After spending the morning at home packing and preparing food, we headed south around 12:30. We are getting really good at "getting ready". The drive to Noroton CT took us 5 hours, and included a brief stop to grab a sandwich and pick up some milk. We can do without most anything, but milk is critical for us, we need it for our coffee!

We spent some time unpacking and got the launch in to shore, took Dixie for a great walk to a nearby beach, and then drove into town to get Italian take-out to bring back to the boat for dinner. In the distance, we could see the sky over New York city glowing.

This morning is cool and cloudy, in the 60s, with a light drizzle from time to time. It's about 30 degrees cooler than the last time we were here. Lin walked Dixie while Moe did some cleaning of the outside of the boat. The boat is filthy! As he sprays the hose on it, black sooty foam runs off. Moe asked the dockhand if it was possibly smog from New York City, but the guy said "no, it's always like this". And then he told Moe that he uses degreaser to clean his boat. Hmmm.

TUESDAY, August 21, 2007

Seawanhaka Yacht Club, heading in towards Oyster Bay, NY. It is pretty here, but there is nothing to do. The yacht club restaurant is closed, and it's too far to walk into town. We had dinner on the boat, and Moe and Dixie had a good walk on the beach while Lin stayed back on the boat to do some work for her job. Dixie met a Canada Goose, who did not want to play, but was glad to show Dixie how to get into the water and swim. Dixie tried to follow, and enjoyed her brief swimming lesson.

We moved further down into Oyster Bay to the Sagamore Yacht Club, right around the corner from Billy Joel's house. It was pretty windy and choppy, and after sitting on the boat on our mooring for a while, we noticed we seemed to be a lot closer to the boat behind us. Hmm, could we be moving? Yep. The GPS said we'd moved... we'd actually dragged our mooring! The yacht club promptly put us on a larger, heavier mooring. This was even closer to the recently abandoned LightShip, "Nantucket". The Nantucket had been used as a floating lighthouse but is not in use any more, and since it would be so expensive to fix up, it's just been left.

We did quite a bit of walking in town here, and even more eating. So far, we've been pretty lucky about finding places with outdoor dining areas, and most of them let us bring Dixie. If they didn't allow her, we didn't eat there!

WEDNESDAY, August 22, 2007

We left the Sagamore Yacht Club at 1:00, and made the 2.5 hour trip to City Island, which is part of the Bronx, near New York City. We had some fog on the way in, but not so much that we were still able to see some interesting sights, lighthouses, other boats, beautiful houses on shore, and a tiny island called “Execution Rock”.

City Island Yacht Club is a nice, comfortable place. The people here are all friendly and helpful, and the yacht club building is an old house. There is a large dining area and bar on the main floor, and upstairs is the best womens facilities we’ve ever seen! There’s a pink powder room with stools, counter tops and a line of lighted mirrors, as well as a large ladies room and spacious, clean shower facilities. The men’s room is in the basement, haha.

We got the boat moored, finally. It was a hunt to find the mooring we’d been assigned, until we realized there was already a boat on it. So the yacht club assigned us the next empty mooring, labeled “WC”. We found out later that this stood for Walter Cronkite.

We had dinner in town, and then went back to CIYC to meet Moe's brother Marc, his wife Louise and their kids Patrick, Kim, Alyssa and Matt. They all had another bite to eat at the yacht club, and we joined them for dessert before catching a launch back to the boat.


THURSDAY, August 23, 2007

In the morning, we walked into town for some shopping and breakfast, and new pairs of sunglasses for the girls. We went back to the boat, and headed towards Manhattan. We passed Riker's Island, LaGuardia Airport, and motored through Hell's Gate. Hell's Gate is where three rivers meet up and the current can be quite tricky. There were lots of boats and bridges. Wetravelled south on the East River, past downtown Manhattan. Interesting buildings and traffic right up to the edge of the water. Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Ground Zero.

.
FRIDAY, August 24, 2007