Dear all
The blog has moved, to http://www.chattyparrot.net/blog.asp?id=2
The blog is now being hosted by Chatty Parrot http://www.chattyparrot.net/ which allows people to follow their friends travels', send messages, post blogs, and leave up-to-date advice on places they've visited. All with respect for users' privacy, and a commitment not to hassle users with junk mail of any sort.
Monday 2 May 2011
Monday 20 September 2010
Monday 13 September 2010
Things we like about America
Sunday 12th September, 2010. 12,127 miles, day 694. 38° 57’.33 N, 75° 09’.91W. The Delaware River.
All good things have to come to an end, and we are now motoring up the grey and formless Delaware River, in a grey and form-shrouding mizzle. If it wasn’t for the occasional moored tanker looming out of the gloom, it would be hard to believe that we were moving. Hats and socks and neck-scarves have been dug out, smelling fustily of bilges, from the deep lockers they were stored in after our Biscay crossing. Autumn is on our heels.
We are on our way to the Chesapeake, to lay Tomia up and do some weeks of hard work on her, before heading back to England in early October. In addition to manual labour, I shall be working hard on Chatty Parrot, our new networking site for yachties and travellers. It is coming along well, after a change of designer, and the first couple of beta testers are giving very useful feedback.
Meanwhile, while I try to get our experiences into some sort of coherent form for retrospective blogs, here are some of the things we like about America.
Americans themselves take pride of place. Welcoming, engaged, interesting, intelligent, outgoing, easy and open: we have met some truly gorgeous people. They have overwhelmed us with their hospitality and kindness, and given us many happy memories. We have spent golden days with new BFFs, fallen instantly in love over a dinner table with friends of friends, or cousins or second cousins twice removed of friends, been embraced into warm family households, been cared for by complete strangers. Sailing and the Corinthian Yacht Club have provided us with a new group of like-minded people, whose generosity has made us feel at ease wherever we went. Even in Manhattan, strangers are polite and helpful.
Next is the papers. Even leaving aside the wonderful New Yorker, which belongs in a category of its own. Anybody who thinks British newspapers set the standard that the rest of the world yearns to emulate should have a look at the New York Times or the Washington Post; compare them to the British broadsheets, and hang their head. These two papers, along with many others with a more regional focus are what English papers used to be: quite simply, densely packed with objective, fact based reporting. The international news fronts up the paper, and takes up nearly half of it. The Op-ed (comment) pages cover different points of view and let them slug it out. The paper doesn’t give a damn about the private lives of slebs or sportsmen. The front page has a photograph that illustrates the news, not the opening of a new film. Just good plain informative journalism, which seeks to inform and stimulate, not to entertain.
That said, even the New York Times has a good line in bloopers. I posted the one about yachting a few weeks ago; here is one from last Sunday’s coverage of the US Tennis Open, where a young player, Beatrice Capra “attended a financial-planning session organised by the WTA” and learnt about “the financial volubility of life on the spotlight’s periphery”. Well, they always say that money talks …
Members of the MCC and those who have their own personal cricket clubs should look away now: baseball is rather a good game. It’s pacy, plenty happens, there is all the catching and getting out and general drama you could want, and it’s all over within a couple of hours. The basic rules are simple and easy to learn, but there are enough complexities to keep a teenage boy in statistics for several summers. The wonderful Arthur and Patty took us to the Yankee Stadium, to see the game played at its highest level, a great treat.
Then we got to meet two real, professional baseball players, Brett and Londell, staying for the summer with in Pete and Cheryl’s family, while they go through the rigours of their first years in the farm team system, playing for the Connecticut Tigers. They were delightful, and we went to watch them play three times. Knowing people on the team, and desperately wanting them to have a good match, gives a whole extra level of interest. A good game is interesting, but when Londell slides triumphantly onto the base a few milliseconds ahead of the fielder, or Brett makes a hit that runs two other team members in, it is thrilling.
We’ve finally cracked American food in all its delicious and varied guises – you aren’t supposed to eat it all. Now we know that restaurants will happily split a dish between two people, and expect, even in the high-end places, to provide a plastic box for the half you couldn’t eat, our clothes have stopped shrinking. The sweet and juicy Maine lobsters and the Maryland crabs have been the highlights – oh yes, and the corn on the cob. My father grew this in our walled kitchen garden, and I never thought that anything could equal the memory of those fresh sweet cobs. The season is coming to an end, and each time we have more corn, we know it may be the last time this year; having been exposed to perfection, the merely good won’t do for us any more.
And one more small good thing about life in America : they give you programmes for free in the theatre. How civilised. Oh, yes, I also should confess to a shameless attraction to Mountain Dew and Cream Soda. And Anthony has a thing for saltines and Triskets.
Now, to balance things off, here are a couple of things we aren’t in tune with yet: the first one being feet.
Americans use their feet for all sorts of things, just like Europeans: American feet are recipients of nail polish and pedicures, wearers of shoes from sneakers to sandals, lovers of massages; they can be jogged on, or hiked on in the wilderness, or used to power bicycles – but not, apparently, used for walking. At least, not in the sense of everyday transportation from A to B. If you want to get around, you take a car. If you don’t have a car, you hire a cab. If you are poor – or a yachty – and you are in an unusually public-spirited town, there might be a bus. If you want to walk – “Walk? On your feet?!” is the normal response. In Newport, we asked a bright girl in the Historic Society’s museum about how to get to one of their houses. “Oh, you can’t walk there!” she said, in tones that made us think the route led through a combination of a ghetto and a nuclear waste dump, “it’s over a mile!”
