Boating season Summer 2011

The season started in early June and Oasis was still wrapped in shrink-wrap when we arrived in Wickford.  It took us 6 weeks to get Oasis changed over to 110 volt AC, add a new refrigerator and microwave, and number of small jobs.  Dorothy spent most of the time painting the whole boat--top to bottom.  We stayed at the La Quinta motel in Warwick and were happy to do so when several days went above 90F.  But, we gave that up and moved aboard when we found that it was too easy to stop work and go have an air-conditioned time-off the job. 

Sarah and Andy came on Father's Day and took us out for a meal at our favorite restaurant by the tidal stream in Wickford.  This time I shmoozed the hostess into a stream-side table mainly because an old boyfriend's name was Hal.  Wickford is really a special town to us.  There was an Art Festival the 2nd weekend of July with about 250 exhibitors.

We were launched on July 7th but didn't get away from the docks untiil the 13th because of strong winds out on the ocean.  The first day we were up early and got away before daylight was fully established, rounded Point Judith and got into Long Island Sound in time to check-in to the Brewer yard in Mystic, CT in the late afternoon.  The next day we made it to the CT River and up to the Brewer yard at Essex in time for Sarah and Andy to come down for supper, which we ate at a lovely little restaurant back down by Old Saybrook, check lifted by them, again.  We spent 2 more days getting to the eastern suburbs of New York, another Brewer yard at Port Washington.  This was a good place, we thought, to go through New York in one day.

The day we chose was a Sunday which was a dumb idea because every idiot who knew how to start his boat was on the East River.  We had the worst bouncy ride, ever, until we got to Hell Gate and turned up the Harlem River. We chose the Harlem because we could avoid all the heavy shipping around the south end of Manhattan Island and besides we had done that before in Sea Quester and with Ruth and Jerry on their way to a Maryland marina.