Mark's enjoying his Father's Day with a day-long passage up Long Island Sound to the town of Port Jefferson. We've been back on Nancy Lu since May 20 after a month long trip home to get Claire out of college for summer break.



PART I, TIME AT HOME:
We packed a lot into that trip home! We arrived at West Palm Beach on April 18 after an uneventful crossing of the Gulfstream from Morgan's Bluff, Andros Island, Bahamas. We spent a few days in WPB before we traveled via a rental car to the marina in Brunswick, Georgia where we had left our Suburban in the parking lot there. The Suburban started right up since Mark had the foresight to disconnect the battery before we left. After a quick visit and a "spot of tea" with our Scottish friends, Linda and Geoff, on their boat at the marina, we dropped off the rental car and continued on our way home.

We did a little side trip to El Dorado, Arkansas to see my parents and grandmothers there.



I enjoyed going to the First Baptist Church preschool Wednesday morning to watch Mama, as Smokey The Bear put on a play about fire safety that she'd been working on, volunteering her time and talents with the kids. That night, I went back to church with her to "Mission Friends" while she taught. I got a kick out of going over to Aunt Joanna's house later that same night with Mama to "watch them" watching their show, Survivor, and visit during commercials! During our time at Mama and Daddy's house, I cooked up some of the Mahi Mahi that we caught in the Bahamas and froze. The fish was part of a bunch of food that we put in a styrofoam ice chest and brought all the way home with us in order not to waste it.



I think they enjoyed the fish! It was fun to share a little bit of our Bahamas experience with them. We had nice visits with both Grandmama and Grandmother, too! I'm so glad we took the time to make the Arkansas detour!

Once we got home, we hit the ground running! We didn't even get to our driveway before we saw our neighbors, Sherri and Jim, out working in the yard and received an invitation for later that weekend to the first of two steak dinners that they shared with us at their house.



She's a FABULOUS cook and a gracious host! That night, we had dinner out with our other neighbors, Dale and Carol with Michael and Jean (who keep an eye on our house when we're gone) after a nice visit around Dale and Carol's fire pit.



We also enjoyed a couple of strolls through Michael and Jean's beautiful gardens while we were home.



We had too little time with other friends, but I was grateful for the time that we did spend together.



Some of the time spent with friends took place at official gatherings like the church picnic where we were introduced to Bocce (by a nice couple, new to the church since we left)



and I taught one of my children's church friends, Abigail, how to knit with a "knitting Nancy Lu"--how nice to share what I shared with some of the Bahamas kids with a "home girl"! The reason we left The Bahamas as early as we did was so that I could make the Ladies' Spring Retreat at our church.



It was fun to be with my lady friends and so inspiring! Another official gathering that Mark and I enjoyed was driving teens/movie makers around the lake and judging for the annual "Lake Area Film Festival" that my SUPER TALENTED and close friend, Karen Holmes, puts together every year for the youth of our church. It was a great way to visit with her and catch up with the ever-entertaining antics of the awesome teens (former children's church kids) of our church! I can't go without mentioning the enjoyment of all the politics/economics talk that Mark caught up on with our friends Kyle and Julie and dinners and lunches with our friends and pastors Bob (more economics talk) and Kenny (too much "lover of the iphone" talk)!



Time at home wouldn't be complete without a morning visit to our house from Katrina with little Ava! On Katrina's first visit to our house, Ava was sound asleep in her own home. Katrina came over for a late-night jam session with me after the ladies' retreat to share what we've been learning on our guitars!



We were so happy that our son, Ethan, took the time to come home for a night. We began our marathon catch up on Downton Abbey with him. Then he went with us to Angleton, TX to help out while Grandpa (Mark's dad) had a minor medical procedure done and to visit. Grandpa and Grandma Lu treated us to a nice meal at Landry's before we headed back home.

We continued our Downton Abbey marathon when we got home before we headed to Abilene, TX for one of the highlights of our time at home!



We spent 2 nights with my good friend (and college roomie), Paige LaMasters, and her husband Phil celebrating our birthdays together. They showed us a BIG time!

When we got back home, after a nice stop over to spend the night with Ethan, we were treated to another couple days visit with Mama and Daddy at our house. They were on their way to Austin to help out my college professor brother, Tim, and his wife, Erin, in Austin who were busy with the end of the school year (both he and his 3 girls) and the beginning of a major home remodel...a good excuse for them to get in some quality grandkid time!!



Finally, we got to the reason for our trip home--we picked up Claire from Baylor and brought her home just long enough for her to bring her boyfriend, Jonathan, to our house to spend one night and one of our favorite girls (and 2 time Nancy Lu guest), Kay, to spend a night and a lazy day.