To take to your feet to go more than a few hundred yards is to lay yourself open to charges of eccentricity, and to seriously increase your chances of ending up as road-kill.
The problem is that grocery stores (supermarkets) and hardware stores, and chandlers, and just about anything other than tourist shops selling T shirts, salt-water taffy and decorative glass-ware, are in malls, and malls are not in towns. Moreover, malls are normally set along the edges of busy roads. The walk to the mall itself isn’t a problem, a mile or so there, and what seems like three miles back with a rucksack laden with a week’s worth of milk and potatoes – it’s the last few yards that normally cause the difficulty. In the land of the ten lane highway and the 5 acre house-building plot, room has rarely been found for a sidewalk (pavement) on more than one side of the road, and there is definitely no space among the two thousand car parking lot for an underpass, a bridges, or even an island in the middle of the road. A pedestrian is a small and insignificant dot, waiting for a gap in the onrushing traffic, taking their life in their hands for a dash across the road. I suppose designers of shopping malls just can’t envisage that somebody who doesn’t have a car could possibly have enough money to buy things.
The other thing we don’t quite get is air-conditioning. Not the concept, just the level. Our first visit to New York in July coincided with a heat wave. Temperatures up in the 90s, humidity the same. We wandered the streets in a damp fuggy daze, carting the tourist paraphernalia of guide books, subway map, camera, water bottles – and my thickest pashmina. Because when you come in to any building: restaurant, cinema, shop or museum, you are met by a blast of chilled air, initially as refreshing as a drink of spring water, but quickly feeling as if it is freezing the sweat on your skin into tiny droplets of ice. On our most recent visit to Manhattan, we made an unplanned trip to the theatre, and only had with us what we had needed for a day on the beach. We spent the second act huddled together, like the Babes in the Wood, under our brightly-coloured bathing towels.
It’s a wonder they don’t all get pneumonia.
All good things have to come to an end, and we are now motoring up the grey and formless Delaware River, in a grey and form-shrouding mizzle. If it wasn’t for the occasional moored tanker looming out of the gloom, it would be hard to believe that we were moving. Hats and socks and neck-scarves have been dug out, smelling fustily of bilges, from the deep lockers they were stored in after our Biscay crossing. Autumn is on our heels.
We are on our way to the Chesapeake, to lay Tomia up and do some weeks of hard work on her, before heading back to England in early October. In addition to manual labour, I shall be working hard on Chatty Parrot, our new networking site for yachties and travellers. It is coming along well, after a change of designer, and the first couple of beta testers are giving very useful feedback.
Meanwhile, while I try to get our experiences into some sort of coherent form for retrospective blogs, here are some of the things we like about America.
Americans themselves take pride of place. Welcoming, engaged, interesting, intelligent, outgoing, easy and open: we have met some truly gorgeous people. They have overwhelmed us with their hospitality and kindness, and given us many happy memories. We have spent golden days with new BFFs, fallen instantly in love over a dinner table with friends of friends, or cousins or second cousins twice removed of friends, been embraced into warm family households, been cared for by complete strangers. Sailing and the Corinthian Yacht Club have provided us with a new group of like-minded people, whose generosity has made us feel at ease wherever we went. Even in Manhattan, strangers are polite and helpful.
Next is the papers. Even leaving aside the wonderful New Yorker, which belongs in a category of its own. Anybody who thinks British newspapers set the standard that the rest of the world yearns to emulate should have a look at the New York Times or the Washington Post; compare them to the British broadsheets, and hang their head. These two papers, along with many others with a more regional focus are what English papers used to be: quite simply, densely packed with objective, fact based reporting. The international news fronts up the paper, and takes up nearly half of it. The Op-ed (comment) pages cover different points of view and let them slug it out. The paper doesn’t give a damn about the private lives of slebs or sportsmen. The front page has a photograph that illustrates the news, not the opening of a new film. Just good plain informative journalism, which seeks to inform and stimulate, not to entertain.
That said, even the New York Times has a good line in bloopers. I posted the one about yachting a few weeks ago; here is one from last Sunday’s coverage of the US Tennis Open, where a young player, Beatrice Capra “attended a financial-planning session organised by the WTA” and learnt about “the financial volubility of life on the spotlight’s periphery”. Well, they always say that money talks …
Members of the MCC and those who have their own personal cricket clubs should look away now: baseball is rather a good game. It’s pacy, plenty happens, there is all the catching and getting out and general drama you could want, and it’s all over within a couple of hours. The basic rules are simple and easy to learn, but there are enough complexities to keep a teenage boy in statistics for several summers. The wonderful Arthur and Patty took us to the Yankee Stadium, to see the game played at its highest level, a great treat.
Then we got to meet two real, professional baseball players, Brett and Londell, staying for the summer with in Pete and Cheryl’s family, while they go through the rigours of their first years in the farm team system, playing for the Connecticut Tigers. They were delightful, and we went to watch them play three times. Knowing people on the team, and desperately wanting them to have a good match, gives a whole extra level of interest. A good game is interesting, but when Londell slides triumphantly onto the base a few milliseconds ahead of the fielder, or Brett makes a hit that runs two other team members in, it is thrilling.
We’ve finally cracked American food in all its delicious and varied guises – you aren’t supposed to eat it all. Now we know that restaurants will happily split a dish between two people, and expect, even in the high-end places, to provide a plastic box for the half you couldn’t eat, our clothes have stopped shrinking. The sweet and juicy Maine lobsters and the Maryland crabs have been the highlights – oh yes, and the corn on the cob. My father grew this in our walled kitchen garden, and I never thought that anything could equal the memory of those fresh sweet cobs. The season is coming to an end, and each time we have more corn, we know it may be the last time this year; having been exposed to perfection, the merely good won’t do for us any more.
