Another Murray visit in Rhode Island

Click here to see our progress map.  Our current location is at the top of the list.  The pink stick pin indicates that we have turned around and are now heading south.

Sorry that it has been a while since we’ve blogged…busy I guess!  We left Jamestown, RI on Tuesday morning, 9/14,  and made our way to an anchorage on the south shore of Long Island Sound.  It was pretty windy so we found a great little place to anchor that kept us in the lee of the wind. 

The next morning we left there to try to make it to the west end of Long Island Sound to stage for going through Hell Gate into New York City.  As soon as we turned into the sound, we discovered that the weather guys got it wrong that day.  We slogged through 3-4  foot short period waves and heavy winds for about 3 1/2 hours and decided we would bail out.  We found a great marina on the Connecticut coast in the small town of Clinton. They even had what we consider a reasonable 5 star restaurant on the premises!   We did get some of the storm that NY got but certainly not as bad.  The winds were about 30 knots for only 15 minutes and it rained like crazy but we were tucked onto the face dock and Rickshaw did just fine.

We want to go back a few days to update our time in Jamestown, RI.  You may remember that this is where Lynnie’s family, on her dad’s side, resides.  We arrived in Jamestown last Thursday, 9/9.  We booked down the Massachusetts coast staying in Gloucester and Plymouth for one night each.  We went ashore to have dinner in both places but didn’t really see much of either town.  I think we are getting burned out on touring towns!  We got through the Cape Cod Canal with no problems and made our way to RI.

                                                                            Gloucester Harbor

                                   Another great Thai restaurant….and definitely purple!

We met this ship coming out of Gloucester harbor in the morning.  They were taking the passengers off of the ship for a tour.  Gloucester is too shallow for such a big ship. 

               Plymouth Lighthouse                                   A cool mural on the Cape Cod Canal

 

             This is the Kennedy training ship which is used by the MA Maritime Academy  

The weekend with Lynnie’s relatives was lots of fun.  More visiting and eating lobsters.  We are happy to report that Aunt Betty is still hanging in there.  She is so interesting and funny.  Her 104th birthday is the end of October.  We will all be there to help her celebrate.

On a personal note, Lynnie finally got a hair cut and color and had the best pedicure ever….life is good!

After our lobster dinner on Saturday night we all met on Rickshaw for a cruise up Narragansett Bay to Bristol, RI (yes, Lynn, we finally got there!) for lunch on Sunday.  It was so fun.  On our way back we went by the north side of Conanicut Island (where Jamestown is) and along the west of the island, around the south side and back to our mooring ball in Jamestown.  We passed by ‘our reunion’ house on the west side.  The Murray’s have had a reunion there every 3 years for the last 20 years or so.  It is also the house that was featured in the Steve Carell movie called Dan in Real Life.  Pretty cool.  As most of us had never seen the island, where we grew up, from the water it was quite a treat!

Many of the following pictures may only be of interest to the Murray family following our blog but they are fun to see.  Thanks to brother Tom, a photo journalist, for sharing his pictures.

                   

This is Aunt Betty’s basement (the dungeon)…cleaned out thanks to Dad and cousin Doug.  You may not understand what that means…but the family has been living here for 80+ years and now the basement has been cleaned out????  YEAH, that is what it means.

 

   The trip to Bristol.  Nephew Sean, brother Tom, his wife Carolyn, cousin Jane and her husband Doug

   Tom at the helm, Lynnie and Carolyn                               Doug, Jane, Sean and Tom

 

                Some shots of Bristol                                            The gang after a wonderful meal  

                    Getting ice cream cones…yum                                  A very, very old building

         Another cool old building (castle)                             The Murray reunion house

 

                       The stress, the stress!                                            Another day at the office

                                                 Sean and Lynnie picking up the mooring ball

              Beavertail Light House               View of Rickshaw, on Narragansett Bay,  from Aunt Blanche’s condo.  You can also see the Newport Bridge in the background

Blanche took us all out to dinner at the Black Pearl in Newport.  What a great evening.  There are Tom, Carolyn, Blanche, Lynnie and Rick.  Thanks, Blanche for a wonderful time.

Today is Sunday evening, 9/19, and we are finally on the NJ side of the Hudson looking at Manhattan.  We were able to leave CT yesterday morning and have had 2 great days of cruising with great weather.  We have tickets for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tomorrow. 

Just a funny…we heard on the VHF radio today someone calling to get the number of animal control.  The guy said ‘We have a raccoon on the boat’!!!  We didn’t hear any more details as the phone number was given to him but what an interesting time that must have been.  A bandit on the boat.  Bandits probably don’t enjoy cruising that much and the boat owner probably doesn’t enjoy raccoons that much, especially on his boat.  I hope it worked out OK.  Life is always so interesting! 

Maine Musings

Click here to see our progress map.  Our current location is at the top of the list.  The pink stick pin indicates that we have turned around and are now heading south.

We left Maine this morning and made our way to Gloucester, MA.  We are going to move fairly fast to try to make up our 5 days lost in Port Clyde due to Hurricane Danielle and our 9 days in Portland because of Hurricane Earl.  While we enjoyed both places, we just didn’t plan to spend so much time there!

We had such a blast in Maine.  We both had lost some weight on the way up to Maine because the weather was just so darn hot neither of us was very interested in eating.  However, after reaching Maine, that changed.  We feel like we ate our way through Maine!!  Lobsters, lobster rolls, lobster mac and cheese, lobster ravioli, lobster chowda…you get the idea.  It was all great.

