The Hunt for the Next Boat continues...

[Maryanne] Aside from our time being tourists in NY, we’ve primarily spent any spare time we have boat hunting. It’s been a depressing endeavour to date, with plenty of lost weekends, expensive hotel nights and travel, and to date no boat in sight. We thought we were pretty close with one boat in the BVI, but the survey turned up way too many serious and expensive issues that we were not willing to deal with. We won’t bore you with the details here, but suffice to say it has been a frustrating time to date.

It’s been mostly impossible for me to visit many of the boats, they are far afield and require more than my weekend to visit and inspect, so Kyle has been doing the brunt of the search and reconnaissance, and has taken 1000’s of photographs to share with me the nooks and crannies of any potential boat. Despite the fact that he has had to visit some amazing locations to view the boats, he spends most of his time with his head in a locker, and rarely gets to enjoy the location’s more traditional offers.

More recently we looked at a boat closer to home – just a 6 hour drive away - and rented a car for the weekend TOGETHER to go and view it. We quickly decided that this particular boat would not work for us, and found ourselves with a weekend to spare in the beautiful town of Portsmouth, NH. We’d booked into a hotel for the Saturday night expecting to make a full day of inspecting the boat, so by noon we’d switched again into tourist mode and explored the town. We shared beach walks, explored old WWII fortifications, Portsmouth is a classic New England town complete with English Pubs, plenty of cafes to relax in and all on a beautiful sunny weekend. To our surprise it seems all the locals go for a run in the mornings (whatever their age or size) before taking their dog with them to meet friends at the coffee shop and catch up with the goings on. They also had several chocolatiers to sample from. We had such a wonderful time we really didn’t mind that the boat turned out not to be ‘the one’. These things have a habit of working out eventually, and thankfully we have time on our hands.

A weekend by the sea

Getting to Know NYC with Friends and Family

[Maryanne]Oh Boy, it’s been a while since we posted and I finally find time to catch up a little.

Kyle and I have both been busy, what with work, searching for our next boat and general day-to-day chores.  Indeed it was some time before Kyle and I even had matching days off to spend any time together; quite a tough start to the year.  Luckily we’ve had all that broken up with visits from friends and Family, and even a couple of weekends with just the two of us sightseeing and exploring more and more of NY.

Kyle starts a Gurning Contest with another Dummy! While exploring around Times Square

My sister (Sarah) is a schoolteacher and head of science at a secondary school in the UK.  Teachers get 2 weeks off around the Easter break as schools close, and Sarah spent some of that time to bring our Father over to NY to visit and explore.  They came for a week, and I took a day off work so we spent a good 3 days together before I went back to work and left them to explore alone.  And we crammed SO MUCH into those 3 days.  We’d all purchased NY City Passes and were determined to milk them!

·      A sunset boat cruise to view the skyline and the statue of Liberty.

·      The ferry to view the Statue of Liberty up-close, and also soak up the facts and exhibits at the amazing museum on Ellis Island

·       Madame Tussaud’s: that I was not looking forward to – but it was much more fun that I recall from visiting decades ago.  Now-a-days all the exhibits are touchable and you can pose with them – no longer behind barriers or ropes.

·       Grand Central station with audio tour (fantastic);

·       Radio City music hall stage door tour (fantastic, complete with real Rockette to chat to and pose with!);

·       Rockerfeller center tour.  Kyle and I both love hanging out at the Rockerfeller center.  The ice rink was still there until the 22^nd April, but the flowers and ‘channel’ area were all beautifully set for Easter (bunnies, eggs, etc.). and we were in the area again for the Easter Day parade where NY finest and all, parade around for the day in fancy (expensive, or crazy) hats and costumes.

·       Bodies Exhibit (loved it – again, great for Kyle to see it, a bit ghoulish for some). 

·      A Right to the top of both the Empire State Building and the Rockerfeller Tower (top of the Rock), and so much more...

Out and About in NY City

Aside from our time in NY City itself, we took our guests to a famous local restaurant (called Valenca) just a few blocks from our house. It is famous for its “steak on a stone” (you cook it yourself at the table), and people come from NY just for this restaurant and dish, we love the Sangria they have there.   

With the remaining week my father and sister visited yet more of NY and have some amazing memories.

Later we had our good friends Kate and Mark from VA visit, and we revisited a few of our favorite places, and also found time to go to the theatre to see Channeling Kevin Spacy – a really well done play that has Kyle still chuckling now.  Unfortunately for the actors it wasn’t so busy, maybe only 20 people in the audience, and that really makes no sense as it was great entertainment.  We also found a nice Italian restaurant in the home of the old and original Improv (comedy club) where so many famous comedians once performed. We took a tour of my new workplace, and relaxed about in the parks and rested up with a trip to the very grand Campbell Apartment (now a bar) in Grand Central Station to sample a drink or two

A leisurely day in NY City with friends. Thanks to Kate for the pictures at the NY Times.