Then it was back to Nancy Lu with Claire in tow... really... she wasn't that happy about leaving her semi-independent life and a summer she envisioned spending with friends and boyfriend.



PART II, BACK ON NANCY LU IN FLORIDA:
Kenny took us to the airport May 20 to catch our flight back to West Palm Beach and Nancy Lu. We had to wait about a week at Rybovich North, our marina, for a "weather window" for what we anticipated to be a 4-day passage to Norfolk, Virginia. As usual, we consulted Peter about weather windows and passage making decisions.

During our stay at Rybovich, we rented a car so we could grocery shop, do WalMart runs, run errands, and go to the movies!! We saw 2 movies--"The Great Gatsby" and "Star Trek". We enjoyed both of them.



Claire and I made use of the pool over at Rybovich South and their wonderful showers. Unfortunately, we also took our share of showers at the "gas station-quality" bathhouse at Rybovich North.

It was at Rybovich that we faced the first of our boat problems. We knew about this problem before we left Nancy Lu to go home. Our watermaker was not flushing itself with fresh water as it is supposed to do. It was using seawater. Mark had to hook up and test the fresh water flush solenoid, hunt down an air leak in the system, and have a technician come out and reprogram the computer to flush the membrane with fresh water. We got all that sorted out, and were ready to leave on Memorial Day.



The day before, the harbor waters around Peanut Island, which is right across from our dock were packed with anchored ski boats and camping tents filled the beaches. We were wondering if we would be able to get through all the boats with Nancy Lu on our way out. Claire thought maybe some of them would clear out in the night and not make it back until later the next day after we had left. It turned out that she was right, thank goodness.



PART III, THE LONG PASSAGE:

We left the dock as planned the morning of Memorial Day and made our way out of the harbor just fine. Our plan was to sail about 100 miles off shore to catch a ride on the Gulf Stream's swift current and motor sail as quickly as we could around Cape Hatteras to Norfolk. We were trying to make it to New York City in time to spend some time with Amy before she left for vacation to Spain. The plan worked out fine with a few minor adjustments in course, but the first two days were VERY rough--seasick, can't-stand-up, bruising-yourself-from falling-into-things, can't-stay-in-your-seat-on-the-high-side-of the-boat--rough. Claire spent the first day seasick. Mark was a bit queasy, but I was fine. Luckily, I had prepared some meals ahead of time or eating would have been almost impossible, not that eating was something Claire was interested in doing that first day. I made up the twin bed that is on the port side of our aft cabin, which we never use. We would have rolled right out off our normal bed on the starboard side.



I made up another bed on the port side in the saloon (our living room/dining room) for Claire. We only needed two beds since someone was always on watch. It worked out pretty well. Things started to calm down gradually the second day as we weren't headed so much into the wind and the seas had flattened out a little. It rained a lot though.



At dusk, a little bird hitched a ride with us to get out of the rain. He stood watch with Claire for a while, but was gone by the time I got up there for my watch. I hope he made it to where he was going!



By the third day, we could get out the keyboard that we bought at WalMart for Claire to practice scales and played around. I was on watch when we went around Cape Hatteras in the wee hours of the morning of the fourth day. We would have arrived at Bay Point Marina in Little Creek in Norfolk later that day except for our second boat problem--our engine was bogging down due to clogged fuel filters. Mark regularly monitors these, but unbeknownst to us the gage had stopped working. For safety's sake, our captain made the decision to anchor out at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay off of Virginia Beach out of the way of the shipping lanes so he could change the fuel filters before we made our way across the shipping channels and into the harbor to get docked. We spent the night out there so we could get some rest and give the engine a chance to cool down. Mark woke up at 5:30 in the morning to change them. That fixed the problem of the motor bogging down. We made it into the dock Thursday afternoon after leaving Florida on Monday morning.



PART IV, NORFOLK:

Our choice was to spend one night in Norfolk and leave for New York the next day during the next short weather window or wait a few days for the next weather window. We chose the latter!! We needed a rest! We were glad of our choice because if we had left, we would have missed the arrival of our friends, Adrien and Nina on Dolphin. We met them in Brunswick last winter and spent some time sailing with them in The Bahamas. Meeting up with them here was an unexpected treat! We ended up in Norfolk for about five days. That first day, I did some laundry and fell asleep in the laundry room. My muscles were actually achy from our passage. Making the long walk up the dock to the bathhouse/laundry room and climbing down the companion-way onto Nancy Lu felt like a monumental feat. I felt 100% better the next day. Since we rented a car, Claire and I were able to take a ZUMBA class! All three of us went to see another movie, "Now You See Me". We all enjoyed it a lot. It was fun and entertaining! We also worked on a few boat projects; my biggest one was polishing the bright work (all the chrome) on Nancy Lu. After Dolphin arrived, Nina, Claire and I got our hair done at a salon we've been to before. We did a little provisioning and were ready to go on the fifth day with the next weather window! Dolphin set out earlier than we did, but we passed them later that day.