We forgot to blog about the time in Camden when we went to get the loaner car from the marina and it was already in use.  One of the dock staff, George, said we could just use his truck.  When we were all strapped in he said ‘Oh yeah, I’ve been having this problem where the car just shuts down…but don’t worry, just start it up again and it will be fine’!  OK.  Then Rick asked about the car keys because they were in the truck when we went to get it.  He said ‘This is Maine, dude.  No one is going to steal this car because up here we shoot ‘em’ !!  Gotta love it.

We saw lots of seals, well, mostly just their heads sticking out of the water.  We only saw one loon and no puffins.  Lynnie saw the back of a whale, the blow hole, but it was only for like 3 seconds.  We are hoping to see some along the Massachusetts coast line on the way home.  We didn’t see any moose either but I guess you wouldn’t expect them in the harbors.

Another interesting thing that we noticed in Maine has to do with our navigation software.  We plot a course every day from where we are currently to where we want to go.  Then we follow the course on the PC screen.  The software gives you the total length of your course.  In Maine, however, the ‘real’ length of the course always was longer then what the software told us it would be.  We finally figured out that this was due to the …LPF… or Lobster Pot Factor!!  Having to zig-zag through all those pots added time and distance to our trip!  They are everywhere !!

Another first was in the tiny harbor of Belfast on a mooring.  About 6:00PM Lynnie was taking a shower and Rick was enjoying a glass of wine on the back deck … quiet and lovely as the sun set.  All of a sudden he heard a nearby voice say “He’s drinking a glass of wine.”  Rick turned around and all he saw was a big steel wall, which turned out to be the starboard side of a 200’ cruise ship backing down into the harbor to tie up at the dock.  It was about 15’ from Rickshaw.  Rick looked up and there were several people on their “balconies” looking down at him.  So, he raised his glass in a toast and they all laughed as he asked them where in the heck had they come from.

We met several great new friends along the way and just had a ball.  We hope to see them all again on the cruise south.  As far as the weather, we were told many times that the weather this year is the best they have had in 10 years.  Lucky us.

Tomorrow it is on to Plymouth, MA then on to RI where we will see Aunt Betty and other relatives again as well as Lynnie’s older brother Tom and his wife Carolyn who are  up visiting for a few days from South Carolina. 

Hurricanes!!

Click here to see our progress map.  Our current location is at the top of the list.  The pink stick pin indicates that we have turned around and are now heading south.

Yes, we said plural hurricanes.  We left NC to get away from those darn things.  Anyway, we were in Port Clyde for 5 days waiting for the seas to settle after Danielle and now we are waiting to get Rickshaw hauled out because of Earl.  We were reluctant to go south of Portland as it was apparent that Earl was heading north and there aren’t as many places to get out of the way of those big winds and high seas as there are in Maine. 

Today is Sept 2 and we arrived in Portland on Aug 27.  We are having Rickshaw hauled out of the water today (the storm should be here tomorrow evening) but we won’t be able to get Rickshaw back into the water until Tuesday because Monday is Labor Day.  Depending on what the next tropical storms do, our hope is that we can start heading south again right away and get to RI by next weekend.

We have been watching the weather channel and the National Weather Service websites continuously and it looks like NC is going to get wacked by Earl.  We hope that our friends at the coast fare well.  We will keep all toes and fingers crossed.

We have had fun walking around Old Portland.  We even went to the movies two days in a row! 

   

                 

             Some shots of Old Portland, many of these buildings were built in the 1800’s

                   We got a good laugh seeing these puffer fish in the storefront of an optician

As we were walking around looking for a place to have dinner we came upon a street demonstration in a small park.  We have learned that Mainers are very individualistic and this rally again proved the point.  If the young lady pictured looks like she may be topless, that’s because she was.  She was a counter-demonstrator holding a sign that read “These guys are a..holes.”  We decided against posting some of her frontal poses for fear of offending someone.  As we watched the goings on, a police car cruised by, paid only mild attention, then continued on.  The state motto: “Life as it should be” seems to apply here.

                                                  

                                                 Demonstrators and counter-demonstrators 

              

               We had a great Indian dinner at this restaurant which was well decorated

Since we knew we would be here for a while, we rented a car for the week and took a trip down to Newburyport, MA, an old seaport and ship building town that we heard was a ‘must see’.  On the way back we stopped by Ogunquit and Kennebunkport, beautiful small towns along the Maine coast.

              

The towns may all be starting to look the same but they are cool none-the-less!

Rick particularly liked this 200+ year old warehouse store because of the floorboards … 18” to 20” wide, with original cut head nails which one won’t find anymore

Ogunquit was a very small artist colony when Lynnie went there as a teenager.  It sure has grown into a  popular vacation spot

President Bush, Senior’s compound and President Bush, Junior’s runabout in Kennebunkport

Just some pics of the goings on at the marina.  This is an amphibious craft called the Downeast Duck which carries tourists around the Portland harbor.  One of these things got run  over by a large tanker in Philadelphia

        

   This seaplane took off from our docks                 The start of the boat haul outs                          

It is now 3:00 on Thursday, Sept 2, and we are awaiting a call from the ship yard to tell us when they will haul out Rickshaw.  They told us it could be as late as 7:00 tonight!  Storm should hit tomorrow late and the whole thing will be over by Saturday.  We’ll update the blog when we can.