse my lack of sailing terminology as I am only a beginner (a friend of guy and student-I've only got 4 days sailing under my belt).
Guy completed a 22NM leg and chose to moor at Spectacle Island off of Boston harbor. Received a call at 1615 letting me know he was still 9NM off of Spectacle. He had been making 3.5Kt headway. I loosely calculate he had traveled 13KM until that point during the day with 7-12 kt S winds. He would call again at 1930 to report he had reached the island and sent the photo below looking at Boston. The total travel was 21NM.
He hunkered down for the day with low power for his cell phone. We exchanged some texts. He does not have a ton of electrical power and is mainly relying on a tohatsu 6hp motor that can put out up to 5amps to battery.
Now after sitting for a full day at the Island, he plans to motor out past the islands and then head S/SE to Plymouth Bay. Winds should be up between 10-15 kts with gusts to 25. I would imagine he will reef the main in this morning. My Calculations say this could be a 41nm leg to Plymouth harbor. I'd imagine he will get an early jump today.
Standing by.
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Thanks for the update @palcuz A lot of us really enjoy reading about this kind of adventure so we appreciate your narrative.
Nautical miles is usually abbreviated NM, KM is kilometers.
Does Guy have a solar panel? It is amazing how well a smallish solar panel charges hand held electronics. I have a 40W panel at home that was more than enough for phones and tablets when the power went out for a couple days.
Nautical miles is usually abbreviated NM, KM is kilometers.
Does Guy have a solar panel? It is amazing how well a smallish solar panel charges hand held electronics. I have a 40W panel at home that was more than enough for phones and tablets when the power went out for a couple days.
Lol I know NM from KM. I'll correct my typo. I know a little about the ocean lol. I have a boat myself just learning sailing. Oops!
He does have a very small solar panel probably 12 or 20 watts. Not super useful. He has a very restrained budget. I'm not giving all details for his privacy matters. Yesterday was overcast so little charging.
Limited anchorages but I’m sure he must be charting his way so I believe he has a good idea where each leg will take him. Not sure there are any other anchorages from Plymouth until you pass the Cape Cod Canal. He cannot pass thru against the current so timing is important. There is a beautiful anchorage behind Bassett Island Falmouth once through the canal.
Perhaps an early Christmas present would be helpful. The little 5 amps that he can get from the outboard will not due much to recharge his batteries, likewise for the 12 -20 watt solar panel. To be effective, he'll need 50 to 100 watts of solar with a good controller. As a rule of thumb the average daily output of a panel will be about 3 times the nominal panel size, i.e., a 50 watt panel can be expected to actually put out 150 watt hours a day (about 12 amp hours). If he has a Group 24 battery, fairly typical for a boat that size, it will take about 3 days of no battery drain to recharge the battery from half charge to full charge. It will 7 to 10 hours of motoring to provide the same amount of power.
He will be going to the outside of the Cape Cod. No canal. From Plymouth out to Provincetown. He would have to play the tide and they have a four hour limit on passing through. He doesn't really fit the criteria they offer for passing vessels under the time constraint. He may go to Falmouth but won't be sure until he's to Provincetown. I will give an update around 7or 8pm tonight if possible.
I don't understand this. With a small outboard and a favorable tide he should be able to transit the canal in under 2 hours. Going outside and around will make for a much longer trip with few places to stop.
Barry
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QUOTE="palcuz, post: 1760285, member: 161068"]
He will be going to the outside of the Cape Cod. No canal. From Plymouth out to Provincetown. He would have to play the tide and they have a four hour limit on passing through. He doesn't really fit the criteria they offer for passing vessels under the time constraint. He may go to Falmouth but won't be sure until he's to Provincetown. I will give an update around 7or 8pm tonight if possible.
[/QUOTE]
Barry
[
QUOTE="palcuz, post: 1760285, member: 161068"]
He will be going to the outside of the Cape Cod. No canal. From Plymouth out to Provincetown. He would have to play the tide and they have a four hour limit on passing through. He doesn't really fit the criteria they offer for passing vessels under the time constraint. He may go to Falmouth but won't be sure until he's to Provincetown. I will give an update around 7or 8pm tonight if possible.
[/QUOTE]
The outside route is over 80 nautical miles with no place to bail out and the tides around Woods Hole are pretty strong. The canal is only 7 miles long, even at 4 knots it is less than 2 hours.
If these currents are an issue he'll be in trouble in NYC transiting the East River at 14 miles long. And the C&D canal at 18 miles.
If he is thinking to avoid the East River by going along the South Shore of LI, then he should realize the inlets on the south shore are nothing to mess with in a small boat.
If these currents are an issue he'll be in trouble in NYC transiting the East River at 14 miles long. And the C&D canal at 18 miles.
If he is thinking to avoid the East River by going along the South Shore of LI, then he should realize the inlets on the south shore are nothing to mess with in a small boat.
Curious to why the outside is not as favorable? From what we have read the canal may be difficult for the reasons above but I've only done the canal while driving a 80ft whale watch vessel. Is it easier than we believe in a 22ft Sailboat with a motor that is only capable of 3-5 kts? I can understand that the favorable tide would most likely work. Just what we had read? More thoughts? I also believe that Guy was planning to make the journey "sail only" no motor. This may also be a factor. Thoughts?