July 31 - August 1 -- Days Zero and One: Boarding and to Port Jeff: And Is Cruiser a Cruiser?

Two more suitcases and two carts of stuff (one of which contained two cat carriers and their cargo) and we were set, except for provisioning. I  bought the perishables on our list at the Throggs Neck supermarket and got back aboard before the squall hit. We were safely on our mooring but near 40 knot gusts thrashed ILENE around, yawing and heeling. Cruiser's first experience and he did not like it. He is a quiet, cautious "fraidey cat" and he nestled himself among bags of stuff on the small sole of the aft cabin. The wind dissipated after about 15 minutes and during a lull in the rain, after dinner, I drove our car into the garage at our apartment and took the subway back. Now we were really ready!

The passage to Port Jefferson, about 35 NM, was windless. Sure we put up the main, but it did nothing. There was no sailing at all. The tide was adverse at first and got favorable later. During our 5 3/4 hours underway we passed a merchantman, 508 feet long according to AIS, and going to New York to pick up a load,

and someone's idea of a pleasure boat:

Early in the day, I believe it was an unexpected sudden wake that freaked out poor old Cruiser. He found his next hidey hole in a mad dash for it, an enclosure under the forward head. Not the most comfortable spot on the boat; the ends of a boat are never as comfortable as amidships, but he has found it and Alfie kept him company there; maybe she is trying to help coach him through boot camp? We get him out for food and we got to pet him a bit on our bed, but he knows the way back to his hidey hole. I think that he finds comfort in his familiarity with us two humans, even in a new place, an environment that moves under his paws, as if in an earthquake. So he is not a cruiser yet, but he has made great progress in his first two days aboard.

Our "buddy boat" for the first week of this cruise is Huck and Cindy's "Miraval', from the Harlem, a Pearson 36. Its engine is reliable but currently gives it only about four knots, considerably slower than ILENE, so they leave earlier and get in later, as we did in our early days of club cruising, relative to Ernie and Camile's "Blast", a trawler.
Being the only two boats on the cruise, we have taken the liberty to change the itinerary to suit ourselves. Thus, while our first night was in Port Jeff, as scheduled, it was not at the Yacht Club but at the anchorage west of the breakwater. On a weekend evening we would have anchored but on a beautiful cool Thursday night, we were two of about six boats using the 100 or so moorings dotting the water.

We saved money and cut two miles off the day's passage and the next day's passage. I have never thought that Port Jeff was a great town for touring cruisers, anyway, and the forecast for a calm night made this an ideal choice for us.
I took the dink down and straightened out its starboard davit's lifting block. Its outboard started right up; the Uber for our dinner aboard ILENE. They brought cheese and crackers and wine and Lene cooked up penne bolognese and green beans.
But before they got here I got a chance to scrub off the worst of the black stains on ILENE's  starboard freeboard where rain collects dust and mud and washes it through the holes in the toe rails. I also got to replace the decaying soft plastic anchor roller with a new black one. Its groove was tailored for the shank of the Rocna.

I had met Huck at the all day seminar at the New York Explorer's Club featuring circumnavigators that we both attended this past off season. We, who don't go that far, can always dream though.