Life on Zingara

ANOTHER day of clouds and drizzle!  So, we stayed tied up, walked into town for a delicious (but expensive $27 ???) breakfast at the Golden Pear!  Lunch Menu >>> We waked down Main street, went by 1790 circa. homes, one that had the wonderufl rose garden! to the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum. As we’re docked, and have electricity, we did shopping & laundry while waiting for the fog to break.  We’re trying to get to Greenport, NY (only 1 ½ hours away) on the North Fork of Long Island.  We had visited this town by land last summer, and look forward to visiting it again, by sea.   We just wish we could get some sunshine!!!

Tuesday, May 30th. We left Patchogue at 7:30 am.  It was cold (54 degrees), cloudy, light winds and no rain  making navigation easier.  With my hot cup of coffee in my hands, I took over the helm, while Rick coiled and stowed the lines – that made me so happy! By 7:50, we motored by some clammers, the type of fishing that Rick did to earn money during school-summer-vacations.   After the Smith Point Bridge, which seemed to open just for us, just as approached it at 8:38,  navigation became much trickier.  We had to travel carefully through shallow waters, and narrow canals marked with red and green buoys.  We ended up running a ground for a while off Tuthill Point, near the Moriches Inlet.  We waited for the tide to come in, and Rick skillfully got us lose.  We got out into the Atlantic Ocean, that had light fog, but followed a commercial fishing boat into the Shinnecock Inlet by 1:30. Just in time for lunch, we had another...

Memorial Day, May 29th.  I don't know about you, but the weather for Memorial Day was cold and rainy here, so we left Islip, and travel to Patchogue. NY.  It had a very protected harbor, and we tied up at a local Marina.  The town itself, was about a mile and a half from the marina.  A dockhand, Joey, drove us into town and dropped us off.  We just walked around, shared a slice of New York pizza, then found the microbrewery, off course.  Brick House Brewery – what a great place!  Fabulous food and an extraordinary beer selection! “Carrickfergus”  a nitro Cream Ale!  We walked back to the boat, rested/cleaned up, both ourselves and the boat, then walked back into town.  We had seen a fun/authentic-looking German restaurant, and headed inside for some schnitzel. Unfortunately, we were wrong on both account … the food was decent, but the crowd was loud, and they only played (louder) country music.   We “ubered” back to the boat and set...

Sunday morning, Great Kills Harbor -- fogged in!  I was happy -- a lazy morning sounded good to me!   Ha!--- but then, of course, I'm married to Rick -- and as soon as the fog lifted, off we went!   4 or 5 hours, from Staten Island, along the west end of Long Island, and in through the Fire Island Islet.  (Sorry, I can't figure out how to rotate this map .... yet!) Rick's Islip buddy, Joe Klegan, meet us near the inlet in his Boston Whaler, and led the way into Bay Shore/Islip --- where Rick grew up!

Saturday, May 27th.  Rick planned to travel all day today -- about 120 miles, up the Jersey Shore to Staten Island.  The winds were going to be light, so it was the perfect day to try to accomplish that kind of travel.  We left Lewes at 4:20 Saturday morning and .... enjoyed the sunrise was at 5:27. We saw our first dolphin at 5:50 AM!  Around 10 o’clock, we passed by Atlantic City and we were really enjoying the day.  Though it wasn’t hot, and the wind was cool, the sunshine made it a wonderful day.  We even went up and navigated from the flying bridge for a couple of hours.  Along the way, we passed through a “dolphin minefield”, with too many dolphins to count. From the flying bridge, we saw that we were going through waters of several schools of small fish – and that make for a fabulous lunch for the dolphins.  Sorry, no photos.  Around 4:30 pm, we saw the Manhattan skyline on the horizon –   – that m...

We stayed tied up in Lewes the next day, May 26th.  Although the sun was shining, the winds were very high. We afforded ourselves much-needed showers, some clean laundry, and a wonderful sitting-on-the-porch lunch (at Irish Eyes) with Rick’s sister-in-law, Maggie, and her husband, Mike.  Mike and Maggie moved here recently, “retired” here from Long Island.  They only live about 20 minutes away, and so they returned to Zingara after dinner, and we walked about downtown until finding 4 empty seats (difficult to find on the Friday night of Memorial Day weekend) where we had the chance for more fun, laughter, and reconnecting!

Wed, May 25th: 6:50 am We left the quiet harbor of Chesapeake City,  and traveled east/northeast in the C&D (Chesapeake/Delaware) canal.  The day started off easy, and I felt so silly at my pride in my accomplishments --- I remembered my gloves when I went out to hoist up the anchor, I pressed the correct button (UP not DOWN) on the electric windless, and I even sprayed off the mud with a small hose BEFORE getting the chain onto the boat!  Then I went inside the cabin, started the generator, let it warm up, switched on the master switch, turned on the galley AC outlets, and THEN > ta-da ->> made coffee!  Ha!!! Simple pleasures for simple minds!   My major job while we were motoring, was to keep an eye behind the boat, to warn Rick is a big SHIP was there; it would run us over! We luckily made to the Delaware River without any mishap, and turned south-east.  There, we saw many huge ships, one named the British Century. ...

Here, will this help? We are the blue dot .... We traveled about 5 hours today, north northeast, into the C&D (Chesapeake and Delaware) Canal, and we're now anchored for the night outside of Chesapeake City, MD.

After too much fun in St. Micheals, we traveled north, through the Kent Island Narrows and anchored in a tiny, quiet, calm spot near Rock Hall, on Swan Creek.  There, we stayed for the night -- with Rick grilling up some fish for dinner!

We finally left Trappe, and followed another Grand Banks Trawler out into the Chesapeake Bay. We traveled west through Knapps Narrows, (Tilghman Island), then north around Tilghman's Point.  The other boat, (Liz and Bob Hammond of the Lena Victoire) continued north up into the Chester River, while we went south into St. Micheals.  Along the way, we each were boarded by the Coast Guard.It was a routine safety stop and luckily we each passed with flying colors. Once in St. Micheals, we tied up to the dock at the Crab Claw restaurant, where we met Rick's cousin, Will, wife, Dorothy and another couple. Tim & Sally. AGAIN, we had a wonderful meal there and enjoyed the atmosphere and friendship. (view from the Crab Claw porch) We anchored out in a nearby-quiet harbor before the rainstorm blew in.

Friday, May 19, 2017 Ahoy!  After several VERY busy weeks, we are finally back on Zingara! April 28th and 29th, our two boys, Patrick and Alex, graduated from their respective colleges, and are continuing to work and live in their college apartments.  Patrick is doing an internship with ITS Partners, a software company in Kentwood, Michigan, and Alex is talking to several Civil Engineering firms across Michigan, and American Bridge Co. out of Pennsylvania.  We’re keeping our fingers crossed that they both have permanent jobs soon. On May10th, the moving company came to our boxed up home (thank you, Hurkmans & Pat Nowicki, for all the great boxes!), and took most of our possessions to place into long-term storage. After a rather weird closing, we sold our Clarkston home on Friday, May 12th and have been homeless even since. We spent the weekend with our wonderful local friends, said good bye to my parents living in Okemos (E. Lansing, MI), and other family mem...