A Week Aboard S/V Sabado: 8/14/2022 – 8/21/2022

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Last Sunday, we left the dreamy little town of Lewes, Delaware, and headed North to New York. It was flat calm, not even a breath of wind. Our anchor chain was caked in black, slimy mud. We set up a saltwater wash-down hose and rinsed every link as we brought it up.

We gave everything a quick freshwater rinse once we were finished and headed out.

I must’ve hit a wave wrong on the dinghy the day before because my upper back was causing me a lot of pain. I took some Advil and laid in the cockpit like a mummy until it kicked in. I took over at the helm after lunch while Ray tracked down some noises inside. 

As our boat moves and flexes over time, we’ve noticed the interior wood trim pieces come loose and start to squeak, so Ray has been cutting up those thin, flexible plastic cutting boards and jamming pieces in various nooks and crannies to stop the squeaking. It’s a continuous job! 

We brought the jib out that evening but had to keep an engine on through the night. 

We’re a bit annoyed with the amount of motoring we’ve had to do lately, but we’re trying to get to Boston by the 25th, so we’ve chosen to keep moving when we can. 

The moon was bright, and the breeze was cool; a nice uneventful night for us! 

We woke up the following day to the New York City skyline in the distance. We decided to anchor by Sandy Hook, cutting our trip 2hrs shorter than if we were to go all the way to the Statue of Liberty. We were exhausted, so the closer, the better. We dropped our anchor and headed to bed. We napped the rest of the day and still slept through the entire night.

The following day we decided to drive by the Statue of Liberty. We read online that the dinghy dock we used last time we anchored there to get to shore upped the price of a day pass from $10 to $40. Several boats were already anchored there, and the ferries were passing through, going 30kn, throwing massive wakes every 10mins. A stark contrast to our experience in 2020 during COVID, when we were the only boat there, and the ferries only came by twice a day…

Here are some photos from our 2020 trip:

We decided our experience was too special to taint, so we cruised by, admired Lady Liberty, and continued toward Long Island Sound instead. 

We picked up a mooring ball in Port Washington. We’d heard plenty of good things about the area, but it exceeded our expectations! The mooring balls are first come, first serve, are sturdy/seem to be well maintained, and are free for one night! There’s a water taxi that will pick you up and drop you off wherever you want on shore: restaurants, the grocery store, Target, West Marine- you name it! The water taxi was charming, and the driver shared stories about the town during our trip.

The area’s setup is ideal for cruisers; no need to fuss around with Ubers or delivery services. Everything has a dock for the water taxi to pull into or is just across the street from one! We had lunch and cocktails at the waterfront steakhouse, then strolled through the town until we found a coffee shop. 

We taxied back to the boat and did some chores while the weather was still cool. I worked on our next YouTube video and did some cleaning while Ray started to tackle the watermaker project we’ve been postponing… At this point, I feel like that saga deserves its own write-up. 

We had planned to leave the next morning but woke up to no wind despite the forecast saying we’d have 18kn+ the night before. We checked the updated forecast and rescheduled our departure for late that afternoon, hoping to catch some wind for a nice overnight sail to Newport, Rhode Island. 

We headed out around 3 pm and excitedly raised the main and brought out the jib, anticipating 15kn of wind once we got further into the Long Island Sound. Unfortunately, we only saw ~2-5kn, with storm clouds in the distance. We gauged the storm as it approached- it didn’t look too bad on radar. We were expecting a bit of a breeze and some rain. 

In a matter of seconds, the wind jumped from 2kn to 22kn. We put on our life jackets and started reefing the sails. Reefing is always a little more complicated for us since we have wind turbines, you don’t want to get any lines caught in either turbine. We reefed the main and brought in the jib a bit. We shut off the engines and sailed for a few minutes until the rain started. We got soaked. The wind picked up. We put a second reef in the main, and the wind instantly began to die. We rolled our eyes, shook out that second reef, and brought the jib back out. Conditions were changing so quickly that I didn’t have time to put my gloves on, so I rubbed my hands raw dealing with the lines.

The rain finally subsided just as the sun was setting, so we left the main reefed for the night. We changed into dry clothes and marveled at how well Sabado was performing- we were maintaining good speed, and the helm was well balanced. She sure loves a reef in the main.

Ray took the first watch shift, and we sailed on and off for the rest of the night. We watched the most beautiful sunrise and brought out the gennaker once we had enough daylight.

It was a perfect morning! Sunny, blue skies, 70 degrees…, and we were sailing! What a treat. ❤️⛵️

We pulled into Newport that afternoon. Newport is a fancy maritime town. There is always tons of boat traffic, and every boat is perfectly maintained. The anchorage was packed, so we picked up a mooring ball. We decided to dinghy to shore for lunch and a couple of drinks before heading back to bed to recover from our trip. We took a lap around the mooring field, drooling at all the beautiful boats, before tracking down a spot for our usual: a burger and beer for Ray and a salad and sangria for me! 

Friday morning, we checked the weather and compared the nightly costs of staying in Newport vs. Boston. It’s substantially cheaper to hang around Newport, and we had a weather window in sight that would still get us to Boston on time. So, we extended our stay with the Harbor Master and headed to shore to do some chores. We brought in some trash and two heaping bags of laundry. The Maritime Center here is great, so we were able to dump our garbage, start a load of laundry, and grab a mimosa right down the street. 

We returned to Sabado, put away our laundry, and worked on a “to do before we leave the USA” list + budget. The plan is to head to warmer waters in November!

We decided to stay home on Saturday. Ray serviced one of our winches that had started making a gnarly noise, and I attempted to make new covers for our fenders. We saw a boat in Georgia using sweatpant legs as fender covers, which seemed like a much more affordable option than purchasing replacement covers. So, I ordered some men’s XL long sweatpants after I threw our covers out (they had grown an entire ecosystem while we were on the dock). 

I guess we’ve got some chubby fenders though, because the sweats I bought didn’t even fit over our smallest ones! I gave myself rug burns on my knuckles trying to make it work before enlisting Ray’s help. Ray strung the fender up in the cockpit, covered it in dish soap, and forced it on, only for it to be too short. I don’t know what extra wide-legged  + extra extra long sweatpants that other boat used or what dimensions their fenders were, but this was not the solution for us. I guess we’ll be buying some replacement covers after all.

Today we’re thinking of heading to shore to do some exploring. This is our second time in Newport, but we’ve only checked out the main strip near the Maritime Center, so we might try to venture beyond that today! I’ll take some photos for you guys; it is such a cute town!

I hope you had a great week. ❤️