And one more small good thing about life in America : they give you programmes for free in the theatre. How civilised. Oh, yes, I also should confess to a shameless attraction to Mountain Dew and Cream Soda. And Anthony has a thing for saltines and Triskets.
Now, to balance things off, here are a couple of things we aren’t in tune with yet: the first one being feet.
Americans use their feet for all sorts of things, just like Europeans: American feet are recipients of nail polish and pedicures, wearers of shoes from sneakers to sandals, lovers of massages; they can be jogged on, or hiked on in the wilderness, or used to power bicycles – but not, apparently, used for walking. At least, not in the sense of everyday transportation from A to B. If you want to get around, you take a car. If you don’t have a car, you hire a cab. If you are poor – or a yachty – and you are in an unusually public-spirited town, there might be a bus. If you want to walk – “Walk? On your feet?!” is the normal response. In Newport, we asked a bright girl in the Historic Society’s museum about how to get to one of their houses. “Oh, you can’t walk there!” she said, in tones that made us think the route led through a combination of a ghetto and a nuclear waste dump, “it’s over a mile!”
To take to your feet to go more than a few hundred yards is to lay yourself open to charges of eccentricity, and to seriously increase your chances of ending up as road-kill.
The problem is that grocery stores (supermarkets) and hardware stores, and chandlers, and just about anything other than tourist shops selling T shirts, salt-water taffy and decorative glass-ware, are in malls, and malls are not in towns. Moreover, malls are normally set along the edges of busy roads. The walk to the mall itself isn’t a problem, a mile or so there, and what seems like three miles back with a rucksack laden with a week’s worth of milk and potatoes – it’s the last few yards that normally cause the difficulty. In the land of the ten lane highway and the 5 acre house-building plot, room has rarely been found for a sidewalk (pavement) on more than one side of the road, and there is definitely no space among the two thousand car parking lot for an underpass, a bridges, or even an island in the middle of the road. A pedestrian is a small and insignificant dot, waiting for a gap in the onrushing traffic, taking their life in their hands for a dash across the road. I suppose designers of shopping malls just can’t envisage that somebody who doesn’t have a car could possibly have enough money to buy things.
The other thing we don’t quite get is air-conditioning. Not the concept, just the level. Our first visit to New York in July coincided with a heat wave. Temperatures up in the 90s, humidity the same. We wandered the streets in a damp fuggy daze, carting the tourist paraphernalia of guide books, subway map, camera, water bottles – and my thickest pashmina. Because when you come in to any building: restaurant, cinema, shop or museum, you are met by a blast of chilled air, initially as refreshing as a drink of spring water, but quickly feeling as if it is freezing the sweat on your skin into tiny droplets of ice. On our most recent visit to Manhattan, we made an unplanned trip to the theatre, and only had with us what we had needed for a day on the beach. We spent the second act huddled together, like the Babes in the Wood, under our brightly-coloured bathing towels.
It’s a wonder they don’t all get pneumonia.
Friday 3 September 2010
Hurricane Watch
Friday 3rd September 2010, day 686, 12,013 miles. 40° 57’.37N 073° 05’.20W. Port Jefferson, Long Island, NY
We’ve learnt a lot about hurricanes in the past week, as Earl has tracked relentlessly up the coast towards us.
Firstly, how very good the weather forecasters have got. On the US’s excellent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ hurricanes’ lives are tracked and predicted, from the incipient tropical wave forming vaguely off the west coast of Africa, somewhere near the Cape Verdes, to the tropical storm as the wave turns into a depression, forms, solidifies and starts to spin, to the forecast track of the final hurricane.
The second thing is how much time we have to prepare. Earl has been around for over a week, forecast to turn into a hurricane back last Wednesday, when it was still out in the Atlantic, several hundred miles east of the Caribbean islands. The forecasters produce a “cone”, showing not only the likely track, but the widening area of places where the hurricane could reasonably go, updated several times a day. Since last Saturday, when its path seemed likely to cross ours, we have been monitoring it daily, and getting advice from all our local friends about the best place to be if it did coincide with us.
Then there’s the combination of geography and meteorology which means that the eastern seaboard of the US tends to suffer less from a hurricane going by than the South. Hurricanes are an extreme form of a standard depression, with the wind blowing anti-clockwise around the centre. The winds blow around the centre at the same speed, wherever they are on its surface, but the hurricane itself is also moving, affecting the actual wind speeds generated. Earl is moving north east at the rate of about 20 miles an hour. In its north-western quadrant the wind is blowing from the north east (it goes anti-clockwise about the centre, remember), so the hurricane’s own velocity reduces the effective wind by 20 mph. In the south-eastern quadrant, on the other hand, the wind is blowing to the north east, increasing the effective wind.
Earl’s own wind right now is about 70 mph, giving a wind of 90 mph on the south east of its passage, but a more manageable 50 on its west. Hurricanes normally pass along the east coast, a bit offshore, so, here, the coast gets the lesser wind.
And in practice, for us? We spent the last few days with friends on the eastern end of Long Island. Wonderful people, happy and funny and easy and a pleasure to spend time with. We varnished our floorboards on their deck (they are yachties too, so quite understand), swam in their bay, drove round the ultra-exclusive resort of East Hampton marvelling at the size of the gated estates, laughed a lot, and fretted about Earl in between times. Brenda lent me the use of her bath, and I spent a blissful hour up to my neck in bubbles, reading Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin.