This passage was just one overnight. That evening, in the seas off of Wallops, VA, NASA hailed us on the VHF. Yes, that NASA. They called us by name thanks to our AIS system. They wanted to know our intentions because at 11:30 that night they were launching a rocket, and they wanted to make sure that we would be out of the danger zone. Is that cool or what?! Claire was on watch and Mark was still awake when the launch took place so they saw it! We made it around Sandy Hook in NJ just before dark the next night right before it started to rain. After we rounded Sandy Hook, I had to stand on the bow with a spotlight, my foul weather suit on to shield me from the light rain, to watch for fish pots and boats with no anchor lights and any other obstructions that might not show up on radar or the chart as we traveled the last hour of our trip into our anchorage at Atlantic Highlands, NJ in the dark. We were so glad to be anchored, dry, and in our warm beds by about midnight. We felt bad for Nina and Adrien because they had texted us that they were due to round Sandy Hook around 3:30 am. Mark left the VHF radio on that night and woke me up when he heard Nina make a Mayday call around 3:30! They had run aground at Sandy Hook and Dolphin was being pounded pretty hard! We listened as they talked to the Coast Guard and waited for Sea Tow to come help them off. We communicated once through text, but we didn't want to interfere with their communications with the Coast Guard. They said the strong current had pushed them out of the narrow channel onto the land. At one point, we heard that they were standing on shore in the rain waiting on help. We didn't know how they got there. We later learned that they had waded through the cold water. Hearing that they had abandoned Dolphin made us really worried that the boat was taking on water or something. After about an hour, we heard Sea Tow, who was trying to get close enough to them to get a line to them to tow them off, tell them that they were going to abandon the mission until it got light around 6:30. We didn't know if they were still out in the rain or what (we learned later that they were back onboard). We felt helpless because there was nothing that we could do for them. It was disturbing to hear the Coast Guard coming over the VHF with warnings to vessels to watch out for a 42 foot sailing vessel aground at Sandy Hook. They were our FRIENDS, not just a hazard to other boats! Around 7:00am we heard Sea Tow inform the Coast Guard that they had pulled them free. In a little while, we saw them being towed into Atlantic Highlands and pick up a mooring. After being hauled out, the good news is that Dolphin has a few problems that will have to be addressed when they get home to RI, but they are still seaworthy for the rest of their journey home. We've been keeping up with them and have actually met up with them since that scary night.



PART V, NYC, AMY, AND LONG ISLAND SOUND:

After hanging out for one rainy day at Atlantic Highlands, playing guitar, piano, Rumikub, reading, cooking and eating, we set out to NYC!!!!!



We went through busy New York Harbor as close to the Statue of Liberty as Mark felt comfortable getting,



up the East River,



under the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge and other bridges,



past Manhattan and all the iconic buildings and sights--it was one of my favorite experiences on Nancy Lu!! I stayed on the bow the whole time taking a ton of pictures!



We could see the New York skyline in the distance from our anchorage in NJ, which I thought was pretty neat,



but it became more and more thrilling the closer we came.



The scene changed minute by minute as buildings like the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and the Freedom Tower came in and out of view with our changing position and perspective. There was so much to take in.



I would look to the right at Brooklyn for a while and then be pulled back over to the sights of Manhattan. The river wasn't as crowded as I thought it would be so it was actually pretty relaxing, especially compared to New York Harbor.



In the harbor, we were making our way through tankers, cargo ships, cruise ships, Staten Island Ferries, armed Coast Guard boats escorting the ferries back and forth, and charted obstructions. The harbor is really quite small. On the river, not only was my sense of sight on overload, but also I was surprised by all the smells. Claire and I kept trying to identify this one smell that persisted the entire way up the river. It was sort of a clean smell that seemed to get stronger as we passed through pockets of cooler air now and then. It smelled similar to the smell when you stick your head in a freezer that needs to be defrosted (don't y'all do that?). Claire said she thought it smelled like laundry detergent. I wondered if it was the smell of ozone that I read about in novels, but don't know that I've ever smelled myself. It kind of smelled like dirt, you know, that fresh dirt smell. There was one time that this smell was tremendously overpowered by the delicious smell of PIZZA cooking!! That was somewhere near Brooklyn. As we got further north almost to Long Island Sound, I realized that the pleasant smell was kind of starting to hurt my throat so I think it must have been a chemical smell in the water, oh well.



