US East Coast cruising
July
We saw the most fireworks in our lives, after attending spending July 4th in Bristol, MA. Alan and Robin Flynn Barker were kind enough to share their mooring ball on Hog Island with us, and we got to traipse around this island which still has no state provided electricity, water, or roads. People didn’t have phones until cell phones came into play, and are still making their own water and electricity via solar power.
We had an Open House in Boston, MA, with friends, family, and work colleagues visiting over two days at Constitution Marina.
I was able to help pack Josh up for his upcoming move from one home to another in Sommerville, MA.
August/September
We enjoyed the beautiful homes and timeless wooden racing boats in Newport, RI caught the Folk Festival and ran into friends from the Bahamas (SV Solan, SV Cebu, SV Guinevere V, SV Sygyzy). Don returned to Mystic Seaport Museum, CT where was inspired as a youth traveling with his parents, Ruth and Peter Preuss, and docked our boat right next to the Charles W. Morgan, “the last of an American whaling fleet” and now, National Historic Landmark.
We tucked way up the Connecticut River staying on a Cove Landing mooring with the best hosts ever, Doug & Helen McDougal (SV Destiny II).
October
Enjoy was, in part, hauled out for hurricane Michael and spent important quality time with family and friends. Don’s mother and the best mother-in-law ever, Ruthie Preuss, lost her battle against cancer and was taken from us way too soon.
Boat work along the way
So the lines don’t break under sail, we replaced the six year old running rigging, color coding them to make grabbing the right line easier. For example, the jib sail has a red line for Port and green line on the Starboard side. This is after replacing our standing rigging last year (the stainless lines that hold up the mast; remember the bandaids post). We rinsed the air conditioning pipes with Barnacle Buster, replaced gaskets to address a few little hatch leaks, and purchased a new LifeSling3 MOB (yes, Man Overboard).
So we don’t hurt the hull, we added rub rails to stop mooring lines from chafing, and a Mantus anchor guard to prevent it from hitting the boat on the way up). We changed the water line, since it always looked like Enjoy was nose down and Lisa Karsten joined us at Port Annapolis for the official placement of our Enjoy logo artwork she created based on our November 2017 passage from VA to the Abacos.
Enjoy goes in the water tomorrow and we’ll head South within the week.