Friends and Family September 6,
2014
It’s about time for a sailing and life update. It’s been 8 months since the last blog and
Sally and I are feeling a bit out of touch, though we have seen family and
friends in person as much as we’ve been able to pack get togethers into the
available time and circumstances.
Since we last wrote in January, we mostly resumed living in our house,
rather than our boat. In February, Lynn
flew down to Georgetown, Bahamas to visit friends on their boat, while Sally
helped a friend clean out her late sister’s apartment in Florida. Georgetown Harbor is a bit rolly, but the
company and the sun and sea were great, missing the stresses of weekly storms,
passage planning and boat repairs. At
least to our own boat. This trip helped to show that a great deal of fun remains
in the sailing world.
Back home, we finished, finally, remodeling our kitchen, only to find
that the back wall of our dining room was collapsing. We got this repaired and used the opportunity
to repaper our dining room and put finishing molding on our den bookcases. Lynn also repainted the stairs and the
upstairs bathroom, while winter’s snow and ice covered the outdoors. As part of her recovery from injury and
illness, Sally got back to driving. And
we both spent time baby-sitting our two granddaughters.
In April, Sally’s regular medical checkup resulted in a clean bill of
health, free from cancer for two years, which gives her much better odds for
long-term survival. On Mother’s Day, May
10th, our kids, son-in-law, granddaughters and Emily's boyfriend spent a day in the
city having brunch and visiting the Central Park Zoo to celebrate Sally’s
birthday, Mother’s Day and Survival. It was a wonderful celebration!!!!!!! Sally was so happy to have all our family there.
Also in May, friends came to stay in Manhattan for a month and we went
to plays, dinner, Central Park and a boat tour – more time in the city than we
ordinarily have in a year.
We also cleared up a crucial but confusing aspect of our hitting the
construction sheeting at the Melbourne Bridge.
Sally’s friend, Linda, cleared up the sequence of events, which I had
mixed up. Most importantly, our bridge
mishap occurred after our stay at the Cape Canaveral Marina, not before. The night before the hit, we had gone out to dinner,
then went shopping late at night for provisions for the Bahamas. We were up until 2:30am, then I got food
poisoning and was sick the rest of the morning.
So, when we went back to the boat and headed down the ICW, I was sick
and exhausted, just getting by, so didn’t see the grey construction shrouding
on the grey, concrete bridge. With
Linda’s added information, the accidental strike and damage to our mast base
(loosened it up) and our headstay (not evident then, only later) and to our
captain’s ego became understandable. So
in May, the damage to my sense of boating expertise was much reduced by having
an explanation that made sense.
In May we also arranged for a delivery captain to bring our boat back
north. This trip began in early June and
resulted in the boat getting as far as Cape May, New Jersey. The delivery crew encountered some rough
weather and the radar quit working and the head stay (wire from upper mast to
bow of boat) broke. So Sally and I drove
south to Cape May and started our summer sailing season there, getting the
repairs made and sailing north through New York City and east on Long Island
Sound to Huntington. We saw the front
half of a submarine on a barge on the way up the East River; never saw that
before.
We stayed at a mooring at the Huntington Yacht Club and got to enjoy the
pool and snack bar with Brooke and her family.
We also stayed a bit longer to help out with a babysitting situation. Then, with Hurricane Arthur coming up the
coast, we sailed east and north, up the Connecticut River, where we tied up to
a dock and hid from the winds, though not the rain, a downpour for two days. We then met up with some sailing friends on
Fisher’s Island, near Mystic, Ct., then sailed up Narragansett Bay to our
boat’s winter home in Bullocks Cove. The
marina there is large and very well protected from any storms that might come
along while we were away from the boat for a month’s trip to Lynn’s side of the
family in California. We also got to see
our younger daughter there, as she is attending graduate school nearby at Brown
University.
For parts of July and August, we flew to California to visit family and
friends and get Lynn’s nephew married to a lovely Indian woman. My (Lynn’s) parents are 90 and 92 and still
kicking; mom made it to the wedding and walked my nephew down the aisle. My older brother, who is very ill, was able
to attend, a deeply moving demonstration of real determination and love.
In August, we flew back home, did some needed babysitting and took off
on the boat again, taking our younger daughter and her boyfriend with us. We had very nice Westerly breezes and had two
sunny days of great and fast sailing to Nantucket. Just before we turned south to enter the Nantucket
channel, we were going 9.4 knots, which is like 140 in a Porsche. Nice!
We stayed in Nantucket Harbor for two weeks, seeing our daughter and her boyfriend, then
two other couples, friends who have houses on the island. It’s the longest, most unhurried stay we’ve ever
had there and reflects both having a great time and not having to worry about
any schedule, like getting back to work, as neither of us are working now.
Another friend joined us and sailed to
Martha’s Vineyard, where we stayed for a few days. Then she left on the ferry to return to her
job, leaving Sally and I alone for the first time since early July. Holy Cow!
Who are you? We then sailed
further west, to Cuttyhunk, in a thick fog.
We stayed there two nights to wait out adverse weather and found
ourselves right next to our old boat, Regulus II, renamed Judy after the wife
of the buyer, a psychiatrist from Boston.
When he bought the boat he insulted her looks, but we could plainly see
that, in 10 years of ownership, he hadn’t changed a thing about her ivory and
burgundy colors.
Anyway, we went on yesterday to
Point Judith; a beautiful day, but with
winds on the nose, so all motoring. Plus
the head plugged up and I (Lynn) spent 6 hours, while Sally steered, taking the
toilet apart and getting seriously dirty.
Finally diagnosed the problem as a jammed hose between the toilet and the
holding tank, which means I got to screw a snake (cable with pointy spiral end
and handle for turning it) into the blocking mass and pull out bits of it, over
and over until the blockage fell apart and moved on. Scrubbed and sanitized the entire bathroom
(head), then boiled myself in a vat of Lysol.
Just kidding! Toilet worked fine
for about 18 hours, then plugged up again.
Once more into the breech…….
Psychologist turned sailor turns plumber for a day. Third and fourth times I’ve had to do major
head repair on a boat. Yuch!!!
That's all for now. Love to you all, Lynn and Sally of Southern Belle
