We are in Wickford, Rhode Island, a town where we lived so many years ago. We are at Wickford Cove Marina on the hard to repaint LB's bottom and do some other small projects.

So let me tell you a bit about our trip from the Sassafras River, Chesapeake Bay non-stop to Wickford, R.I., I guess about some 300 or so kms.

We left the Sassafras River at about 0630 on Tuesday morning, June 18. We powered through the C & D Canal with the current into the Delaware Bay. No wind so we powered all the way to the mouth of the Bay. By now it was about 1830 the same day. We decided to push on to Rhode Island some 230 miles to the north. The winds were light and we started sailing. We had to sail due east out to sea due to the wind direction, not towards R.I. After a couple of hours I thought we could jibe and head toward R.I.

Nope, the winds shifted and we were sailing north but only along the New Jersey coast. After a couple more hours the wind quit, so on with the engine, once again. We left the main up to sort of help with our speed over the bottom, all-the-while we could see lightening to the south.

We powered onward toward on our desired course and the lightening got more frequent and brighter. Again, the main was still up helping us power sail so we decided to reef it in case the winds picked up and BAM!!! we were hit with a wind gust in excess of 35 maybe 40 knots. And then another BAM, as the wind drove Lucky Bird around almost out of control the mail sail out-haul blew apart and now the main-sail was flogging uncontrollably. We couldn't furl it because we could no long tension the out haul. I hollered as best I could to Alice to drop the sail to the deck. Fortunately when she release the halyard jam it dropped, but unfortunately the wind blew it into the water. I immediately put the engine into neutral and went outside to pull the sail aboard. Alice went and got some line so I could secure the sail to the boat. Wow, have you ever had to pull a full sail from the water in the dark with 30+ winds and rain? Not so easy dont'cha know.

Once the main was secured we moved on to the next task, securing the wildly flapping enclosure side panels. Pull them in, zip and snap each side and only then we started to feel more in control. Fortunately we were some thirty miles offshore and there were no boats around us, we turned on the running lights, the streaming light, the auto pilot, the radar and the AIS. We got LB settled down onto a reasonable course to Narraganset Bay and we rested.

We power/sailed in total fog using the two hours on, two off schedule for that night, the next day and our final night into Narragansett Bay. We saw lots of boats and ships on the radar and AIS but visually saw nothing. Visibility was less than a couple of hundred yards all the way. I've never used the radar as much as on this trip. We turned it on a couple of times each out at a range of 6 miles just to be sure there was nothing to put us in harms way. As we rounded Montauk Point, the radar was on continuously until Wickford.

Things happen on LB. Stuff ears out, breaks and simply stops working. It's to be expected when you work something as hard as we have for these 4,000+ miles of powering, and some pretty rough sailing.

For comparison, think about your home; water heaters give up, air conditioners stop working, toilets need repair, furnaces need cleaning and replacement. Windows need to be replaced, driveways need seal-coating, outside surfaces need painting, decks need staining and the list goes on and on, right? So the issues we face on LB are somewhat similar and I personally enjoy the mental challenges of figuring out stubborn electrical problems, or a fresh water leak, or the need to change the engine oil and filters, or when the auto-pilot failed or most recently when the main-sail got stuck and would not unfurl. This list on and we accept it as part of the cruising life.

We are blessed with a fabulous boat, I am blessed with a life partner who is truly my soul mate and with a family who supports us from ashore.