07 EASTERN U.S. AUGUST

8/2-4 After leaving the bustle of citylife in Hyde Park we continued up the Hudson to the town of Kingston. We went up the Rondout Creek and never really went into the town. We anchored on this peaceful creek for three days catching up on boat chores and even dipped into the river once. Glenn saw a bald eagle dive and catch a fish 25 feet away from him.

8/5 We have decided to head back south down the Hudson and stop again at Bear Mountain since we loved it so much. On the way we heard the Coast Guard get a report of a man over board from a working ship 10 miles off the NY coast. He was 46 and did have a life jacket on. They sent a MOB collar with flare after him. After two days of searching all they ever found was his helmet. He may have died just from the hit to the water from a large work ship or his boots, tools, etc. may have proven too much for his life jacket. What a shame.
We anchored in our same spot at Bear Mtn. and our family of swans headed right over. One of the babies has a fishing line in its mouth and then attached to its leg. We spent one and a half boxes of crackers and about an hour attempting to get it. First I just tried to cut the line and then Glenn tried to get our net up under him. The parents wouldn't let us near the baby. The mother actually tended to try to bite more than the father. When Glenn brought the net up under the baby before he even got to the surface the father hissed and got on top of it stamping it with his feet. I feel bad that we couldn't do anything about the line.

8/6 We were woken by a light flashing through our boat at 4:00 a.m. There were 2 helicopters, 14 patrol cars and two police boats off Bear Mtn. bridge. They towed a car away. Apparently a 71 year old man committed suicide. We had noticed several suicide prevention signs with phone numbers on them last week when we were here and walked to the middle of the bridge to take photos. We haven't had a very cheerful past 24 hours.
We decided to take the "difficult" hike to Dooleytown. When we were here before we chose the hike to the top of Bear Mountain as it was rated "challenging" which we interpreted as easier than "difficult". Well, we didn't find out until halfway through the hike that "challanging is the most difficult rating. Dooleytown is an abandoned town with a trail that goes along it. I was all excited visualizing neat old houses without windows and doors. (Picture saloon doors swinging in the dusty air with the theme song from the Good, Bad and Ugly playing in the background.) I guess I am a little naive. We saw a couple of foundations and a waterfall. There were signs with pictures of the houses that used to be there.
The good part is that when we got back to the boat the baby swan only had a little bit of fishing line caught on his leg. Hopefully the fish hook will either fall out or grow over.

8/7 We continued down the Hudson, through NYC and Hell's Gate and over to Manhasset. We had the tide with us all the way and went through Hell's Gate at the rate of 10.2 KTS. We were screaming! We moored on a free ball off Port Washington in Manhasset Bay.

8/8 Today we will shop and do laundry. We haven't shopped since 7/30 and no laundry since 7/25. We are due. We stopped for lunch in a Mediterranean restaurant and had a wonderful Greek lunch. It was so good we went to the deli connected to the restaurant and brought home more food for dinner.

8/9 What a lovely spot. We are still moored for free, the laundromat and grocery were across the street from the dinghy dock, and today we went to the movies. We also have internet and 10 TV channels. It's going to be tough to leave. The weather turned quite cool today. It is lovely. We plan on going through Long Island Sound, stopping along the south shore of Long Island. We really like it here. If we had a few extra million we found some houses we really like.

8/10 I guess we must really like it here. We headed out to leave today after listening, as usual, to the weather report. When we got out of the bay the winds were 29 KTS, waves 6 feet and we were moving forward at 3 KTS. So we turned around and got back on our mooring ball.

