Home At Last! ! ! ! ! !

SHIP'S LOG:

ABISHAG didn't go into the water last Wednesday! She actually went in on Thursday. It is always a traumatic moment  for me as I am sure that "something major" was left undone or was done badly. But stepping on board and having the yard motor her down to a slip, well everything seemed to be just fine. That's actually all I did on Thursday, took a little boat ride and did a quick check on systems. Everything seemed to be working just fine thank you.

Friday afternoon, it was time to bend on the sails. It is a more activity to do by oneself but I was luck when Fred stopped by and helped with the project. It took a little more than an hour and then we sat and gassed in the cockpit.  we made plans to take her back  to TYC on Tuesday.  It will be great to get her back where she belongs. The trip will be a drag for it is certain to be a motor all the way to Long Island Sound, a good 20 miles or so and with all the recent rain, the river maybe cock-full of all sorts of interesting floating debris. But with two pairs of eyes, we should be able to avoid the an serious entanglements and crashes.

Saturday and Sunday would have been perfect days for the trip but unfortunately, nether I nor Fred was free. I had a "Farewell"party for the son of a friend who was heading over to Afghanistan for a tour of duty and on Sunday, I attended a surprise 80th birthday party.

I got a call over the weekend from Fred saying that his schedule for his part-time job had been changed and Tuesday was out, as well as Wednesday, so Thursday was the first day he could make it. At the same time, I got a call from Russ saying that he was taking a couple of days off and that he was willing and able to help move the boat Tuesday or Wednesday. Co-coordinating a move  just never seems to go smoothly!

The deciding factor on the move date  was the weather . . . . naturally. After several days of wonderful weather, the weather for the week was headed into the crapper. So Russ and I decided to go on Tuesday before it got really bad.

We met at TYC, dropped off my car and returned to Yankee. we left the dock at 9:15am with everything going just fine . . .except for the GPS unit in the cockpit. For some reason, it was not getting power. I am not sure why but I suspect that in rummaging around in the wiring, I broke one of the connectors that powered the unit. It should be a n easy fix . . . once I find it. Luckily, the GPS unit at the Nav Station was working just fine. It had the track in the river that I followed on the way up and we followed down the river. It also had the working depth sounder! Several places in the upper part of the river, between Portland and the east Hadam Swing Bridge, have some rather shallow spots and you really have to follow the channels cut for the barges that bring oil up the river to the power plant in Middletown.  A "first" trip is always one where staying focused on your course is something that is hard to do. You tend to wander a bit and having the depth sounder, well it made it easy to see when you were straying to far out of the channel.

But there were no incidents and with chart in hand, we made it successfully and safely all the way to the Sound. Once out in the Sound, we sailed! It was glorious though short. For awhile, we made better time under sail than under motor but the wind was dying. After an hour or so, off Niantic Bay, I kicked the motor on and we motored the rest of the way. It was a bit of a slog as the tide and the wind were against us but we we were off TYC by 5:15pm, just about what I thought we would be. I ran over the docking procedures with Russ as I had no dingy and I didn't expect the launch to be running mid-week. Usually that doesn't happen before Father's Day which is late this year, next weekend. But on the off chance that they had started it up early I made the call and was rewarded with a response. The launch was running  and I didn't have to go to the dock, but could go "home," back to my mooring.

ABISHAG was safely moored by 5:30pm and Russ and I were on the launch back to shore. And while we still had to have supper and then drive back to Portland so I could drop Russ at his car, it was still go "to be home."