Perhaps never truer than at sea, weather has the capacity to make or break an experience. Apparently, She wants to remind me of this from the get-go, as David boasts that the weather was "beautiful" until I showed up. This weekend Mother Nature taunts more than scares, but nonetheless she gets her message across: I have left my climate-controlled life back in Naples. It's Her house rules now.

I arrive Friday and, a couple Garmin glitches and 3 stores later, Katie and I re-provision produce and dairy before driving to Stonington to meet my man. As a love offering, David had the boat cleaned and tidied erasing the grime of guys two weeks at sea. For the weekend we will be enjoying the company of Katie and her former college roommate, Emma: the first evening strolling and dining in Stonington - a quaint pre-Revolutionary town with a mixture of clapboard and cedar shake homes - and then the next day, sailing across Long Island Sound for Montauk, NY. We decide to cook dinner on board leaving exploring Montauk for the following day only to find Mother Nature has other plans.

We wake to continuous waves of dank, dismal, gloomy rain. The skies brighten offering hope one moment, only to sap it the next with a fresh deluge. The damp air makes my body feel like it is an infection waiting to happen. I fuss, I fume. Frustration gets me nowhere. I am reminded how profoundly I am affected by the weather - my mood, my outlook, my hair, my joints. I feel powerless and trapped, held hostage by the barometric pressure. Poor David wants me to love this cruising life....and he is receiving no cosmic support at the moment. {I suppose if I can grow to enjoy, or even tolerate, these captive days I will really be on to something}.

The partial clearing finally comes too late in the day and leaves no time to see Montauk on foot. We have to settle for distant, furtive glimpses of "the pretty house" through binoculars and, never having left the boat, we shove off once again needing to return the girls to their commitments in Stonington. David laments that, in all his boyhood summers sailing this area with his family, he never got to Montauk; regrettably, he still hasn't. Lesson learned - don't take Her for granted (especially in New England); when She offers you fair weather, take it - go ashore while the getting is good.

The next morning David and I leave Stonington in pea-soup, surreal fog. Could it be more humid! {I will never again complain about the humidity in Naples}. Damp heavy sheets; still, stagnant, sticky air; visibility in feet, surely not miles. I am feeling home sick - sick in my current home. The gonging channel markers and bonging lighthouse remind us of a day when navigating in such conditions was by sound rather than sight, but we feel fortunate for radar and dutifully lead through the pass as another boat piggy-backs onto our technological advantage. We can barely make out the prominent Ocean House on the bluff in Watch Hill even though we are a mere quarter of a mile off the point. The thick, wet air slowly lifts but the negligible wind brings a fresh crop of feisty flies. Swatting is to be the day's exercise.

Seven hours later we arrive in Cuttyhunk. David working off of 35-year old memories is shocked to see the formerly "undiscovered" island with a packed port. Boats jockey for moorings and anchor spots; ironically the NY couple is the friendliest - who knew? Like sailors everywhere, the nosy New Englanders peer on and pass judgment as we drop anchor and understandably so, because a storm's a comin'. David revs the engines for safe measure while the sudden squall plays with the port, breaking random boats free from their hooks. This one quickly passes, but not knowing what other storms the night might bring, a few of the more timid sailors move to moorings.

But quick studies that we are so recently schooled in our Montauk lesson, David and I admire our secure anchor, ignore the dinner hour, grab a "walker" (his rum and coke, mine white wine) and dinghy in. Everyone is on foot in this teeny, tiny island. We walk this way then that as David works on clearing his cobwebs hoping to locate the ice cream shop of his youth. No luck with that, but we do hoof up the hill and pleased pupils, we are welcomed and rewarded with a panoramic view of the harbor at sunset back lit by the striated salmon sky. Thank you. Yes, I hear You. Lesson learned: dinner waits, Weather rules.

Today we awaken to a cool, clear, stunning New England morning....with a renewed level of appreciation.