8/11 Port Jefferson - Our guidebook mentioned a really nice used bookstore here and a grocery store up the hill. So we got in our dinghy and headed for the dock. We had to climb up a slimy 12 foot ladder to get to the dock. I thought back to when we first started sailing and I got really pissed at Glenn (why it was his fault I don't know, but who else do you blame?) for making me climb out on about a 6 foot slimy ladder. I scampered up the 12 feet like nothing. What I couldn't believe was that we had to pay $5 an hour to dock our dinghy. We headed for the bookstore and found that it was closed for renovation until August 18th. I had two canvas bags full of books to trade in. I drooled as I looked through the window, it was a huge store. Then we headed for the promised grocery store. We walked uphill, and uphill and uphill. We asked a local couple about the grocery store (mentioning it being at the top of a hill) and they said there was a reall big hill further on. So we walked and walked and huffed up that hill and no grocery store. So we walked back downhill and bought a loaf of bread at a deli near the harbor. As a reward I got a peanut butter chocolate ice cream cup. It's strange but I don't really care for ice cream at home. I guess I just must lust after all things frozen with no freezer to speak of on the boat.

8/12 - 13 Fisher Island, than Cuttyhunk. Just making distance.

8/14 We came in to Woods Hole, a harbor full of moored boats. After a tour around the harbor we reluctantly anchored in 39 feet of water closer to a moored boat than we usually like. We went in to this small, pleasant town that contains so much scientific talent and buildings. The first place we went was the aquarium (surprise!). It was small but interesting. See the picture of the dogfish egg casings. We then went to the historical museum and a science museum. Both of these were in the original Woods Hole houses. We attended a very interesting lecture at the science museum. The woman was part of a team that was studying the ice sheets of Greenland. She had just come back from the 2nd year of a 3 year study. They had discovered that the ice that melts on top of the ice sheet into large lakes actually creates fissures in the ice and flows to the groundrock. They had always believed that it melted and ran off the sides. By going down to the ground rock it is increasing the rate of the under ice melt which is causing the entire sheet to slip downward gradually. They have had unusually warm summers the past two years with greatly increased melting. It seems lately that every book, article, TV program and lecture we see has a different problem caused by global warming. Hopefully, this country will begin to do something about it.
We found this town to be a very pleasant and interesting visit. The harbor had a lot of unusual looking houseboats in it. When we got back to the boat we found that the wind had shifted and we were way too close to an empty guest mooring ball. Glenn had fears of someone coming in right before dark wanting to use it and forcing us to move so we rented it for ourselves and moved on to it. The next morning we didn't want to wait for the tide to change as it was going to be around noon. The harbor is small anyway so we figured it wouldn't be too big a deal. We usually cruise at 2250 RPM's (6 knots) and we were gradually making our way out of the harbor until we got to the narrow channel where you finally exit the harbor. As I stood there waiting to get closer to a buoy to take a picture of the rush of water around it I realized that we weren't getting any closer. At our usual speed we were standing still against the current. We gradually increased our RPM's and didn't begin to creep forward until we were at 2550. That was a first.

8/15 Another used bookstore! We made Onset our next stop so we could trade those books in. It actually turned out to be a very pretty harbor with a nice beach and pleasant little shops. The book store was about a mile in so we didn't carry our books until we checked it out. It seemed okay so we grocery shopped, brought the groceries the mile back to our dinghy, got our books and walked the mile back to the bookstore to be told that the owner wasn't there and she was the one who judged the trade in value. Well, I guess the two of us with sweat running off our faces and chins down to the floor got the mercy of the young girl because she decided to give it a shot herself. Blessed be the merciful, because I don't think I could have carried those two bags of books back to the dinghy. I probably would have just left them there on the floor of the bookstore. We didn't get much for them and the used books were a little overpriced but we were just happy to get rid of them. We then went for even better chocolate ice cream, with chocolate chunks full of peanut butter. So far, this entire trip I haven't seen a scale. It's a good thing. I used to weigh in at our Publix every week when we grocery shopped. All this walking and it doesn't seem to add up to much against eating.

8/16 Through the Cape Cod Canal to Boston! I have been looking forward to this stop. We got in late so we anchored in an outer harbor.