Later Still Kyle and I found we had an unscheduled weekend where we’d both be home (not working) and we made the most of it with Kyle meeting me after work on a Friday evening for a nice meal, a walk in Central Park (full of flowers, and so much beauty), before spending the evening at The Comic Strip Live on upper East side; a very late night for us, but quite wonderful.  On the Sunday we took a trip to Brooklyn with no real plan in mind, and fell in love with the neighborhood, with its brownstone streets, beautiful parks and of course, the famous Bridge.

More local to home we’ve discovered an amazing family run bakery that specializes in delicious and calorie-laden treats!  Mostly Portuguese pastries, all made fresh on the premises, and with hours from 3am – 9pm, pretty much always open (at least any time of day I’d care about!).  I’d avoided it for a while but couldn’t help to notice the long lines (queues) that seem to be constantly out the door – that stuff is GOOD and the locals know it!  They sell coffees and even have outdoor seating so you don’t have to wait to get home to eat up and enjoy.

Moving on..

[Maryanne]Hi Folks, I've had a number of requests for more blog entries! While Kyle and I have been busy since we lost Footprint, very little we've done has been Footprint related. I've decided to start a new blog Sailors Ashore where we will continue to update friends and family until we can sail again!

Update, we soon gave up on that other blog, and now all those blog posts are part of this blog - hopefully that doesn't confuse anyone too much!

I also have yet another blog Cooking on my travels that I might work on now I have time. The name says it all really...

What's Going on?

[Maryanne]Anyone that has followed our blog for the last few years will know that we have been travelling around the Atlantic and Mediterranean for some time. At least that was until our boat Footprint was wrecked on the shores of Italy after dragging anchor in a storm.

We WILL eventually get another boat, we had great insurance that paid out fully (thankfully) and because of that we will heartily recommend both IMIS (the insurance agency) and Jackline (the insurance policy).

We'd been planning to return to the States even before the accident, this just got us 'home' a little quicker than we expected.

Rather than rush into our next boat, and a cruising life again, we've agreed to return to a So Called 'Normal' life and settle back down in the USA. For now we've decided on New Jersey to give Kyle an easy commute. This will be great for him as the last few years has seen some hairy commutes and too many times when he has been unable to come home (to the boat) at all.

I'm looking for work in NJ or Manhatten, and hoping to return to the world of IT.

All this will give us some breathing space to put extra funds in the bank, and take a good long look at what boat we will need/want next, and time to look, purchase, upgrade, and play with our next boat before we set off on our next major adventures in life. We are pretty sure we won't get a Gemini next, and reasonably happy it might be a Catamaran (but maybe not). We have a lot of research to do.

For now we return to a more 'normal' life, with a box in the dirt for a home.

Returning to the USA has given us the chance to visit friends and family, some of which we'd not seen for a couple of years. We've frisby-golfed, ice skated, watched Christmas Parades, gone shopping (for well needed new clothes and prescription glasses), had wonderful meals and time with friends, and so much more already, but we've still to catch up with everyone that we long to see again.

Our first month back in the USA hasn't all been fun. Although it wasn't my fault, I managed to write off a friends car they had kindly loaned me (Sorry Liz). Kyle managed to reverse into a wall (lightly tapping it) and (unbeknown to us at the time) cause quite a bit of damage to yet another friends car (Sorry Angie). I've found out I'm allergic to Christmas trees after I helped friends erect theirs (and had to take a quick trip to the Emergency centre for medication). Oh, and we still don't technically have a home in NJ, although we do have a roof over our heads, it's still not really ours right now (think of us as squatters, but not quite so anarchic). Some good news is that our 14 boxes we shipped from Italy are currently making their way to New York, and are expected to dock on the 13th December. With any luck they'll be processed and out of customs, delivered to our apartment in time for Christmas.

For now, we're back in the real world :-(

If any of our sailing friends wish to have us discuss any topic regarding sailing and living aboard - feel free to request it and we may just get around to penning (blogging?) our knowledge for you to use, laugh at, disagree with, or ignore at will.

Thanks everyone for following along with our travels, we've always been so surprised at the number of people that make time to watch over us, and it feels good to know you are out there.

And thanks too to all our friends and family that continue to provide us with food and shelter along with great company (and who continue to lend us vehicles from time to time). We are VERY LUCKY to have you all and we know it.