Last Saturday while we were down at Jabulani we took measurements for our awning/bimini, which is a necessity for our upcoming trip to New York. We spent every single night during this past week measuring, sewing, unpicking, resewing and assembling the bimini. It was a huge project that required all the available space in our tiny apartment to lay out. I had a really great time sewing it with our new Sailrite sewing machine and kept wondering how many sewing needles I would have broken trying to sew it with my old regular household machine. The fabric is durable, marine-grade, outdoor Sunbrella. The entire project to date has taken about 8 hours. I say 'to date' because after Philip installed it on the boat we realized it needed a few modifications, nothing is as easy as it seems on a boat. So we've hauled it back home again. This week we are going to add a batten at about the half way point, from starboard to port side, just to help it keep it's shape a little better and improve visibility just a touch more. Other than that it worked very well. Kudos' to Philip for a great design. What a difference it is going to make in the beating sun!

For those who want to know where we are going to be each day of our trip, the following is our planned itinerary:

June 30th Georgetown Yacht Basin - Chesapeake City in the Chesapeake/Delaware Canal (25 miles)
July 1st Depart Chesapeake City 1:30 am - Reedy Point (12 miles)
Reedy Point - Cape May Canal (46 miles)
Cape May Canal - Cape May Harbor (8 miles)
July 2nd Cape May Harbor - Overnight to
July 3rd Sandy Hook (110 miles), then on to New York Harbor
July 4th New York City
July 5th New York - Sandy Hook, Overnight to Cape May harbor
July 6th Cape May Harbor
July 7th Through Cape May Canal to Fortescue, NJ on Delaware Bay (26 miles)
July 8th Fortescue - Reedy Point - Chesapeake City
July 9th Chesapeake City to Georgetown Yacht Basin

All those mileages are nautical miles - for any landlubbers reading. Round trip will be about 400 nautical miles.