Great Loop Cruise Video

Thanks Bill, but that seems more like an ad for Sea Tow than valuable data. What I find today is that we're suffering from information overload. I have a couple of sources that give some pretty good info, but nothing beats your eyes on the water texture and color. It seems like every day I get barraged with 'get this app for your I-phone or Android'. In the end people are too busy looking at their notes from questionable sources or gluing their eyes to their chart plotters that they don't know how to use to notice the waves breaking on the shoal in front of them. We're all familiar with Active Captain. They have some good info and programs. But they are so consumed with being the latest with the greatest, and barraging me with e-mails telling me to check this or that program out that I've stopped even looking at them. I delete their e-mails unread. TMI! People spend their entire lives sitting behind their desk checking or buying the latest gizmo so they can tell their friends they have it, and their boat never leaves the dock. Not my style. Bet I'm one of the only guys on here that doesn't carry a "smart" phone. I don't even connect my "dumb" cell phone to my e-mails. Tonight I was having dinner with the boss and he gave me a weather forecast that didn't sound right. He was on NOAA, and getting forecasts for Hudson Canyon. We'll be running along the Jersey coast. So I connected him to Dial-A-Buoy, but by the time I zoomed in here so I could read it without a microscope, then panned over there for the next 3 words of the sentence, etc., etc. I thought I'd go blind. Nope, I'll stick with my trusted sources, especially talking with the locals and other cruisers on the same route.

I want to give props to Newport Marina here on the Jersey side of the Hudson. Beautiful facility, great view of Manhattan and you don't get the wakes barreling in like at Chelsea and North Cove, just some gentle rocking. I got one of the best nights sleep I've ever gotten on a boat. Lots of side-to docking, wide basins, 50 & 100 amp service (although the voltage is still low, but adequate with our boosters. Wonder if the utilities are just cutting back in the summer heat.) Anyway, for anyone heading through this area I highly recommend them. If you want to visit Manhattan it just a water taxi ride across the river. Oh, and their dockage was a few dollars per foot cheaper.

Tomorrow at 0900 ESTwe'll be casting off and cruising down NY Harbor heading for Atlantic City. If you haven't crusied past the Statue of Liberty, under the Verrizano narrows bridge out to the ocean and would like to have the experience log onto our bow cam at Valhalladoestheloop.com. Enjoy.

I was hoping to die or at least retire before having to get computerized, but business demanded it. Now I'm hooked. I'll hold off on the smart phones as long as I can, so I can maybe have something left to retire on. I think all men (and a lot of women) are closet tech junkies at heart waiting to be set lose with the latest gizmo.
Looks to be a nice day on the water tomorrow. Have fun.

Valhalla is underway.0820

Probably just my winter pounds on the starboard companionway, but we'll blame it on the camera angle. The tabs are on automatic.

We just passed Barnegat light and have an ETA at A.C. of 1550.
These are the days this boat is made for. Nice relaxing cruise. Just how the boss likes it.

That would have been us, and thank you. I have yet to be able to pull her up and was wondering if the guy sold us an empty AIS box. Did you pick her up on Marine Traffic.com Live Ships Map - AIS - Vessel Traffic and Positions or some other site? Even sitting here in Atlantic City I don't see any boats with AIS and I know a bunch around me have it.

BTW, the after the refit and a couple of months getting fixed what the yard didn't work on despite being on the list the boat seems to be running very well. We did have one issue when docking the other night and again this morning. We have hydraulic controls. The other night docking I had forward and reverse on the port engine at the lower helm, but no neutral. (Yeah, that was fun.) This morning when I started the motors I noticed that the port was in forward. Again could not get neutral. From the upper helm it worked fine, and since using the upper helm everything is working fine at the lower helm.

Another problem we're having is technology. I don't expect anyone here to be able to help with this. I'm just grumbling. We can't get the KVH to work. Trying to find a tech. I've got 2 remotes with about 100 buttons. Hit menu and it asks a million questions about what I want to hook up, etc. and then can't do diddly squat. I just want to watch a little TV. Hit an on button and maybe another to change a channel. Is that asking too much of this world? The other tech grumble is that our WiFi keeps going out. We get it working for like 3 days and then nothing. Last time our tech guy said it was that Verizon decided to disconnect us for some nuts reason about us monitoring our own security systems so they decided we really didn't want to be hooked up. DUH! So almost to Atlantic City our cameras and WiFi went down again. I'm sure my tech guy was thrilled to get my call on a Sunday evening.

DK if the camera was up at the time or if anyone caught it, but we had a whale pop up about 200' ahead of our boat today, again off to our side and a third time behind us off Little Egg Inlet. That was pretty cool. I know there are right whales in the area, but this looked white. May have just been the light though. In all my years this is only the 2nd whale I've seen in these waters. Definitely a thrill.

Don't think it would help. Apparently we just don't show unless we're in the ocean. But at least now I know we should be visable to other boats. May try moving or changing our AIS antenae at our next layup.

Our radar is always on, but it's wired to our GPS anyway and uses the VHF antenae.

Good advice on the hydraulics. I'm not familiar with these systems, but that sounds right. Thanks for the instructions.

Trying to get a KVH guy on board with short notice at this time of year is tricky. Fortunately we had a guy from close by doing a demo in the marina today. He stopped by, but wasn't able to get things going with the tools he had. So he's having his teck meet us in Cape May tomorrow.

BTW, the camera is back up. Evidently the moden they used is the latest and greatest and of course has bugs. But it also has self-diagnostics and self-reset. So it brought itself back to life. Can't say I understand this stuff, but as long as it works and I've got a number to call when it doesn't all good.
If anybody's watching we should be pulling out tomorrow about 0900 or so for about a 3 hour run to Cape May.

Pics

Here's a few pics from yesterday