Tut Tut!

August 30:

We're in Roanoke Island, NC! Can you believe we're this far south already? me neither!

I forgot to tell you something kinda cool that we saw yesterday- a really pretty yacht named Star Ship- the significance of this yacht? we saw them while we were in NYC! they were docked in Manhattan, right in front of PJ Clark's! then we saw them yesterday in Portsmouth- we thought it was kinda neat-o.

so anyway, we left the Atlantic Yacht Basin this morning- check out this picture of the ICW- so pretty!

It was a really great day, great weather, not too long... Then when we got out into the sound, we looked behind us and saw 16 jet skis following us! 16! it was crazy! I took a picture:

We just got back from grocery shopping and made it back to the boat before it started pouring! seriously, we're talkin sideways rain.

tomorrow, we're headed to Ocracoke, then Tuesday is a layover day! weeee!

I think that's all I have to tell you...

Peace out, homies.

Only 13 days left...

Saturday, August 29:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BECKY HOLT!

This morning, we got out of Norfolk later than usual- around 8ish. It was a very good day on the water, seeing as we were in the ICW (yay!!!)… and we got to see some pretty cool stuff too!

This is Old Point Comfort:

Then, we went past all the Navy ships in Norfolk- there are a TON! We counted 5 carriers and 26 unidentified ships.

We went thru maybe 8 bridges today- some of which had to open for us, which is always fun, and then we went thru the Great Bridge Locks again! …feels like only yesterday… (it was July 26)
Here are some pictures:


The marina where we’re staying tonight was just on the other side of the Great Bridge Bridge.
We had to re-fuel- here’s me helpin out!


Tomorrow, we’re headed to Roanoke Island!
13 days, folks! Times flies when you’re havin a blast!

p.s. There's a DQ across the street! oh, happy day! :D

BONZAI!!!

Fri, August 28:

We left Chincoteague, MD earlier than usual- had to make the bridge opening at 6AM. We had a long-ish day on the water with semi-intimidating swells. I stayed up on the bridge all day, so as not to be nauseated… seems to be the best method of prevention, short of actually wearing the anti-sick patch.

Once we turned into the canal where Vinings Landing is, we were greeted by 2 very nice men in a Navy security boat. They came right up, turned their boat so it was parallel with ours, as if to say, "Ain't no way you're comin past here." And they just hung out there, off our port side until we made the right hand turn into the marina...
Come to find out, the Naval Station they were guarding was that of Navy Special Ops- SEALs, top secret type stuff... pretty cool. I didn't take a picture of them, didn't think they'd appreciate it.

After we got docked, we washed the boat- with the help of the Margaritaville station on Sirius! Then, I got to enjoy the pool!

We are staying in Norfolk tonight, leaving around 8 tomorrow morning (yippee!).

The end.

p.s. we’re watching Doc Hollywood. I’ve never seen it before. So far, I’m intrigued.

"One hand on the boat!"

Monday, August 24th:
We left Jersey City (Liberty Landing) headed for Atlantic City to meet Barry's brother Steve...
Not much else happened Monday, or it did and I forgot because I'm embarrassingly behind on my posts... oh well, will update you if I think of anything significant!

Tuesday:
We left Atlantic City around 7ish… later than usual because it was a short trip to Cape May.
We took a cab into town and walked around for a while, went in some cool stores, and found a RITA’S!!! (fyi: StrawberryKiwi ice + vanilla custard= BEST EVER!!!)
For dinner, we walked just across the street to Lucky Bones! …where we ate on the way up… it was very good! After dinner, we tried to treat Steve to the all around cultural experience that is The Princess Bride, but he fell asleep… oh well, we enjoyed it!

Wednesday:
This morning, I woke up late (8:30ish) and walked into town to find internet… I found it… but it’s $4/15 minutes!! As if! So, instead, I got 15 free minutes at the library and got very little done.
I found a new cross for my cross wall!!! It's very pretty!
Then, I walked back to the boat, hung out for a while, before we went to a restaurant called Copper Fish across the street from the marina- holy cannoli! best Grouper ever ever!

Thursday:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ASHLEY!!!!

