three times this week!
Century Club: mike pitchford
Monday, August 23, 2021
Number of days:
1 day
Hot August night! Time for a cocktail cruise. Took Patti Lee for a ride in Mill Creek. Found our friends the Rubin's home and outside. Stopped in, tied up and finished our beverages over conversation with them. Ah, the pleasures of creek crawling!
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Number of days:
1 day
With the dog days of summer and some tropical influence we have had rain some mornings and high humidity. finally we had a nice morning and so I got our for a row.
Saturday, August 14, 2021
Number of days:
1 day
Grandaughter's first time at the helm
Took the little boat up the Magothy to serve as the yacht club shuttle for folks arriving at the Beach Party by boat. Arriving by car but going for a boat ride and her first time driving the boat was granddaughter Quinn!
Monday, August 2, 2021 to Friday, August 6, 2021
Number of days:
5 days
Birthday girl and friends ready for dinner
The AYC New England Cruise ended officially on Sunday August 1 with a final group gathering at the famed Ida Lewis Yacht Club in Newport. On Monday morning we started a purposeful trip home.
My wife and life partner was celebrating her birthday this week. So we made stops on the way home aimed at having several birthday dinners with friends. We made stops in Milford, Greenwich, Manasquan and Cape May each including a friend or more and each including a birthday cake or ice cream with a candle.
Monday, July 19, 2021 to Sunday, August 1, 2021
Number of days:
14 days
Lobster!
The long planned trip to New England was great fun, as expected. Actually getting to Long Island Sound is a three day push, maybe four if the weather cooperates. This is the pleasure of a faster boat able to travel at 18 knots.
Our New England stops included Newport, Cuttyhunk, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket with the Yacht Club. Stops on our own in transit included Mystic, Greenwich, Port Jefferson, Falmouth and Milford.
Boating in New England includes expensive slips (paid $8 a foot one place) and moorings. There seems to be an endless supply of little port towns to explore on both sides of the Sound.
Like on the Bay, you have to watch our for pot floats. In this case it is Lobster pots. You know you are in New England when Lobster replaces the Blue Crab!
Wednesday, July 14, 2021 to Sunday, July 18, 2021
Number of days:
5 days
NO CRUISER PASSING THROUGH NEW YORK HARBOR CAN RESIST THIS PHOTO
This summer we got to start a cruise to New England that has been 20 months in the planning. Cruisers at the Annapolis Yacht Club began planning for a summer of 2020 cruise to New England in November of 2019. Covid caused the cancelation of the planned cruise in late April 2020 and the planers vowed to make it happen in the summer of 2021. And so they did.
On July 14th we departed Annapolis for Cape May. The daily push was then on next for Manasquan, NJ, through New York Harbor to Port Jefferson on Long Island then on to historic Mystic Connecticut before finally arriving at the first stop on the cruise, Newport RI. The first leg covered 400 nautical miles.
Next up the New England destinations!
Friday, July 9, 2021 to Sunday, July 11, 2021
Number of days:
3 days
Biggest cruise of the year is always the Newcomers Cruise. This year was no exception as 43 boats and 140 people descended on St Michael's for the weekend. The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum was the host and a good time was had by all!
Tuesday, July 6, 2021 to Friday, July 9, 2021
Number of days:
1 day
$12 part, $2k labor
Into every boater's life a little rain must fall. Often the rain is in the form of needed maintenance and repair downtime. Ah downtime.
The engine instruments on my cruising boat stopped working a couple weeks ago. The engine ran fine but I had no information: RPM, oil pressure and water temp, etc. A trip to New England is in the offing and you can't go on a long trip without knowing what the engine is doing.
The season is on and the boat mechanics are hard to get. One I called could not get to me for eight weeks!
I did some troubleshooting myself and called the instrument manufacturer (Mercury Marine) or tech help, which was no help.
Desperate to get it fixed I took the boat to a local marina specializing in Mercury Marine. As back-up, I scheduled the very expensive Cummins folks to come take a look (boat engine is Cummins). $500 and a day later the Mercury Marine folks could not find the problem. $1500 and one $12 inline fuse holder later Cummins had it fixed.