Through the fog an hour after sunrise, Bluebird floats in the ebbing tide, awaiting the end of her season, the temporary death of my dreaming. It's hard to let it all pass. Just beyond her, in the trees on the far shore to the left, Robin sits waiting for my ministrations. No spare time to weep.

I just returned from the river and a two-hour sail/drift aboard Bluebird. Our neighbor Rich Vishton came along. After showing a bit of passion as we stood on the dock, the wind withdrew, and to call it a sail would be to stretch the facts. Still, it was nice to be on the water.
My friend John Morrison is heading south today from our marina in Maryland. He plans to reach Marathon, Florida, where he will take a mooring for a few months. His wife, Fran, will meet him there. For now, he has as crew a fellow he knows from the marina. I've offered to spend a couple of weeks helping him along if he needs me. I owe him for the many times he's helped me with Robin. (And I enjoy sailing with him, truth be told.)
At the same time, I've applied for a job in journalism and have reached the point where I took a test yesterday. No word whether I've scraped by, and I'm frankly not certain I want to. Having spent more than two years unemployed, while I've missed the steady income and the sense of accomplishment that work provides, I've also enjoyed the freedom to move around, on the water and on land, and to be with my grandchildren.
I guess my feelings are the definition of ambivalence.

Robin made it home to Cambridge, MD, and about three weeks later, Monica and I flew to Alaska for one of those glacier cruises.
First, we went to Denali, also known as Mt. McKinley, which we saw from a bus about 75 miles away.

We took a long train ride to Anchorage through your standard Alaska spectacular scenery.

This was followed by a week on a cruise ship that got close to several glaciers, close enough to hear the thunder rumble through the shifting ice and see shards of glacier fall, as if in slow motion, from the 200-foot-high face of the glacier.

When we flew home, I fetched Robin from Cambridge, brought her up the Delaware River to a marina on the far shore from our home. There she now sits on dry land, propped up by four jack-stands, her mast disconnected and down on the ground, all of her parts awaiting my winter-long inspection.
I've begun work on a new project -- a book or a long magazine piece -- a portrait of the small New England town where I was raised, centered around or focusing on a profile of my father, Archie Campbell, who, as a newcomer to the village, became a civic leader who, twenty-five years after his death, is remembered and revered when town folk gather to discuss their community.

The thunderheads were in sight to the northwest, towering above North Jersey as they marched toward New York City. They would miss Robin.
But then the sky to our west began to gather in a steamy gray-gold wall and I suspected the city wasn't nature's only target this day. By mid afternoon, the lightning was visible over the shore towns north of Asbury Park. Robin was about three miles offshore, and soon the lightning was closer and the rain began. I had everything buttoned down, just in case the "severe wind" materialized.
It didn't, and by the time we were off the Shark River Inlet, the storm had passed.
Then a wind came up just off the bow and soon we were able to motorsail.
With the help of the wind, Robin made six knots or more all night. There was very little traffic off the coast, and I took ten minute naps to ward off that crash into sleep that can befall the sailor who attempts a true all-nighter.
Dawn came around Ocean City, NJ, and Robin was on anchor at 10:30 a.m. in Cape May Harbor, her passage from Manhasset Bay having taken an even twenty-five hours.
The anchorage was unusually full when I arrived -- unusual for a Tuesday morning in late August. I was forced to look for enough depth in parts of the anchorage I'd never before used, and I discovered plenty of deep water on the eastern end, near a green daymarker. I made a mental note to head for that spot immediately the next time I stop in Cape May.

In preparation for this particular passage, I had studied the charts and the cruising guide specifically to search for a safe harbor in or near New York Harbor. Twice when I've made the trip down the East River, I've encountered brutal conditions at the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Both times, I had help. This time I was alone.
The first time was the 2008 trip that Monica and I had taken to Cape Cod. All the way down Long Island Sound, the wind had been strong from the east. We sailed at top speed, enjoying the ride without needing the engine.
We discovered the cost of such sailing when we turned east to go under the Narrows bridge. There, the seas had been building for three days ahead of that easterly wind, and Robin confronted four to six foot walls of water, bucking her bow up to the sky again and again. On a day that we planned to end offshore with Cape May in our sights, we scurried for cover behind the arm of Sandy Hook to wait for improved weather.
The second time was in 2009, when John Morrison, Curt Michael and I ran into fog so dense that when we passed below the Narrows Bridge, we finally saw the structure, straight overhead. It was an action packed hour or so when we passed out through the ambrose Channel, searching for buoys while hearing the thrumming of massive ship engines passing by to our port, completely invisible to us.
Now, I'd searched the charts for an escape route and had found none. So my plan was to do my best to get to Sandy Hook, well beyond the Narrows by several miles, and spend the night there.
The day started overcast, and the image of a fog-bound Narrows filled my mind. I motored slowly, since I had all morning -- until about 11:30 -- to get to Hell Gate. First I passed La Guardia Airport and then Reikers Island Prison.