8/17 We called to reserve a mooring ball and got one of two available. This is a large and rather busy harbor. We got on the ball around noon and went in to town. Where did we go? The New England Aquarium. This is a very nice aquarium with a large display of jellyfish and penguins. And finally I found my Sea Dragons. I absolutely love these creatures and have only seen them one other time in Tampa. From here we took the subway to the Museum of Fine Art. The subway system here isn't nearly as well organized as DC. There aren't enough explanatory signs and the map they give you is all in blue. The different lines are designated by color, which we have to read on our little pamphlet. Kind of silly. The Boston Harbor has some gorgeous yachts and buildings, and this free high speed internet. We also get a water taxi into shore. However, we are paying $40 a night for the ball, our highest fee yet.

8/18 Before we started out on today's subway adventure I had to go to the bathroom. There was a public one near the station at the Aquarium. It looked like a space teleporter but I decided to take my chances. There were 8 lines of instructions in four languages. For some reason you had to choose left, right or center as the door you were using before you went in (after putting your quarter in). I chose left and the two doors opened from the middle. I didn't quite get that one. So you go in and the doors close in behind you. Would I ever see my family again? The toilet was way over on the right side of this huge white plastic walled room. The sink looked like the ones on airplanes. The seat was totally wet from the last disinfecting and I swear I could not find any sign of toilet paper. The walls were just flat plastic and I looked everywhere for something that looked like it might open. Nothing. I couldn't search for too long as there was the fear of the doors opening. In the instructions you were told you had 25 minuites with a warning sound at 20 minutes and then the doors would open. This was quite an experience. After my head cleared from the stress we got on the subway and went to Harvard.
Some people take four to six years to do Harvard, we did it in 5 hours. We walked through Harvard Square admiring this classic huge university. They had a wonderful Harvard/Peabody Museum of Natural History. There were some exhibits that we felt were better than the Smithsonian. The explantory texts on the exhibits were very detailed and interesting. We particularly enjoyed the Pacific Islands and Native American exhibits. We spent almost 4 hours here. From there we walked to the Harvard bookstore. I wish this store was in Weston. They had two rooms of reclaimed and used books of high quality (not the usual romance and mysteries that I have to dig through). We had a difficult time restraining ourselves from buying. I think the weight of the books and the fact that we would have to carry them the rest of the day helped.
From here we went to the Museum of Science. Quite a bit of this huge museum was oriented towards children. I wish my grandchildren could have been there to experience it. There was still plenty to keep us busy until 7:00 at night. One exhibit we kept coming back to was an incubator with chicks hatching. There were two just hatched and a third pecking at the shell. He was really slow though and we never did get to see him come out. There was a very modern section on the process of impregnation. Four kids and I learned a lot. I was thinking of Janine in this area because they had some wonderful models and photos of babies in utero at different ages. Of course, Glenn was interested in the electrical section.
We stopped for takeout Thai and Chinese at Quincy Market. What a full day.

8/19 Today we are off to the Prudential observation deck. It is 50 stories up with a 360 degree view of the city. And, it's in the middle of a huge mall. I went to Teavana. Picture winetasting for teatotalers. I found a green tea called Choconut and a wonderful smelling Green Jasmine Pearl tea.
As we were walking from the subway station we happened to notice a Unitarian Church that had a sign that the public was welcome to view their 16 Tiffany stained glass windows. These windows were done from 1898-1920 and cost $10,000 a piece at that time. The difference in the Tiffany process is that the glass is colored not pained on as in other windows. The faces and hands are the only painted parts. We have noticed that the colors are so much richer in the Tiffany designs. From here we went to the Public Gardens with the swan boats. We ate our lunch, listened to a couple singing and walked around the park. They have statues dedicated to the book "Make Way for the Ducklings". A quick look at the Boston Commons and back on the subway for the North End.
This is the Italian district of Boston. We went here to see Paul Revere's House and the North Church. A few of my misconceptions were cleared. I had always thought that he was riding through the towns to warn everyone that the British were coming. He actually rode to warn two people who the British would have arrested. I guess I should have spent more time at Harvard. The size of his house was eye opening as old houses usually are. His mother lived with them and they had 15 children, 9 of whom lived to adulthood. There was a master bedroom, the bedroom next door that belonged to his mother and two bedrooms on the third floor. Add a living room and kitchen and that's it. It's a small wooden house surrounded by huge brick buildings from today.
We walked along the streets crowded from the celebration for the saint of fishermen. They had a statue of the saint for the seas that about 12 men were carrying on their shoulders down the street and people kept coming up and attaching long streamers covered with dollar bills. There was a band in front and behind them (playing different songs). We had the best white pizza I had ever had in the oldest restaurant in the area. I felt very Italian by the time we left. We walked back to the boat.
We have been enjoying ourselves so much over the past three years in our sailing adventures that we have decided we could see even more with a bigger, faster boat. We could have just zipped across the Atlantic. To hell with the environment, we bought a new boat, a real gas guzzler.

