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 10^th, 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