This morning's sunrise:

BEST sunken boat picture YET!!!

We woke up normal time, and had a long day on the water... there were rather big swells... not much happened... we are docked in Chincoteague, MD. A VERY small town! The police chief and the coast guard chief? came by to check on us... see where we were coin from... see if we needed anything... nice gentlemen...
Every citizen of this nice little town has been by to take pictures of us- we are the talk of the town! Tomorrow, we are leavin early to make the 6AM bridge opening! yippee!

Now you're all caught up! :D

On the last day of the world, I want to be on a Boat!!!

Today is August 24th- HAPPY BIRTHDAY TODD!!!

Let's start with where I left off... Thursday, August 20th:
We left Mystic headed for Port Jefferson, NY. All day long, all we could see was fog. We could only see the water surrounding the boat.
For over 5 hours. That was our scenery. This far north, it doesn’t get warm enough quickly enough for the fog to dissipate like it does at home. What a pain in the butt. But! It was a “teachable moment”- navigating in the fog is a whole different ballgame, or really, the same ballgame, just requires more focus. When you’re in the fog, you as a power-driven vessel blast your horn at least every 2 minutes. Which we did. Then, with the help of radar, you have to locate and steer clear of any other vessel blowing their horn. Which we also did. Then there’s the whole searching for buoys in the fog, which I found somewhat humorous. (I’m not very good at it.)
We got into Port Jefferson around 1ish- had lunch, washed down the boat, then I went in search of tomatoes and diet coke (to be enjoyed separately). I found neither. However, I did find a Starbucks and a Gap! It wasn’t a wasted afternoon… after everybody got cleaned up, we went down the street to a place called Village Way for dinner.

Friday, August 21st:
to Liberty Landing in Jersey City (where we stayed a couple weeks ago, across from Manhattan?)
We stayed there until this morning.
On the way in, we got some really great pictures, just from the opposite direction as the ones we took a few weeks ago...
Check this out:
There really just isn't a whole lot of room in NYC. This road goes under the hospital, and it's like that bridge from before- cars on top and on the bottom!...so weird...

And here's a picture of the gondola by the Queensborough Bridge- so cool!

And here's the Brooklyn bridge- I love this one!


Saturday, August 22nd:
We went to Times Square!!! Check it out!





It's me! In Times Square!!!

The Naked Cowboy!!!

From there, we walked to 5th Avenue and Rockefeller Center- so cool

This is what Hurricane Bill looked like on the radar:you can even see the boat! see?

On Sunday, we went to the Central Park Zoo!

ok, am I missing something?

Holy Cannoli!!!That's a Rhinoceros Snake! Really!

Tentacled Snake:

Red Panda:Didn't look much like a panda...

This clock chimed a very elaborate version of "Three Blind Mice" when it struck 2:30 PM.

This is a polar bear named Ian.

This is how big Ian's foot is.

Now, here is a quote worth posting!

Check it out! I'm in Central Park!!!

Ta ta for now! :D

Don't feed the swans!

hey howdy hey!

Today is Wednesday, August 19th, 2009. I'm chillin on the boat after a really long day- great, but long. But wait... I know what you're thinking- there are a couple days I've skipped. No worries, here you go:

Monday, August 17th:
After I woke up, late-ish, I walked down the street to The Yellow House for a really great cup of coffee, then window shopped a little before heading back. We had a lazy day on the boat, save for some laundry. And had some maintenance-type stuff done as well. We hung out in Stonington for the night, had pork chops for dinner (yum-oh!).

Tuesday, August 18th:
We left Stonington later than our usual time because we didn't have very far to go at all. It took us just over an hour, in fact, to get to Mystic. We are staying at the Mystic Seaport Museum and Docks. This is a very cool place- a little museum village. There's a lot to learn, they've done a really good job of making it interesting, too!
On the way into Mystic, we saw Morgan Point (no longer commissioned- someone LIVES there!!!)

the top of a pretty church:

some really great boat names:
Got Rum?
GOOD BOAT
Refried Beenz
this one's name is "duet," spelled out in notes. Hope you can see it- how cute is that!? Also, I understand it's a little late in the game to be telling you this, but any of the pictures you can't see, or want to see in more detail, you can click on them to make them way big. Enjoy!