The predictions as of yesterday morning were for Earl to graze the tip of Long Island, so regretfully we sailed away, to the western end of Long Island Sound, where the forecast today is for nothing more than 15 -20 knots of wind. The people we are worried about are our friends, who will get worse weather than us.
And that’s the final thing we’ve learnt about hurricanes. It’s much better to be on a boat, mobile, than not to have the ability to move your home out of the way.
We’ve learnt a lot about hurricanes in the past week, as Earl has tracked relentlessly up the coast towards us.
Firstly, how very good the weather forecasters have got. On the US’s excellent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ hurricanes’ lives are tracked and predicted, from the incipient tropical wave forming vaguely off the west coast of Africa, somewhere near the Cape Verdes, to the tropical storm as the wave turns into a depression, forms, solidifies and starts to spin, to the forecast track of the final hurricane.
The second thing is how much time we have to prepare. Earl has been around for over a week, forecast to turn into a hurricane back last Wednesday, when it was still out in the Atlantic, several hundred miles east of the Caribbean islands. The forecasters produce a “cone”, showing not only the likely track, but the widening area of places where the hurricane could reasonably go, updated several times a day. Since last Saturday, when its path seemed likely to cross ours, we have been monitoring it daily, and getting advice from all our local friends about the best place to be if it did coincide with us.
Then there’s the combination of geography and meteorology which means that the eastern seaboard of the US tends to suffer less from a hurricane going by than the South. Hurricanes are an extreme form of a standard depression, with the wind blowing anti-clockwise around the centre. The winds blow around the centre at the same speed, wherever they are on its surface, but the hurricane itself is also moving, affecting the actual wind speeds generated. Earl is moving north east at the rate of about 20 miles an hour. In its north-western quadrant the wind is blowing from the north east (it goes anti-clockwise about the centre, remember), so the hurricane’s own velocity reduces the effective wind by 20 mph. In the south-eastern quadrant, on the other hand, the wind is blowing to the north east, increasing the effective wind.
Earl’s own wind right now is about 70 mph, giving a wind of 90 mph on the south east of its passage, but a more manageable 50 on its west. Hurricanes normally pass along the east coast, a bit offshore, so, here, the coast gets the lesser wind.
And in practice, for us? We spent the last few days with friends on the eastern end of Long Island. Wonderful people, happy and funny and easy and a pleasure to spend time with. We varnished our floorboards on their deck (they are yachties too, so quite understand), swam in their bay, drove round the ultra-exclusive resort of East Hampton marvelling at the size of the gated estates, laughed a lot, and fretted about Earl in between times. Brenda lent me the use of her bath, and I spent a blissful hour up to my neck in bubbles, reading Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin.
The predictions as of yesterday morning were for Earl to graze the tip of Long Island, so regretfully we sailed away, to the western end of Long Island Sound, where the forecast today is for nothing more than 15 -20 knots of wind. The people we are worried about are our friends, who will get worse weather than us.
And that’s the final thing we’ve learnt about hurricanes. It’s much better to be on a boat, mobile, than not to have the ability to move your home out of the way.
Tuesday 24 August 2010
En route for New York
We are in Newport right now, but as the blog has got so behind, here is a diary extract from June
Thursday 24th June 2010, day 615, 11,286 miles, 39° 16’.96 N, 74° 17’.86 W. Off Atlantic City, New Jersey.
“Tah tah dahdadahda, tah tah dahdadahda … Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today …”
“Prepare the ship for sea”, and once again we are off, this time leaving behind Annapolis with the usual blend of excitement at the next destination, pleasure in the new friends we’ve spent time with, and sorrow to be leaving yet another place where we could happily have spent months.
The route this time takes us up the Chesapeake Bay, and this is where we learn that the English are quite wrong when they say with a defiant pride “We don’t have a climate, we have weather.” The English have a very variable climate. The Americans have Weather. We ran into a particularly nasty patch halfway up Chesapeake Bay. Our friends Don and MaryKay had warned us “If you see a jelly roll (Swiss roll) in the sky, reef down and get yourself to shelter.” Believe me, next time we see any sort of cake up there, we will be motoring hard for the nearest harbour, rather than reefing a bit, and carrying on, staring up at the dark charcoal swirl forming fifteen miles down the bay with slightly academic interest.
The roll grew and massed, blacker and rounder, following us up the bay. Lightning started to crackle, thunder rumbling ominously, first in the distance, then growing closer and closer to the lightning flashes: “one thousand, two thou – whew, that was close!” The storm was chasing us right up the bay, like being followed by a giant bear, growling and spitting and making wild slashes with his claws.
The VHF crackled with a message from the Coast Guard: “Severe weather warning. A severe front with associated thunder, lightning and hail storms is due to pass up the Chesapeake Bay, north of Annapolis, in the next hour. All vessels in the upper Chesapeake Bay should make for shelter immediately.” We were stuck; the shelter of Baltimore was behind us, the other side of the ever-increasing storm cloud, the Bay was still 6 miles wide, but shallow banks on either side kept us from the shelter of the trees. Shelter of the trees? Aren’t you supposed to avoid trees in lightning? Yes, if you’re a person, and much closer to the ground than the trees; no, if you’re a yacht with a 58 foot metal mast that is the only thing above wave height in many square miles of open water.
