May 20 to June 3 -- 5.5 Work Days, 2.5 Other Days and Two Sailing days

Sorry, this post has been very delayed; it was ready to go when the computer ate it and then I was away for a week and had to do things to get ready to live aboard, but today is a rainy day to get caught up.
Business before pleasure, so let's start with the work days. Twenty seven and a half hours including three when Lene came one day to help clean. I'm the better cleaner and she is the better organizer so she organized that day. I put more than half a gallon of distilled water into the 21 cells of ILENE's seven lead-acid batteries and changed the oil. The latter was a frustrating job spread over two days because I was not able to get all of the old oil out through the dip stick hole on my first try. But I came back and pumped the manual pump harder and got the electric waste oil removal pump working as well, so it ended happily Also, I read on the Saga Owners' web site of a new and improved way to change the oil filter without making a mess and it worked. My new favorite trick: approach the filter from the aft end of the engine rather than its front end.  And the new Buddy's Hardware store accepted the waste oil so the job is done and I purchased the oil for the next change as well as a new can of McLube lublicant for the headsails.
I used clear glue to 1) reaffix the starboard side plastic strip that the anchor chain runs on so it does not mess up the deck, 2) reattach the starboard side of the strip of Plexiglas(or is it Lexan?) that is at the bottom of the upper hatch board which keeps the rain out and 3) the cap to an empty plastic half gallon milk container with a handle which, when tied to a line from the anchor, is the new anchor location indicator.
I mounted the burgee and ensign and, installed the preventer and reefing lines. The latter was made more difficult by the temporary mysterious failure of the electric winch, a problem that went away the next day as mysteriously as it arrived. And I installed the second toe rail padeye, the blocks for each of them and the new sheets.

The small jib now has three sheets, the original one which is a self tacking mechanism, works great when sailing close to the wind. The two additional new traditional sheets, one to each side which are led to blocks low and farther from midship to (hopefully) give the sail a more effective shape and hence efficiency when sailing off the wind. (I tried this with a more flimsy apparatus which jammed between Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas and it has taken me five years to  try again. I am waiting for strong wind in which to try out the new system.)

The rest was just a lot of cleaning: small spots of mildew on the cabin ceiling swabbed off with Clorox, all woodwork cleaned and waxed The heads and galley attended to and the soles vacuumed and washed.
The "Other" days were fun. Lene and I had lunch with Evie, widow of my mentor, Selwyn, who is a Flag member of the Harlem and was visiting from Texas and the home of Jim and Cate, formerly owners of "Aria" at the Harlem, in Chatham NJ, followed by dinner with Evie in New York before I dropped her off at her hotel.

Next was Manu and Michelle, coming through NY in their motor home, i.e., land yacht, on their way from "Teepee" which is being repaired in Florida after being damaged by another boat that dragged onto her in the Bahamas, to Canada. Lene had lunch with them, I joined them for supper and they stayed over and shared my mango-blueberry sweet potato pancakes in the morning. Manu is such a handy person. I had about given up on getting the zipper of Lene's favorite foulie jacket to operate again but Manu fixed it. M & M have cat sat for us and Witty loves them, as you can see.

I enjoyed a full day of plotting out eleven ports for the proposed 16 day annual "Harlem Club Cruise," measuring the distance of each leg and calling the marina and to be able to report on availability, current pricing, and the VHF channel they listen to. I love planning cruises. Basically, knowing that my fellow members do not enjoy long passages, this trip consists of short hops, the maximum only 32 miles (less than seven hours even for our smallest and slowest boats). It is essentially a clockwise cruise past the shores of Long Island Sound with four lay days built in so no one will get tired.
The final "Other" day was "Tappas Night" at the Harlem.

I had the pleasure to sit with CJ and Jenny, Rita and Walt and Bruce and Diane, all of whom have cruised with us. An imaginative and delicious menu. The best was a plate of dates that had been stuffed with chorizo, wrapped in bacon and baked. Yum! The DJ was an excellent singer and essentially had tapes of the background of many popular songs which he accompanied on keyboard and vocals like a Karaoke. Here is CJ dancing with Jenny.

And I've saved the best for last. Both sails, each only two hours, on warm sunny afternoons, were with the Old Salts. The first was on Dave's "Lady Cat" a 1986 28 foot O'Day sloop. Old but pristine and fun to sail. It was just Dave, Rhoda and I. We went around Hart Island and achieved a speed of six knots. The other boat that day was Mark's catamaran, "Deuce of Hearts" with about eight folks.
And the second sail was ILENE's first of the season, with a rather full house because Mark had a load of family aboard Deuce of Hearts. It was Walt and Rita, Morty and Klara, Dave, Richie and a ringer-- Jim's grandson, who had never sailed before but, guiided by Dave, took the helm for about two thirds of the voyage and had a good time as you can see by his grim.

He is home schooled so was able to spend a few days helping his grandfather get his Chris Craft sloop "Time Machine" ready for the season. He had been on that boat at the mooring but never sailed before. We rarely dipped under six knots and exceeded seven for part of the time. I asked Jim if he could spare his helper for a couple of hours for some fun, and had the pleasure of reporting back how well his grandson had done.
The next post will be up shortly-- a review of a cruise aboard a 4700 passenger vessel.