We started to see airplanes flying in and out of La Guardia, the river opened up, and things got further apart--more factories and such. We sailed past Riker's Island. Soon we were at our destination, City Island and North Minneford Marina, which would be our base.



We traveled by bus and train back and forth from Manhattan to visit Amy. Claire spent every night except the first and last night in her apartment with her. Mark and I came "home" every night.

PART VI, CITY ISLAND AND PORT WASHINGTON AKA THE REAL WORLD AND THE GREAT GATSBY WORLD:



I really liked City Island, which is the most eastern part of The Bronx. Actually, there is another small island, Hart Island, that is the eastern most point of New York City, but no one is allowed on it. Potter's Field is located on this island. That is where the John and Jane Does and the people of NYC who can't afford a funeral are buried. The inmates of Riker's island bury them in mass graves. It was right across from us. City Island is a small island with a rich maritime history, a quaint little town where everything is within walking distance. It has its own personality, and the people are proud of their corner of the city. My first experience was trying to work out the logistics of getting some laundry done and picked up and still make it into "the city" to see a Broadway musical matinee with Amy. I had spilled coffee all on the sheets that soaked through to the mattress pad, and I needed it cleaned and back on the bed by that night. The laundromat closed at 7:00pm and didn't do deliveries. Long-story-short, I met a lady in the deli next door who said she'd pick up my bag before the laundromat closed and put it on her front porch for me to pick up when I got back late that night! How nice!! I took her up on her offer and found my bag of laundry safe and sound on her porch at 10:30 that night. Later that week, I left her a thank you note at her house with our boat card (Well, I really just handed it to her 'cause she was coming out as I was sticking it in the screen door-awkward ☺). I hope she reads this blog...Thanks again, Ann! I love meeting nice people everywhere!



Of course our favorite part of NYC was being with our daughter, Amy! But we enjoyed two shows, "Cinderella" and "Jersey Boys".



We saw Cinderella at the Sunday matinee the day of the Tony Awards! It was nominated for 9 Tonys. Afterwards, we ordered-in dinner at Amy's apartment. Mark and I had to leave right as "The Tony Awards Show" was beginning, but Claire and Amy watched them live that night and recorded it for me to watch later. It was neat to think about the cast finishing the performance we saw, getting a bite to eat, dressing up and going to Radio City Music Hall to see if they won!

Claire had city adventures during the day while Amy was at work.



She took Penelope, Amy's dog to the dog groomer one day, to the dog park a couple of days, went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on her own, bought our Jersey Boys tickets at TKTS on her own, and made trips to delis and bakeries on her own--quite the city girl! We came into the city every day except one because it was raining cats and dogs and there was some boat work to be done related to our third and biggest boat problem--a failing transmission. That's an ongoing situation that Mark's done a temporary fix on, but we've got a new transmission ordered ☹. Hopefully, it will not interfere with the rest of our time out on Nancy Lu. I'll keep you posted. Nancy Lu is almost 10 years old and it's time for these things to be happening--the price of being a boat owner.

We were in City Island for about a week. On our last day there, Adrien and Nina sailed into Manhasset Bay to moor outside of the town of Port Washington, which is on Long Island right across Long Island Sound from City Island. We got there a couple of hours after them. I'd been looking forward to visiting there. I did a little research and found out that Manhasset Bay is in between the two peninsulas that were the inspiration for East and West Egg from F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby!



The real-life Great Neck was the fictional West Egg (Fitzgerald had lived in a rented a house there)



and the real-life Sands Point was the fictional East Egg. This is all part of the real life Gold Coast of the early 20th Century. The mansions are incredible!



Adrien, Nina, and we toured one of the ones from that era on Sands Point that was owned by the Guggenheim family--interesting! I'm glad that we had recently seen the movie. My imagination ran wild. We had a fun couple of days with Nina and Adrien, which included dinner and yet another movie. We saw "Man of Steel" and they saw "Now You See Me" on our recommendation. They played at the same time.

Both Dolphin and Nancy Lu left Port Washington to travel further east along the north shore of Long Island today.



I made sure I looked for the mansion we had toured as we sailed. Dolphin's traveling further than we are in a hurry to get to their homeport of Warwick, Rhode Island. We plan to meet up with them again when Ethan comes to visit in a few days. We've stopped in Port Jefferson. Claire and Mark have already taken the free launch into town for a Father's Day ice cream. I stayed behind to clean up after supper and continue working on this EPIC blog entry...Whew, I'm caught up!

See the photo gallery for more pictures.