8/20-21 We sailed the huge distance of 12 miles to Salem to go to Walmart. We have an item to return so we walked 2.5 miles to Walmart, .5 miles to the grocery store and then took a taxi back to the boat. We then walked over to downtown Salem since it is such a neat town. We just walked around and then had to go to our favorite bookstore. I really need to swear off buying books.

8/22 Happy birthday Glenn. Today we sailed to Kittery, Maine to visit their outlet center. Grandma is baby shopping. There was a catamaran next to us and they came over in their dinghy and introduced themselves. They had bought their boat two weeks ago so we invited them over for some cruising talk. They brought homemade chocolate chip cookies and had to look at our photos of the Bahamas and Newfoundland. Who could ask for more? Well, the next day Debby drove us to the outlet, picked us back up and then she and I went to the laundromat. Isn't that wonderful? They are Michael, Debby, Cassidy, Calen (Moira wasn't there) and their dog Lucy. We wish them wonderful sailing aboard Los Gatoews.

8/24 -28 Our next destination, 49 miles away, was Portland. Our engine cooling pump is leaking so we had to stop to get a part. We checked three marine stores and finally went online and ordered it ourselves to be delivered to one of the marine stores. That seemed to be the best way. This is a great town to be stuck in. There is a lot to see and do and it has kept its small town quaintness. Saturday we went to an art show with over 350 exhibitors. We always especially enjoy the photo exhibits.   We then went to see the movie "Death at a Funeral." It was very funny and we highly recommend it. The next day we went to an art museum that had an exhibit of Frank Lloyd Wright furniture, stained glass and house designs. They also had several Wyeths and Homers since this is Maine. They also had some beautiful marble sculptures. From there we walked to the Promenade which had several old houses, cobblestone streets, brick sidewalks and some beautiful houses along the water. Something about living on a boat keeps us looking at houses. The next day we got a little too confident. We looked at the tourist map and decided to walk to the Portland Head Lighthouse. It looked like 10 blocks but they skipped a lot of streets on the map and I really don't think it was to scale. It was 3 miles to get to the lighthouse. We sat and had a drink of water and then I said, "We ought to go see the lighthouse museum, it's 4:10 and they probably close at 5:00. I'd hate to walk all this way and not see the museum."   You guessed it, it closed at 4:00. As you can see from the photos it is a beautiful lighthouse.  There are photos of it everywhere in Maine. We walked a little loop trail, walked back the 3 miles, went further to the grocery store and then walked part of a local path called the green belt back to the dock.   I actually managed to make Glenn tired after this walk. We were dragging. It was really a pretty area though.
The next day we took it easy and took a bus to the mall. More grandma shopping.

8/29 We decided to do laundry today and wouldn't you know, after I put the second load in we realized the dryer kept popping the circuit breaker. So we now have two loads of laundry strung out around our boat in the middle of the Portland Harbor. At least it's a beautiful sunny, windy day. I haven't mentioned the weather for a while. It has been absolutely gorgeous. It goes down into the 60's every night and around 80-84 every afternoon. The humidity right now is 49%. There is almost always a cool breeze. I just love snuggling into our bed with flannel sheets and a fleece blanket. We have been here so long I'm beginning to feel like a New Englander. I've always felt more like a New Englander than a Floridian. I was born in Conn. and our entire family lives in New England except my parents bringing us down to Florida. I really like it up here. I still can't get over walking to the edge of the road and having traffic stop for you with a smile on the driver's face. I wouldn't dare attempt that in south Florida.
Good old West Marine, our part arrived a day early. Glenn is so excited! We have to walk over immediately to get it.

