First of all, I’m so excited (and a little intimidated) that we almost have 10,000 hits on our website.  We have lots of subscribers (THANK YOU!!!!) and even more people who are checking the website through Facebook; websites where I have links set up; and google searches.  Thank you to all our friends and family who are telling friends about us and posting about our trip on Facebook.  It is really helping!  My goal is to have 1000 subscribers, so if you haven’t signed up yet, please type in your email in the left margin (all the way at the bottom if you are on your cell phone) and hit “Subscribe”.  You will get an email when I post something new.

Our boat name, Patronus, is attracting fans already as we sail from place to place (no doubt in part because I ordered the name in the LARGEST font they make!)  Yesterday, a young woman (after seeing our boat from the launch in Port Jefferson) googled our boat name and signed up for our website because she loves Harry Potter, too.  We emailed back and forth and we now have some new Long Island friends following our journey.  Hi, Kenzi and family!!!  Tonight, after a 90 mile sail in gorgeous weather to Newport, Rhode Island, we passed a sailboat in the mooring field and the captain yelled to us, “MY POWERBOAT’S NAME IS THE GOLDEN SNITCH!”  I have a feeling we will have many more Harry Potter moments before the year is through!

As I mentioned, we are safe and sound in Newport harbor, my favorite place on earth (followed very closely by the Norwegian fjords and Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands).  Newport is considered the sailing capital of the world by many people.  When you enter the harbor, even on a Tuesday afternoon, you are met with the awesome sight of thousands of sailboat masts from one end of the harbor to the other.  The Newport Bridge, Fort Adams, the seaport/downtown area, and the stately presence of the New York Yacht Club and other mainstays of the gilded age round out the view.  When I look around, I see water, white clapboard buildings, and all the signs of a fishing town partially stuck in history.  The air here feels like home to me.  Even the sounds are comforting.

We left Port Jefferson at 0540 this morning.  We had the tides against us for about 4 hours, but they turned in our favor before Plum Gut and added up to an extra 3 knots by the time we hit The Race.  The boat is handling extremely well, even with the extra weight of a year’s worth of supplies.  The kids handled the long sail well today, which surprised me.  It’s been a long couple of weeks and a very busy start to the trip.  They slept late due to the rocking of the boat and the gentle rushing sound of the water outside the hull next to their heads.  When they woke up, they ate, played cards and mancala, read books, played house in their stateroom, and napped up on deck.  Just to remind us they are still kids/siblings, they threw in a little arguing and Porter managed to fall down and bump his bottom, resulting in some tears.

After getting our mooring, we traipsed into NYYC trying not to look like a bunch of liveaboard vagabonds and took nice, long, hot showers.  We dressed for dinner and ate on the back lawn of the club, overlooking the harbor with a great view of Patronus.  I swear I will not bore you with a year of food descriptions, but the Lobster Mac and Cheese had so much lobster in it that we had trouble finding pasta to put on the fork with it!  And they had a buttered toast appetizer with fresh ricotta, pepper, and roasted red peppers that was out of this world.  Then again, put me at a table with bread, pepper, and cheese and you really can’t go wrong.

After three hot days, we are finally in the city of moist, cool breezes, about to fall asleep with the hatches open, staring at the stars above us, listening to the pre-fireworks, and basking in the sounds of sailboat halyards clanking against their masts (but not ours.  Ours are properly fastened:)I will figure out a solution to our media situation in the next few days.  We are on day 3 and I already have 677 photos/videos, which I just loaded on to my computer from 5 different devices.  We need a better plan!  In the meantime, here are just a few scenes from the last few days.

 

 

 

 

 

with mema and bestefar in pt washington

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

reese and reenie in port washington

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bryson meditating on the lido deck:)