only in the NorthEast, I guess- GAS, DIESEL, ICE, LOBSTER:

and had to go through the Highway 1 bascule bridge:(it's wide enough for TWO trains!)

and here's the Mystic Seaport lighthouse:
Once we got all docked and whatnot, the 3 of us walked into downtown Mystic where we tried "the best ice cream in Mystic." Holy cannoli was it awesome. I had Mint Chocolate Oreo. Then we walked and window-shopped a little, AND found a BOOKSTORE!!! weeeeee! I bought 2 books!
We had dinner at the restaurant right by the Museum docks (I had awesome chowder). and that was Tuesday.

Ok, so now I guess I can tell you about today. We were supposed to only be here 1 night, then leave for Port Jefferson this morning, then stay in Port Washington for 3ish days. Plans change, we adapt. If you have not seen, there is inclimate weather threatening. While (so far) it has not threatened to hit the US at all, it will no doubt make the waters around NY very... icky. So, we're in Mystic still with plans to leave for Port Jefferson in the morning, where we will, as they say, play it by ear. So this morning, I walked to downtown Mystic, did a little shopping, found a post office, and came back for lunch. Then Alice and I went to find a grocery store with the help of the most obnoxious cab driver on the PLANET. So, now we won't starve!

Thanks for keepin up with me, will keep you posted!!!

Welcome to the family, SeaBright!

8.16.2009

This morning, John and Jeanie Coyle’s boat, SeaBright, was officially welcomed into the Outer Reef family.


Here's a bunch of us waiting for the christening to start:


Since we were all so smished in next to each other, we had to be flexible and christen the stern so that the Smalls’ boat, Illusion IV, didn’t end up covered in champagne. Jeanie hit the bottle against a stern cleat instead of the anchor.




After the christening, it took a while, but we all made it out of the gridlock.


Now we’re in Stonington, CT.

We saw North Block Island lighthouse:


We saw Watch Hill lighthouse:


And we saw Point Judith:
that one turned out pretty cool.

Here's our sunset:


We had a chill day after a big weekend. Tomorrow is a maintenance/layover day, then Tuesday we're headed to Mystic.

Thanks for reading! love! :D

Pirates, AARG!

8.15.09

Today is Halloween on Block Island.

This morning, the guys from Concord Electronics came to the boat and fixed everything. AND brought internet. AND made it so that it’ll be easier to find wireless from now on! Woohoo! So, until something else breaks, we think they’re wonderful.

Once they left, we made sure the boat looked presentable enough for the yacht hop scheduled for after lunch. Speaking of, here are a couple more pictures of the boats all together:

After the yacht hop, we flew kites!!! Turns out, I’m not a great kite flyer. My kite had a tendency to bomb others. Oh well. They were really pretty!
Here's mine, during a rare moment that it was actually flying:
And here's me attempting to keep it in the air:
Story time: one kite (that I was NOT manning) bombed another one and somehow cut the string off. The victim kite went flying up and over the pool, made a quick turn down the left side of the dock, dipped way low almost to the water, and then shot up in the sky, its string caught on (we speculate) the radar on the flybridge of an innocent boat. So funny. And here’s the picture:

At 4pm, there was a wine tasting- yum-oh!
And later, there was dinner, awards (Who Traveled the Farthest? Andrew and Jo from Australia. Who has the Biggest Engines? Barry Allred. Stuff like that…), and dancing. The whole night was pirate themed- there were quite a few Outer Reef-ers who definitely made the effort. There was a DJ there, doing a wonderful job of singing fun music, and the food- surprise, surprise- was wonderful.

After dinner, some of us went down to the end of the dock to check out the Halloween costumes. Boy, were there some costumes: entirely too many men dressed as slutty women, and 2 too many boys dressed as babies, diapers and all. Gross.

Tomorrow, we have to leave. Everyone is already really excited about the next rendezvous. In the Keys, perhaps? Outer Reef (Jeff and Colleen, in particular) did a wonderful job. I doubt the location would make much of a difference.

Have a great day! Carlson out.