8/30 Work day. Glenn is working on the engine and I am cleaning house. (That doesn't take long.)

8/31 - 9/4 We went to Florida to surprise our youngest, Janine, for her baby shower. I have also been really missing my mother. We had a wonderful time visiting family. Our trip down involved getting on a dinghy to the dock, taxi to the bus depot, bus to Boston Logan airport, fly to Miami, drive with our son Duane to Weston. That was a trip.

9/5 We are back to a beautiful day of low 44, high 68 and 32% humidity. We walked for groceries and motored over to the dock for fuel and water. As we were headed out of the harbor to leave our steering wheel just spun around free in my hands. Our steering broke. I managed to use the engines to get us across the harbor back to our good old faithful mooring ball. I didn't like Portland THAT MUCH !

9/6 Last night was a two blanket night.

9/7 We got our steering cable and Glenn installed it. We will be leaving tomorrow morning. We enjoyed Portland. I am glad all of our problems happened here, but we are ready to move on. We plan to stop at Jewell Island; no inhabitants and lots of hiking trails.

9/8 We stopped at Jewell Island and walked around the island. It has an observation tower built for WWII as a lookout for submarines. There were also tunnels, and living quarters and a jail. I have no idea if the jail was ever used. They even had a beach. We met a couple from Mass. and played dominoes with them. They suggested that we visit Vinalhaven so we have added that to our list. There were several other people in the harbor and even some people camping on the island. They had a huge bonfire that night.

9/09 We took a short stop in Freeport, land of the outlets. Grandma is still in shopping mode and this is the land of LL Bean for Glenn. The marina picked us up at our boat, then from the dock drove us to Freeport. We walked a few miles south and went to the grocery store and they picked us up there. What a pleasure.

9/10 We headed for Sequin Island, another island with no people on it. There was one other sailboat in the harbor and he invited us over for wine, cheese, crackers and conversation. He was sailing by himself for a couple of weeks and was on his way back from Grand Manan in Canada. We had a very interesting conversation. He left early the next day. We hiked all over the island, visited the lighthouse and picked lots of blackberries. Glenn did a slight sprain to his ankle and it started to rain so we headed back to the boat. We had blackberries and cream for dessert. (we had canned cream on the boat) The next day was clear but windy so we stayed in the harbor and just lazed.

9/13 It is beautiful today, 65 degrees and clear skies. We motored to Vinalhaven in a rather zigzag path through the lobster pots and moored in the middle of approximately sixty lobster boats. We got to see several seals along the way. The trees are already beginning to change colors. We are the only pleasure craft in the harbor. There is supposed to be quite a bit of hiking here and we are really looking forward to it. It has been in the 40's at night, we are now up to a two blanket night every night. It is just so nice to be in the clear, cool weather.

