Thanks Captain

It seems that for most of our 109 combined years, Tim and I have actively been at either the student or teacher end of lessons.  You can become a certified teacher at any of thousands of schools worldwide, but teaching is an art, and good teachers as hard to find as good artists and as I think back over all the teachers who have struggled to impart some knowledge to this sometimes resistant gray matter, only a handful stand out in my memory.  A middle school teacher that treated her students as the adults she wished them to become rather than the pitiful example of discipline that they were then; a college algebra teacher with the gift to make me understand that mathematics are no mystery, only another language that must be learned in order to become conversant; a flight instructor who also happened to be my husband who managed to teach me to see the whole runway environment rather than fixing on the end numbers; and now, Captain John Henderson, a sailing instructor who enabled us to circumnavigate Long Island Sound in 6 days with a modicum of grace.  On the flight back to St. Louis I was thinking about teachers in general and what makes some successful and some dismal failures.  I decided that a good teacher is a blend of book knowledge, well-honed skills, hard-earned lumps, a deep confidence, and the desire to pass on their passion for what they do, and I can't imagine anyone more passionate about the sea than Captain John.  Thanks Captain.

Long Island Circumnavigation Pictures Part II

No shore in sight

Pounding away in the swells

The Prison Ship 

Deb gets to shoot Hell Gate 

 

Hell Gate at slack tide 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus, 1883 

Ships anchored in New York Harbor waiting for customs clearance

Staten Island Ferry

Barnaget Bay Sunday afternoon races

The last bridge before the return to Nelson Sailing Center

Reflections on the Long Island Voyage

Once upon a time when I was in college, I remember sitting in front of a blank, white screen with a printed writing assignment sitting next to the keyboard, taunting, while any manner of cohesive paragraphs eluded me. Trying to sum up the 7 days of our first ocean crossing in a small boat is a bit reminiscent. I have a sincere desire to draw some grand conclusion from our adventure, weaving each aspect into a new chapter in The Book of The Dream, but being female, my thoughts tend to flash onto the screen in flickers of impressions,  a group of snapshots strung together like a YouTube vid, complete with the background tunes of some wittily pertinent lyrics.  While some people use their blogs to write The Great American Novel in mini chapters, properly researched, mulled over, and presented in finished written form, I'm afraid that you, the reader, will have to patiently tread along with me on this one as I begin to unwind the filmstrip of this voyage.  If you're patient, I may have some kernel of profound wisdom for you over the next few posts, and maybe you'll have some discovery of your own from the raw material...or maybe you'll just enjoy a lot of good boat pictures and a few laughs.

Miscellaneous observations:

1. We took this trip partially to decide if we could live full time on a 35ft monohull.  We can't.  Not because of a lack of space - there was plenty of it and a nice big cockpit.  The problem was in the lack of seakindly motion on a 35ft boat in 8ft seas.
2. If a sailing school tells you that the price of a course is XXX plus "a few miscellaneous expenses such as dock fees, dinners ashore, fuel, etc.", take the price you paid for the class and add at least 50% more.
3. Call your credit card company before you leave for a trip and tell them that yes, indeed, it is you making the charges in a strange place.
4. If you go to the trouble of getting a prescription for a Scopalomine anti-seasickness patch, don't forget to put it on.  It is the closest thing to a miracle that exists on a sailboat in the open ocean.
5. A mast pulpit will be an essential piece of equipment on whatever boat we end up on.
6. Good foulies are worth whatever you pay for them.  I chose Gill's Coastal bib and jacket and Tim chose West Marine's Third Reef series and they performed way beyond what we expected.
7. Night sailing is magic.
8. Who knew Orion had that many stars in it???
9. I worried that a 35ft boat would be too close quarters for 5 strangers.  I shouldn't have worried.  There is something that binds sailors together, some base understanding, some mutually shared awe.
10. If you ever want to see New York City, do it by boat.  It was beyond words.
11. If you ever take a cell phone on a boat, keep it in a ziploc bag.
12. Itineraries suck.

The Boat - a 35ft Pearson

Captain John Henderson.  Experienced, knowledgeable, patient.  Oh sooooo patient.

0600 start time at Nelson Sailing Center, Island Heights, NJ

Our home for the next 6 days

Looking aft

Heading out Tom's River

The Chart Book - our best friend

Left to right - Otto, John, Tim

Left to right - John, Otto, Terry

No more land in sight

Terry's turn on the helm.  This was about 13 hours into the trip

The dinghy

Land Ho!  Block Island at last

Many more pictures and videos to come...