Happy New Year to all our family and friends! We are still in Long Island. We are waiting for Andre to arrive and join us on our journey. He should be arriving Thursday evening. Due to the storm coming to this area on Friday and unfavorable winds forecasted for Saturday, we are staying put until Sunday. We hope to leave during low tide on Sunday to start our way to NYC!!

We are soooo blessed to have THE best friends in the world!!! Rich Maniscalco and Diane Sutter-Maniscalco have been AMAZING!!!! I cannot sing their praises enough! They have driven us around Long Island so we could buy things that we need for our trip, carted us back and forth from the boat more times than I can count, fed us, let us do all of our laundry, take LONNNNNG luxurious showers, made us laugh and saved my boys from wifi withdrawal!! We love you both so much (and you too, Anna Scarpinito) and can’t thank you enough!!

And I cannot forget to mention the distress call made to Rich at 10:30 PM on Monday night when our boat was getting slammed into the dock and we had to QUICKLY move the boat to another marina before our boat was damaged beyond repair. Rich didn’t even hesitate to get out of his warm bed to help us move the boat. It took us two hours to move the boat at night in VERY rough and freezing cold seas! It was a difficult trip and and another very difficult docking experience. The wind was blowing so hard that it would push the boat away from the dock within seconds of turning off the motor. It took a little while, some muscle and frozen toes and fingers to get the job done. But the boat is now docked in a safe cove! The boat did not have any major structural damage, but some significant cosmetic damage that will have to get taken care of when we reach warm sunny Florida!!

For those of you who are confused about Gabriel being back in Rhode Island: last night during a Skype session, Vanessa Carey, Allie Gould and Gabe Oliveira concocted the plan for Gabe to take the Ferry to Bridgeport CT. Vanessa and Allie drove over two hours to pick Gabe up at the Ferry. He will be in Rhode Island until Saturday morning. Gabe and Allie are soooo soooo happy to get to spend this unexpected time together!! Thank you Vanessa!

Docking Disasters. . . We left Orient Point this morning and started the journey to Port Jefferson. After a few hours of fighting westerly winds and literally getting nowhere, We decided to motor across the sound and dock in Old Seabrook, CT. Although that was not the direction we needed to go, with strong winds and currents, it was our only choice.

After motoring around for a short while, we found a suitable dock. On our first pass, Peter was at the helm. I am NOT confident enough to try navigating a 45 ft. Sailboat up to a dock. SCAREY! Peter told Gabe to be ready to jump on the dock and to tie the boat off. Unfortunately, Gabe was not quick enough, so Peter RAN from the cockpit, jumped on the dock and yelled for Gabe to throw him the rope. Gabe threw the rope… and missed. All the while, the boat is slowly drifting away from the dock. So, there I find myself alone on the boat with Gabe and Noah and my husband is pacing on the dock! Oh my gosh, I have to swing this boat around and try to dock it myself. Just kill me now! Like an air traffic controller, Peter was directing me with hand signals. The boat slowly came up to the side of the dock, Gabe threw the rope and it missed. The boat was coming a little to close to the dock so Peter leaned over to push the boat away from the dock. He was REALLY leaning forward and reached back to grasp the rail of the aluminum ramp that was behind him. He realized to late that the ramp was portable and not attached to the dock. He had two choices, fall into the water with the ramp or try to jump on the boat that was AGAIN drifting away from the dock. In true ninja like fashion, he jumped, barely making it on. He was hanging from the rails by his arm pits and the darn aluminum ramp came crashing down on his back and fell into the water never to be seen again. Third time was a charm. The boat is docked, my nerves are shot and Peter’s armpits are sore. Going to have a glass of wine!

Wrapping presents while under sail is quite the feat!!! But I finally got it all done. Not only is it Christmas tomorrow, but it is also Gabe Oliveira‘s 16th birthday! And on the 26th we have Noah’s 12th birthday, this makes for lots of presents that needed to be to wrapped.

Because of the nasty weather yesterday and some nasty rope wrapped around our prop, we spent the night in Jamestown. We were very cozy and warm on such a rainy raw day. My husband, Inspector Gadget, took the Novi (our tender) to a nearby marina and walked the streets of Jamestown finding all the parts needed for the contraption he made to cut the rope that was around the prop. It took a little while, but he got the job done! And without even getting wet. We didn’t set sail until after 1PM today, but we are finally on our way! This is the first time we use the sails on this trip, the winds are great and there are NO swells! Yay!

Still have cookies and two birthday cakes to make tonight! Christmas and Birthday celebrations on Aleph Tav tomorrow!

Merry Christmas everyone!

We had an uneventful sailing day today…….Why did you have an uneventful sailing day, you might ask? That would be because we did NOT sail. As Peter was readying and reorganzing the boat to leave he suddenly remembered that he left our small anchor at home. You should always have more than one anchor, especially when anchoring in windy rough waters. Then he remembered that he left a connection that we needed for our heater. Soooo, we had to come up with a plan to get him home! My sister Linda Carey Costello and niece Vanessa Carey came to the rescue. Thank goodness we did not motor very far last night! Although our sailing day was uneventful, getting Peter to the nearby Marina proved to be very eventful! He did not want to dock the sailboat at the marina so he decided to take the jetski instead. I will just list some of some of the highlights, otherwise this post would be to long. Someone called the fire department to report that a blue sail boat in the bay was in
distress……OMGoodness! why? I have no idea. While working on something on the Jetski a can of starter fluid fell into the water. Guess who fell into the ocean trying to retrieve said can of starter fluid. (I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t me) Once back onto the jetski, it would not start up, so Peter had to ROW it against the current to get the starter fluid (so he could use it to start the jetski up). I will not say whether or not I heard any expletives coming from the jetski…. so he did finally make it to shore safe and sound, wet and cold but safe. While poor Peter was on land running around like a crazy man(oh how I love him), the boys and I had a much needed quiet peaceful day on our floating home. But, we are ready to go!

Yawwwnnnn… stretccchhh….. waking up from my first night on the boat. The gentle sway + the sound of the water splashing on the side of the boat + Quietness= the best nights sleep EVER! After an emotional goodbye to our family and friends we motored for about an hour or so before exhaustion set in. We had both been up since early Thursday morning, starving and emotionally spent. Peter set anchor. (he did that because he loves me, I know he would have loved to keep going) after dinner we CRASHED! I think i feel asleep within 1 minute.

We have a few things to do we lift anchor and set off. I will let you know we are on the move again!