9/14-16 We are still in Vinalhaven. It got so cold that we went back to our Newfoundland bed of sleeping between blankets without those cold sheets. We are thoroughly enjoying it here. The scenery is beautiful, much of the land is set aside in parks and preserves. The island is only 3X7 miles. When we were coming here yesterday I commented to Glenn that the small islands around reminded me of a book I had as a child, "The Little Island." We went to the historical society museum today and there was the book. Margaret Wise Brown, who also wrote "The Runaway Rabbit" and "Goodnight Moon", spent her summers here for very many years. I can see why someone would enjoy spending their summers here (though not the winters). As we walked around a corner of the island we passed a granite quarry. Many of the buildings and, of course, the boundary walls are built of granite here. They also shipped huge columns to New York. There were 6 that had to be sent 2 at a time as they were so heavy. They were 60 X 4 feet. We found a used bookstore, video store and a nice grocery store.
Glenn made friends with the lobsterman who is renting us our mooring ball and they are out lobstering today. Yesterday was rainy and foggy and of course cold for the first half of the day. Today is clear and 63 degrees. We would still like to kayak here and I am working on dragging Glenn to a hike that, unfortunately, is quite far away. We'll see.
It is 1:30 and Glenn's boat just came in. He looks as fishy as the rest of the crew in his orange foul weather gear. They left at 6:30 this morning and went 6 miles offshore. They pulled, moved and reset 160 traps. Glenn got to stuff the bait bags with herring and put the rubber bands on the lobster claws so they wouldn't fight each other or pinch the crew.  Most of the crabs were thrown back as well as the pregnant lobster, those with notched tails showing that they are bearing females and the shorts. They went to the dock, sold the 230 pounds of lobster, refueled and bought herring for tomorrow. Today was half a day since it was Sunday. Glenn enjoyed himself but says it is hard work. Arbus owns the boat, Kingpin II, and Ron is his apprentice. Ron wants his own boat and needs 1,000 hours to get his license. In all one million pounds of lobster a year, hauled by 60 boats, come out of this harbor. Glenn's pay was two lobster, boiling on our stove as I type. Arbus would like to hire him fulltime at that rate.

9/17 We have decided to move on. It is time to head south. I hate to leave this beautiful weather. We saw quite a few seals as we left the harbor at Vinalhaven. We stopped for the night in Linekin Bay, a really pretty harbor with houses hidden behind the trees.

9/18 Today we saw quite a few seals, a whale, dolphin and we had a little insect eating bird land on our boat. It reminded me of the one we had on our boat when we were traveling from Nova Scotia to Maine. It stayed with us for several hours, landed on Glenn's shoulder and we got to watch it catch and eat a spider. He was not afraid of us at all. I wonder why birds will come near you on a boat and have nothing to do with you on land. We stopped and just dropped our anchor off the beach at York, Maine as the water is so calm.

9/19 The swells were about 5 feet today and I can't believe it actually made me slightly seasick, a dull headache and sleepy. This just shows how mild this trip has been. I don't have my sealegs.   We had a sparrow land on the boat today and he was just exhausted. He sat with his eyes closed and didn't move for an hour. I think we saved his life. We have stopped at Marblehead, Mass. by invitation from Don and Dee the couple we played dominoes with at Jewell Island. We have a member mooring at the yacht club and Don took us for a drive around Marblehead, offered his washer and dryer, and took us out to dinner!!!! I don't know what we did to deserve such wonderful hospitality. Sailors are just always so nice to other sailors. Tomorrow he is going to pick us up from the grocery store and drive us back to our dinghy. I feel so special. The weather is warming up a little - 50's to 70's. We had some fog going back to the boat in the dark. We put reflective tape on the mast and when you shine a flashlight, voila - our boat.

9/20 We spent the day walking around Marblehead, having a picnic lunch on a hill overlooking the harbor. What a beautiful town this is. There are so many old houses (1650 - 1700's) that are so well maintained and the roads are all narrow and winding, some still with cobblestones.   This is one of the prettiest towns we have been to. We like it so much we looked up the real estate prices on the internet when we got back to the boat. I think it is out of our price range. As you can see we visited another cemetary. We don't reall have a fascination with death but I always find the tombstones very educational historically speaking. The engravings are often interesting and frequently saddening. To me it just makes the history that I have read more real. Following is everything, but the last two lines, I find engraved on one stone. The capitals and wording are an exact copy. I didn't miss the "s" on part, I think the engraver just ran out of room.
"Deposited beneath this stone are the mortal part, Mrs Susanna Jayne, the amiable wife of Mr Peter Jayne who lived Beloved and Died Universally Lamented on August 8th, 1776 in the 45th year of her Age. Precious in the Sight of the Lord is the Death of his Saints. Here keeps the precious light that shines above, Whose Form was harmony, whose Soul was Love. What were her virtues, all that Heaven could spare. What were her graces, all Divinely Fair."
I also found the engraving on top rather gothic.