We did the only thing possible, which was to disconnect the electrics, putting all the small stuff in the oven (apparently because it swings on rubber gimbals, it provides a degree of insulation), and carry on, willing the storm to slow or deviate to one side or the other. Finally a small wooded island appeared off to port, and we picked our way over unmarked shoals to a spot as close as we dared to its shores. The storm raged away, lightning exploding behind the clouds in yellow and grey sunbursts, sometimes swinging towards us, sometimes backing away. It would have been a wonderful show if we’d been watching from behind windows in some cosy little house. Finally it grumbled away, leaving us with increased respect for American weather.
The journey through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, shrouded with early morning mist, and down Delaware Bay was tame by contrast, and here we are, twenty four hours later, sailing past the unlovely shore of Atlantic City, at the 3am change in watches.
The moon is shining, our destination is less than a day away, and we are dancing together in the cockpit to Anthony’s Frank Sinatra impression “… I’m gonna be a part of it, New York, New York …” Can’t wait.
Thursday 24th June 2010, day 615, 11,286 miles, 39° 16’.96 N, 74° 17’.86 W. Off Atlantic City, New Jersey.
“Tah tah dahdadahda, tah tah dahdadahda … Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today …”
“Prepare the ship for sea”, and once again we are off, this time leaving behind Annapolis with the usual blend of excitement at the next destination, pleasure in the new friends we’ve spent time with, and sorrow to be leaving yet another place where we could happily have spent months.
The route this time takes us up the Chesapeake Bay, and this is where we learn that the English are quite wrong when they say with a defiant pride “We don’t have a climate, we have weather.” The English have a very variable climate. The Americans have Weather. We ran into a particularly nasty patch halfway up Chesapeake Bay. Our friends Don and MaryKay had warned us “If you see a jelly roll (Swiss roll) in the sky, reef down and get yourself to shelter.” Believe me, next time we see any sort of cake up there, we will be motoring hard for the nearest harbour, rather than reefing a bit, and carrying on, staring up at the dark charcoal swirl forming fifteen miles down the bay with slightly academic interest.
The roll grew and massed, blacker and rounder, following us up the bay. Lightning started to crackle, thunder rumbling ominously, first in the distance, then growing closer and closer to the lightning flashes: “one thousand, two thou – whew, that was close!” The storm was chasing us right up the bay, like being followed by a giant bear, growling and spitting and making wild slashes with his claws.
The VHF crackled with a message from the Coast Guard: “Severe weather warning. A severe front with associated thunder, lightning and hail storms is due to pass up the Chesapeake Bay, north of Annapolis, in the next hour. All vessels in the upper Chesapeake Bay should make for shelter immediately.” We were stuck; the shelter of Baltimore was behind us, the other side of the ever-increasing storm cloud, the Bay was still 6 miles wide, but shallow banks on either side kept us from the shelter of the trees. Shelter of the trees? Aren’t you supposed to avoid trees in lightning? Yes, if you’re a person, and much closer to the ground than the trees; no, if you’re a yacht with a 58 foot metal mast that is the only thing above wave height in many square miles of open water.
We did the only thing possible, which was to disconnect the electrics, putting all the small stuff in the oven (apparently because it swings on rubber gimbals, it provides a degree of insulation), and carry on, willing the storm to slow or deviate to one side or the other. Finally a small wooded island appeared off to port, and we picked our way over unmarked shoals to a spot as close as we dared to its shores. The storm raged away, lightning exploding behind the clouds in yellow and grey sunbursts, sometimes swinging towards us, sometimes backing away. It would have been a wonderful show if we’d been watching from behind windows in some cosy little house. Finally it grumbled away, leaving us with increased respect for American weather.
The journey through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, shrouded with early morning mist, and down Delaware Bay was tame by contrast, and here we are, twenty four hours later, sailing past the unlovely shore of Atlantic City, at the 3am change in watches.
The moon is shining, our destination is less than a day away, and we are dancing together in the cockpit to Anthony’s Frank Sinatra impression “… I’m gonna be a part of it, New York, New York …” Can’t wait.
Thursday 19 August 2010
The second guest blog
The voyage of Tomia from Boston to Boothbay (without the Captain!)
After an invitation to join Tomia we packed our shorts and flew into Boston only to see Celia briefly at Logan International airport on her way back to the UK for a week. For the first time for 2 years without the boss onboard, Tomia set sail north and really did behave very well and we soon realised that the 1st mate was quite competent and all would be well.
There is a lovely harbour at Marblehead where there are more moorings than cars on the M25 and If there is no mooring there are some lobster pots. But we had our contacts and on arrival the club launch met Tomia and guided us to our evening stop. Ashore we met Arthur who was to be the 4th member of the crew for the week and dinner with the Burns family overlooking the harbour at The Landing was a great treat, Patty and their daughters, Genevieve and Elizabeth’s company made for a real fun evening with Shepheards pie made with lamb, now there is a surprise! However, it was by now 2am (next day) UK time for us having left home the previous 6am.
A still night and soon after a mornings guided tour of this exquisite New England village and sailing centre, lunch at the yacht club, Tomia was rearing to move onto Gloucester Harbour where it rained.
A still night before we entered Annisquam river (where Tomia very carefully negotiated under a bridge with 6 inches clearance –(it may have been 6 feet but who knows) Emerging after an hour, despite Arthurs real expectation that we would be hard aground by now, into Ipswich Bay which was shrouded in a classic Maine fog. As we sailed away from the coast the fog cleared, sailing close to whales (that is the large sea going type rather than the west coast of Great Britain – a long debate on board about the size ranging from 12 feet to 60!) was an experience and we were now off to Kittery for a rendezvous with John & Els, a charming couple who not only invited us all to dinner but had purchased some bread and milk for us to take onboard. All these contacts along the coast, lots of eating out and with his constant craving for biscuits, why is Anthony not overweight you might ask?
