Toodle-oo! is on the go! It’s tough to keep the blog going while all sorts of things are going on, but will do my best…

We arrived in Port Washington on Friday where Jamin was moored and took up one of the other free moorings while it rained and poured. Unfortunately, the weather was set to turn even more bleak – with high winds forecast – so rather than enjoy ourselves in a relaxed manner, we had to take advantage of a lull in the weather – just as we were settling in for sundowners – to remove the main and stuff it into the cockpit so that we could affect some repairs later on.

The wind was up – 25-35 kts and in the shallow water, the surf was running. Never the less, we decided to make a trip to shore – Laurie had arranged a haircut and we got various little bits and pieces for the boat. The dinghy ride to shore was miserable but the ride back was just plain silly – with Jane watching our return with winds gusting to 36 knots!!! We were drenched!

Sunday we stayed aboard all day and managed to get the necessary temporary repairs made to the sail.

Monday with winds still up, we ventured out to town for lunch where Mike and Jane fessed up that they were throwing in the towel and heading home. Such a shame after so much preparation and anticipation. Too bad… In the evening we met on Jamin with a couple of other boats – Jim and Louise (Salacia) and Jos and Erica (Endless Summer) – enjoyed a few beverages and discussed the weather… Jos and Erica are also headed towards Norfolk Virginia…

The weather forecast for getting south to Virginia was not really very good – with high winds set for Tuesday and no winds for Wednesday. We set off anyway and had a great sail past NYC and the Statue of Liberty

Empire State

WTC – Financial Center

Liberty!

and then out into the open sea where fortunately the forecast winds were somewhat lighter and we made great progress through Tuesday to the mouth of the Delaware. Not quite as good as Endless Summer however – they caught and past us! 🙁 Then the wind stopped and we ended up motoring basically for the entire day, finally reaching the mouth of the Chesapeake at about 1:00am on Thursday morning. We anchored (in the rolliest location!) and crashed for what remained of the night. Later in the morning we made our way to Hampton and have ended up in a very tight little anchorage in downtown Hampton. Really great! We also managed to drop off our main for repairs – which got rather larger on the way south, with both lower battens popping out of the sail. The restraining Velcro has apparently given up…

The Salty Dawg Rally puts on seminars in the week leading up to the rally – and this morning (Friday) we were anticipating a very useful talk from Quantum about sail repair. Unfortunately, he didn’t show up – so we instead learned how to fish! Actually quite interesting – we’ll see if we can hook some dinner along the way!

We’re feeling like our new life is about to start and are both really looking forward to the adventure.