And then I was through Hell Gate and motoring south on the East River. There was very little traffic -- one tug with a barge and one New York State freighter connected with its environmental protection office.
As I approached the South Street Seaport Museum, I saw a high-speed ferry idling just off the wharf. I radioed on Channel 13, asking the captain where he was headed.
The surprise was that I didn't get the sarcastic response I'd earned in New London. Instead, a very polite captain came back to say that he would move out of my way.
Amazed, I took advantage of this gracious behavior to cross to the east -- Brooklyn -- side of the river in preparation for cutting behind Governor's Island, the short route to the Narrows.
Now the landmarks came one after another.

When Robin passed through the Narrows, the seas were calm, and at three o'clock in the afternoon, when we were off Sandy Hook, the sun was shining. The Coast Guard was transmitting an urgent weather bulletin on Channel 16, warning of severe thunder storms approaching New York. I could see them, but I was unconcerned. By now, I'd phoned Monica to tell her Robin and I were headed for Cape May, non-stop. I figured I be there in the morning around 9:30 if all went well. I'd be using my kitchen timer to take 15 minute naps during the darkest part of the night. But I felt invigorated and ready for the night alone at sea.

Had it been colder on Sunday morning, the weather would have been raw. There was a damp in the rain blowing from the south that got under even good foul weather gear and an intensity that bordered on fog, limiting visibility in the anchorage when I was ready to head out. I got the anchor up and then followed on the chart plotter the reverse of the course that I had established entering the evening before.
This time, I ran aground.
It was a mud bottom and so the grounding was silent and deceptive. I didn't know it had happened until the bow dipped down as the after section of the keel -- the deepest part -- ran up onto a mud mound.
I worked the throttle forward and aft and shoved the tiller to port and starboard and eventually, Robin broke free and I was on my way west in Long Island sound, bound for Manhasset Bay.
The bay was calm when I arrived, and I steered for an area of about 15-foot depth near the western shore, well protected from the existing southerly wind. Once the anchor was down, I had an opportunity to examine the bungalows that lined the nearby shore.




While I probably do not agree with, or have unbounded respect for, many of the folks who recently have participated in the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, I do however doubt that in many cases there is justification, either in terms of risks taken or talent brought to bear, for the amount that the owners of these dwellings draw from our economy in comparison with the compensation paid to, as an example, an inspiring middle school teacher who opens the minds of children who otherwise would likely live their lives without appreciating their world.
In any case, I had a good night's rest, preparing for the Monday passage through Hell Gate and the voyage down the East River toward an anchorage in Sandy Hook, NJ.

My traveling for the next two days was controlled by the time on Monday when the current changed at Hell Gate Bridge, where New York's East River ends and Long Island Sound begins. You are best served by arriving at Hell Gate at slack tide, when the waters are calm and the current is slow. Earlier or later and you will be in a boiling sea that will have more say in which way your boat goes than you do.
I wanted to make as much distance on this day -- Saturday -- as I could so that on Sunday I'd not have to push too hard to get to Manhasset Bay, my favorite anchorage near Hell Gate.
As I studied the charts, I felt that my best choices for Saturday night were along the Connecticut coast, where there seemed to be a greater selection of anchorages. I had no plan to spend money on a mooring when I had two perfectly good anchors mounted on the bow.
By mid day, I saw that my progress was sufficient that I could probably make it with daylight to spare if I aimed for the Norwalk Islands. The cruising guide talked about one spot as a well-protected anchorage, although with somewhat shallow approaches. I decided that would be my destination.
By late afternoon, when I had the anchorage in sight, the wind had picked up from the west southwest. I followed the buoys toward the anchorage, in the center of a ring of small islands, according to the charts. But now I saw that some of the islands were little more than sand spits with no trees or structures to block the wind.
By now, however, I had cast my lot. I turned into a cut between the islands that the cruising guide said was my entrance. The depth sounder red 1.5 feet as I crossed the most shallow part of the entrance. Inside, the wind was blowing 15 to 20 knots, unimpeded. I took Robin up to the center of the anchorage, just short of where the chart said the depth was too shallow for Robin's 5-foot keel. Then I reversed the engine, halting Robin's progress. Knocking the engine into neutral, I raced to the bow and lowered the 45-pound plow anchor. Then I raced back to the cockpit to put the engine in slow reverse in the hopes of setting the anchor in the sand.
Somehow, the anchor dug in on the first try, and I was secure for the night. Frazzled, I went below and heated some dinner and hoped for the best as the wind moaned through the rigging.