A still night and we were off towards Biddeford Pool, And Arthur still had not introduced us to his rum punches - yet. Ashore we surveyed the real estate and purchased our first lobster tails for the evening’s aperitif, Arthur also secreted a bottle of Moet from the local store. It was the only bottle.
A still night and then we were off again, life was getting into a routine, Arthur and Suzanne were chief ‘Pot Watchers’, this may not seem too onerous but when you hear that Maine harvests some 75.6 million pounds (circa 34 thousand tonnes) of lobster annually there are a heck of a lot of pots out there, miles out to sea, in the approaches to harbours, in the anchorages, everywhere like little bobbing fishing floats always exactly in your path. Luckily by now we were proficient pot watchers and Tomia glided into Boothbay Harbour having averaged 6 knots today with gusts of force 7, but only after we took the ghoster down Celia.
A still night. Now why do I keep referring to these, well because most unusually at anchor the nights have been so quiet and peaceful, not a lap to be heard, no halyards tapping, no wind and absolute calm. Suzanne who is not the most enthusiastic sailor thought it is always like this and for our stay it was, every night. As we were at our destination (boothbayharbour.com) it was time for more lobster and a bit of whale watching the next day before Arthur finally delved into a well stocked alcohol cabinet and proceeded to mix the rum punches..… supper, oh, did we eat as well!
The coast line varies and is wonderfully dramatic, you need to be very aware, these rocks are unforgiving. Anthony and Tomia steered us through some interesting waters, under bridges, past many lighthouses and around the islands with confidence. Tomia is just the ticket, most comfortable as R&S were afforded the luxury of the captain’s cabin. Arthur was up front with his own escape hatch for midnight deck walkabouts and Ant seemed very happy in the forward side bunks, at least he seemed to sleep well. We all enjoyed every minute with just one sadness that Celia was not with us. But we so enjoyed Arthurs company and feel we now have new friends across the pond, like minded and great company. Apart from the Gloucester shower a fine breeze and sunshine accompanied us every day with Anthony so welcoming we could all see the pleasure and excitement which has been had on this journey beginning on the Deben in July 2008 and finishing when, well who knows, don’t think quite yet somehow.
Thank you for allowing us all to share a short section of your adventure and bon voyage.
Richard, Suzanne, hairdryer – Tomia team members and we have the t shirts to prove it.
p.s. Hilton Hotel, Boston eat your heart out, give us Tomia any day and much quieter.
After an invitation to join Tomia we packed our shorts and flew into Boston only to see Celia briefly at Logan International airport on her way back to the UK for a week. For the first time for 2 years without the boss onboard, Tomia set sail north and really did behave very well and we soon realised that the 1st mate was quite competent and all would be well.
There is a lovely harbour at Marblehead where there are more moorings than cars on the M25 and If there is no mooring there are some lobster pots. But we had our contacts and on arrival the club launch met Tomia and guided us to our evening stop. Ashore we met Arthur who was to be the 4th member of the crew for the week and dinner with the Burns family overlooking the harbour at The Landing was a great treat, Patty and their daughters, Genevieve and Elizabeth’s company made for a real fun evening with Shepheards pie made with lamb, now there is a surprise! However, it was by now 2am (next day) UK time for us having left home the previous 6am.
A still night and soon after a mornings guided tour of this exquisite New England village and sailing centre, lunch at the yacht club, Tomia was rearing to move onto Gloucester Harbour where it rained.
A still night before we entered Annisquam river (where Tomia very carefully negotiated under a bridge with 6 inches clearance –(it may have been 6 feet but who knows) Emerging after an hour, despite Arthurs real expectation that we would be hard aground by now, into Ipswich Bay which was shrouded in a classic Maine fog. As we sailed away from the coast the fog cleared, sailing close to whales (that is the large sea going type rather than the west coast of Great Britain – a long debate on board about the size ranging from 12 feet to 60!) was an experience and we were now off to Kittery for a rendezvous with John & Els, a charming couple who not only invited us all to dinner but had purchased some bread and milk for us to take onboard. All these contacts along the coast, lots of eating out and with his constant craving for biscuits, why is Anthony not overweight you might ask?
A still night and we were off towards Biddeford Pool, And Arthur still had not introduced us to his rum punches - yet. Ashore we surveyed the real estate and purchased our first lobster tails for the evening’s aperitif, Arthur also secreted a bottle of Moet from the local store. It was the only bottle.
A still night and then we were off again, life was getting into a routine, Arthur and Suzanne were chief ‘Pot Watchers’, this may not seem too onerous but when you hear that Maine harvests some 75.6 million pounds (circa 34 thousand tonnes) of lobster annually there are a heck of a lot of pots out there, miles out to sea, in the approaches to harbours, in the anchorages, everywhere like little bobbing fishing floats always exactly in your path. Luckily by now we were proficient pot watchers and Tomia glided into Boothbay Harbour having averaged 6 knots today with gusts of force 7, but only after we took the ghoster down Celia.
A still night. Now why do I keep referring to these, well because most unusually at anchor the nights have been so quiet and peaceful, not a lap to be heard, no halyards tapping, no wind and absolute calm. Suzanne who is not the most enthusiastic sailor thought it is always like this and for our stay it was, every night. As we were at our destination (boothbayharbour.com) it was time for more lobster and a bit of whale watching the next day before Arthur finally delved into a well stocked alcohol cabinet and proceeded to mix the rum punches..… supper, oh, did we eat as well!
