Jan 31 - Feb 16 -- Some Activity But Not A Single Visit With The Boat

I think ILENE must be lonely for me and a visit to her is planned for this week; it's been a long time for my dear girl to be alone.

On the boating side of life, I measured a few more times and contracted with and sent a deposit to Luther's of Bristol RI to fabricate the new replacement thicker-walled aluminum diesel tanks (125 vs 90 thousandths of an inch). He had done a tank for another Saga 43 and his mechanical drawings looked great. I coached him to be able to draw the forward tank: Same length and width but two inches deeper and same fittings but in different locations. I am also having him move the viewing port for the forward tank so it will not be directly under the single most difficult to remove structural thwart. Removing it requires me to remove all of the cabin sole to get a look! His design of the ports will be much more solid as well. I'm very pleased with his reputation, website and the satisfied Saga owner; and the price was less damaging than I had feared.

I've also been reconsidering the Newfoundland cruise; No, don't get me wrong, we ARE going. I checked the calendar and we have 77 days, not just 70 as previously reported. But this is still not enough time to put into all of the 39 ports planned, considering that many of them are worth a lay day or two. And some of the 77 days will be involuntary lay days, i.e., stormy or foggy. So the first cut has been made: the NW part of the loop featured in the prior post, including Prince Edward Island.  A different province for different cruise; think ahead!  Also, there are 17 nice looking ports and fjords along the south coast of Newfoundland. They are near enough to each other so if I pick let's say the seven best ones, we can get ten more days back.  Like I said, every cruising itinerary remains a perpetual work in progress draft until we arrive back in our home port.

We did have  a nice dinner and theater evening with our sailing friends from  "Ohana", and two other dinners with them without the theater in celebration of Lene's birthday. I have been to two other nights of theater an orchestral concert, a book reading, two classes of an NYU Adult Education course in ethics, and a lecture about the role of war games played at the US Naval War College in Newport RI in preparing our Navy for the war against Japan.  And between conception, shopping for exotic ingredients and the actual cooking and baking, it took me most of three days to cook a Libyan dinner for nine. This was for the meeting of my Book Group last week. Interesting cuisine, consistent with the setting of the book, but not all of it was very tasty. The guys appreciated my efforts though. So I keep learning interesting things. But that's not sailing.

Yesterday was the Harlem Yacht Club's Ninth Annualish Winter "Land Cruise" which I have been organizing since 2009. For our 2020 outing we went to the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers New York. Hmmm... if I was more quick witted, I might have called it: "The Harlem Goes To The Hudson!"  We took in the star show at their planetarium and at the beginning of the show our Club was recognized by name explicitly. But the star show was at two pm and we were warned that seating might well sell out (and it did) so I had to make two changes to our normal practice:  First we had to buy our tickets in advance (at sharply reduced group rates which permitted me to make the event a fund raiser for the Club again) rather than at the gate. I felt bad that a few people who had planned to attend had to cancel due to last minute work or health problems and had to pay for tickets that they could not use.

Secondly, we ate first at Dolphin Restaurant, also along the Hudson but a nine minute drive south of the museum. This broke our tradition of "learn first; eat second". Altogether about 30 folks participated though a few only could join the eating part and a few others, only the learning part. The planetarium show ended at three and we had two more hours to tour the museum's other exhibits including many with a nautical motif from canoe on Catskill Creek, to sail and then steam on the Hudson.

Next is a portion of a huge, very long skinny relief map from the Hudson's source high in the Adirondacks to its discharge into the Atlantic. This detail shows City Island on the right and the Hudson in the top left corner.

I was very pleased with the event: all the anxiety was paid off with satisfaction at the end. I was even given a suggestion to check out for the 2021 event: a potential guided tour of the New York Ferry maintenance shop. Who knows? I keep fearing that we will run out of nautically themed destinations for our winter cruises but the New York area is so culturally rich.