6/3/2023 - Departure Day: Mystic, CT to Sturgeon Bay, WI

Aries' Journey: Mystic, CT to Sturgeon Bay, WI (Summer 2023)

This post is part of a series chronicling our trip aboard SV Aries from Mystic, Connecticut to Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Follow along as we document the challenges, milestones, and memories along the way.

Saturday 6/3/23 we picked up Captain Josh Metcalf, took care of provisions and with the guidance of our newcomer, went through a few maintenance checkups before casting off at roughly 5:45PM ET, heading towards New York. The wind expected to increase to 20 knots later in the evening.

This departure was surreal in many ways. The preceding week had been hectic, trying to get everything ready and functional, and suddenly, we were casting off, and stepping into very new experiences for the family.

The first evening, exciting as it was, turned out to be overall uneventful aside from nerves and jitters. Would the engine prove dependable? Did we flush the water tanks adequately after having been sitting stale over winter? Did we rig the sails reasonably well? Would the electronics, navigation, the new AIS and the various instruments work?

The weather overnight gave us a nice boost of speed without throwing too much challenge our way. Waves were manageable, wind was robust, and the only memorable challenge was surfing the waves as they approached from the stern all night.

I took the evening shift with Captain Josh making sure I didn't do anything terribly dumb. Around 1am, I called it quits, handed the helm to Captain Josh and got some much-needed sleep. Britt took over around 5am, calm, morning, with sleeping kids. So far, we'd covered roughly 85 miles in 11 hours and passing south of Stamford, CT.

6/4/23 New York

It's funny, at least it was to us. Around 6:30am the skyline of what I'll loosely call "New York" emerged in the horizon. But it would take till early evening 12 hours later to make our way around Manhattan, up the Hudson River and leave the cities behind. The initial reacting, seeing the landmarks is an incredible high, but then the experience of taking hours approaching, and hours leaving the given sight behind, is a stark contrast to the more hectic life on land we're used to where sights come and go rapidly as we drive or fly by them. On a sailboat, time takes on a different meaning. It almost becomes secondary to distance.

The trip around Manhattan was an incredible experience. A stone throws away, people were packed tight, with traffic and space both hectic. On Aries, life calm, incredibly scenic and a view of New York few people will experience.

Before I make any claim that everything was without surprises, I have to share that since departure, we had been lightly troubleshooting an engine heating issue and having to top off coolant every few hours indicating a slow leak somewhere. We decided to drop anchor in front of the De Novo European Pub, trying and succeeding to find a good spot where the river current wouldn't cause our anchor to drag. It appeared to be mostly, or fully clay, and we didn't move at all.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures. But the leak was from a very old hose in a location behind the engine I could reach but not see. So, fumbling blindly, the hose was removed, the cracked end cut off and a new section reconnected. Issue fully resolved. The occasional overheating issue, and subsequent coolant top off behind us.

Around 7PM on 6/4/23 we left New York behind, slowly heading up the Hudson towards our first destination, the Castleton Boat Club where we would be unstepping masts. Captain Josh, the personification of confidence, had me unconvinced we could tackle this ourselves. Aries is a ketch, so not only the imagined impossibility of unstepping a mainmast, but we additionally had a mizzen to deal with.