The coast line varies and is wonderfully dramatic, you need to be very aware, these rocks are unforgiving. Anthony and Tomia steered us through some interesting waters, under bridges, past many lighthouses and around the islands with confidence. Tomia is just the ticket, most comfortable as R&S were afforded the luxury of the captain’s cabin. Arthur was up front with his own escape hatch for midnight deck walkabouts and Ant seemed very happy in the forward side bunks, at least he seemed to sleep well. We all enjoyed every minute with just one sadness that Celia was not with us. But we so enjoyed Arthurs company and feel we now have new friends across the pond, like minded and great company. Apart from the Gloucester shower a fine breeze and sunshine accompanied us every day with Anthony so welcoming we could all see the pleasure and excitement which has been had on this journey beginning on the Deben in July 2008 and finishing when, well who knows, don’t think quite yet somehow.
Thank you for allowing us all to share a short section of your adventure and bon voyage.
Richard, Suzanne, hairdryer – Tomia team members and we have the t shirts to prove it.
p.s. Hilton Hotel, Boston eat your heart out, give us Tomia any day and much quieter.
Sunday 15 August 2010
July - Boston to Boothbay
"Where have you been?" asks a friend. “There has been nothing on the blog for ages." Sorry about that, we've been rather hectic ... I went back to England to celebrate my stepmother's 80th birthday, and take my father on a trip to old friends and old haunts, and Anthony sailed on without me, in the company of his brother, Richard and wife Suzanne, and a new friend, Arthur. Arthur is "sort of family" - the sort of loose connection (his grandfather is the uncle of Anthony's daughter's husband's father) that means, when we were put in touch with each other in New York, we could both have said “thank you that was lovely” and gone our separate ways, or, as has turned out, been delighted to spend plenty of time together having fun.
Arthur and Richard / Suzanne have both written guest blogs about their time on Tomia – here is Arthur’s.
After following the adventures of Tomia for the past 2 years and living vicariously many of the great accounts of cruising in the Caribbean I finally had my chance to sail on her. Sadly, Celia could not make a planned cruise from Boston up to Boothbay Harbor, but Anthony’s brother Richard and his wife Suzanne seized the opportunity and flew over from England to join. And I was invited as well, having met Anthony and Celia a few weeks prior when they anchored at the 79th street Boat Basin in the Hudson River off Manhattan and Patty (my wife) and I shared a few NYC land-based adventures together, including an evening game at Yankee Stadium (Yankees lost).
And now I am just back from 5 days living with 3 virtual strangers in a 43 foot space. So what was it like?
Great time. Anthony, the Captain was amazing. In constant motion, moving effortlessly and unobtrusively (always barefoot) like a cat, gracefully and sure footed across the decks (even in 25 knot winds with boat heeling)--hoisting and trimming sails, furling and unfurling the head sails, setting lines (including some fishing lines), rigging and trimming a cruising chute while manipulating a heavy “spinnaker” pole , moving up and down the companionway unobtrusively to manage navigation, replace filters, replenish water supplies from the excellent Tomia watermaker and even prepare coffees for the crew. Just a normal day in the office I suppose, for someone living on board for two years. And he willingly and patiently shared his extensive knowledge of the sea, sailing and all mechanical aspects of his home, a well equipped 43 foot sailboat that felt more like 50 feet for some reason- maybe a result of the feeling of security from the center cockpit design, as well as the vessel weight and obvious stability.
The watermaker was the best bit of kit on board. An advanced filtration system allows you to draw in seawater (except in really funky harbors) and converts to fresh drinking water. At first I held onto my Poland Springs stash but after a couple of days could not resist the luxury of drinking fresh water right from the tap on board- in the heads or in the galley. Ok it’s not Evian but a fantastic convenience for cruising. As is the wind generator which can be flipped over into the water when there is no wind and magically (to me) function as a propeller, generating power underway as it turns with the rush of water.
Richard was a solid number 1 mate for his brother and a great guy as well. Also a highly experienced sailor, he and Anthony owned a 32 foot sailboat together prior to Tomia and speak the same language. Half the time I needed a translation. But it was engaging and I kept learning, as knowledge was imparted generously and patiently. Especially the anchoring. As a weekend sailor for too many years I still always opt for a mooring. Given a choice Anthony anchors. This makes perfect sense as they are free of charge and he and Richard have the skill levels to size up an unfamiliar harbor quickly and set an anchor relatively effortlessly. No sea dramas for this pair. The anchor has an all chain rode and a meter to keep track of the amount of scope let out. Very secure and convenient - no fear of dragging loose during the night!
Suzanne is also a very competent sailor with deceptively “keen” perceptions …for someone living in NYC for 40 years it came as I surprise that I (and my habits) were apparently not invisible to others. Then again it was only a 43 foot space……but who is complaining? Not I. Suzanne and Richard (and Anthony) were all easy going, great fun and we had lots of laughs and mini adventures as you might expect from a 5 day July cruise off the New England coast, from navigating through an unexpected fog off the coast of northern Mass to a more structured whale and dolphin watching tour off Boothbay Harbor (the watch boat did circles to allow the large schools of dolphins to swim, jump and surf the wake!) to the usual fresh lobster fests and even an impromptu dinner at Kittery harbor with friends of a friend of Anthony’s.
But it is the experience of cruising that I am left with ...essentially living out of doors 16 hours a day, sleeping under the stars albeit through the lens of an open hatch cover above, and slowing down as the official Tomia crew T-shirt advises, "sail fast and live slow". The exhilaration of moving along on a magic carpet over the sea, under the vast blue sky … it takes a few days to let go of habits- addictions,—the NY Times and constant background music … mainly in the head but also on the radio, on CDs, an iPod ..after a while all the noise melts away and one experiences the music and food for the soul—the harmony and routines established in living in close quarters with people of good will and equally committed to maintaining harmony by sublimating their own needs and neurosis to as minimal a level as possible … the feeling of perfect harmony when the mind finally stops rushing around for stimulus and the oft-talked about feeling of oneness with nature and the elements slowly and subtly but unmistakably sets in … the open sky, the perfect air temperature and gentle breezes, the rush of water along the hull and the vast blue ocean all around cast their spell … deep quiet … one tends to see oneself and one’s habits in a mirror as the calm and peace move in … thanks to Anthony and Celia for making this possible.
Arthur and Richard / Suzanne have both written guest blogs about their time on Tomia – here is Arthur’s.
After following the adventures of Tomia for the past 2 years and living vicariously many of the great accounts of cruising in the Caribbean I finally had my chance to sail on her. Sadly, Celia could not make a planned cruise from Boston up to Boothbay Harbor, but Anthony’s brother Richard and his wife Suzanne seized the opportunity and flew over from England to join. And I was invited as well, having met Anthony and Celia a few weeks prior when they anchored at the 79th street Boat Basin in the Hudson River off Manhattan and Patty (my wife) and I shared a few NYC land-based adventures together, including an evening game at Yankee Stadium (Yankees lost).
And now I am just back from 5 days living with 3 virtual strangers in a 43 foot space. So what was it like?
Great time. Anthony, the Captain was amazing. In constant motion, moving effortlessly and unobtrusively (always barefoot) like a cat, gracefully and sure footed across the decks (even in 25 knot winds with boat heeling)--hoisting and trimming sails, furling and unfurling the head sails, setting lines (including some fishing lines), rigging and trimming a cruising chute while manipulating a heavy “spinnaker” pole , moving up and down the companionway unobtrusively to manage navigation, replace filters, replenish water supplies from the excellent Tomia watermaker and even prepare coffees for the crew. Just a normal day in the office I suppose, for someone living on board for two years. And he willingly and patiently shared his extensive knowledge of the sea, sailing and all mechanical aspects of his home, a well equipped 43 foot sailboat that felt more like 50 feet for some reason- maybe a result of the feeling of security from the center cockpit design, as well as the vessel weight and obvious stability.
The watermaker was the best bit of kit on board. An advanced filtration system allows you to draw in seawater (except in really funky harbors) and converts to fresh drinking water. At first I held onto my Poland Springs stash but after a couple of days could not resist the luxury of drinking fresh water right from the tap on board- in the heads or in the galley. Ok it’s not Evian but a fantastic convenience for cruising. As is the wind generator which can be flipped over into the water when there is no wind and magically (to me) function as a propeller, generating power underway as it turns with the rush of water.
Richard was a solid number 1 mate for his brother and a great guy as well. Also a highly experienced sailor, he and Anthony owned a 32 foot sailboat together prior to Tomia and speak the same language. Half the time I needed a translation. But it was engaging and I kept learning, as knowledge was imparted generously and patiently. Especially the anchoring. As a weekend sailor for too many years I still always opt for a mooring. Given a choice Anthony anchors. This makes perfect sense as they are free of charge and he and Richard have the skill levels to size up an unfamiliar harbor quickly and set an anchor relatively effortlessly. No sea dramas for this pair. The anchor has an all chain rode and a meter to keep track of the amount of scope let out. Very secure and convenient - no fear of dragging loose during the night!
Suzanne is also a very competent sailor with deceptively “keen” perceptions …for someone living in NYC for 40 years it came as I surprise that I (and my habits) were apparently not invisible to others. Then again it was only a 43 foot space……but who is complaining? Not I. Suzanne and Richard (and Anthony) were all easy going, great fun and we had lots of laughs and mini adventures as you might expect from a 5 day July cruise off the New England coast, from navigating through an unexpected fog off the coast of northern Mass to a more structured whale and dolphin watching tour off Boothbay Harbor (the watch boat did circles to allow the large schools of dolphins to swim, jump and surf the wake!) to the usual fresh lobster fests and even an impromptu dinner at Kittery harbor with friends of a friend of Anthony’s.
But it is the experience of cruising that I am left with ...essentially living out of doors 16 hours a day, sleeping under the stars albeit through the lens of an open hatch cover above, and slowing down as the official Tomia crew T-shirt advises, "sail fast and live slow". The exhilaration of moving along on a magic carpet over the sea, under the vast blue sky … it takes a few days to let go of habits- addictions,—the NY Times and constant background music … mainly in the head but also on the radio, on CDs, an iPod ..after a while all the noise melts away and one experiences the music and food for the soul—the harmony and routines established in living in close quarters with people of good will and equally committed to maintaining harmony by sublimating their own needs and neurosis to as minimal a level as possible … the feeling of perfect harmony when the mind finally stops rushing around for stimulus and the oft-talked about feeling of oneness with nature and the elements slowly and subtly but unmistakably sets in … the open sky, the perfect air temperature and gentle breezes, the rush of water along the hull and the vast blue ocean all around cast their spell … deep quiet … one tends to see oneself and one’s habits in a mirror as the calm and peace move in … thanks to Anthony and Celia for making this possible.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)