Our Harry Potter-named boat was playing magic tricks on us tonight!  You could say we’ve had our first mishap of the voyage, but all’s well that ends well.

hardcore. well, at least we look it…

We had a busy day today.  Our friends Lana and Dave live in nearby Portsmouth, so we’ve spent a lot of time with them this week.  We had dinner at their house last night and the kids slept over in order to have more time with their sons, Liam and Calan.  Chris and I came back to the boat last night and worked until almost 0100 (military time here at sea.  makes log keeping much easier.  hope you can deal with it.).  Lana came to the yacht club this morning at 0915 to bring them back.  Lana has set a goal to complete a triathlon this summer, so she and I “trained” together by doing some open water swimming off the boat.  The wetsuits are stylin’.Then we took the boat in to the yacht club dock to “pump out” (you seriously don’t want to know what this means), fill our water tanks, and swab the decks (yes, seriously).  This procedure took us over 4 hours.  We spent some extra time cleaning the boat while we have full access to a dock with unlimited hose usage.  Amazing what is already grounds for getting us all excited.  A hose?  And we can use it for three hours?  Golly!  What a day!

Reese speaks to the teen campers at Ida Lewis Yacht Club

In the middle of all that, Lana and I took the kids over to the Ida Lewis Yacht Club, where Lana’s sons are taking sailing camp.  The kids and I did a short presentation to the teen campers about our year-long sailing trip.  It was a great experience for the kids and the campers were really enthusiastic about hearing our story.  They had lots of great questions for us.  Bryson, Reese, and Porter were a little shy about talking to the group, but afterwards, they said they enjoyed it and would like to do something like that again.  I think we might try it again the next time we are in an area with a sailing club.

Pizza dinner on the playset. Hey. It’s summer.

After the presentation and cleaning the boat, we got back to our mooring and had a visit from Kathleen (Chris’ sister) and Maureen (our step-cousin).  They are in town for a party and stopped by to check out the boat and say hello.  After that, we took the dinghy in to the yacht club and met Dave, who was just finishing up racing for the day (Dave is a professional sailor and a sail designer with Quantum Sails).  We drove back to Lana and Dave’s house to spend another evening together.  The kids had a great time playing, as always, and we relaxed in the cool breeze in their great backyard.Dave drove us back to the yacht club at around 2130 and we got into the dinghy to head back to our mooring.  We had bags of groceries from the store as well as all our shoes and our big Patronus bag of clothes and toiletries that we brought to shower at Lana/Dave’s house.  In addition, the dinghy was wet from the damp air, so I was holding the eggs and trying not to completely sit down on the wet boat in my dress.  We were going for awhile, when all of a sudden Chris said, “Where’s our boat?”

Our go-everywhere Patronus bag

It was so dark that I could barely see anything.  I looked around and could make out the boat that was next to us in the mooring field as well as the one that was on the other side of us.  But there weren’t any boats in between them!  We motored around and couldn’t find Patronus anywhere.  I was convinced it was stolen.  Porter was crying.  Bryson was saying, “If someone wanted to steal a boat, they would have chosen a much nicer boat than ours.  Look around!  I would choose one of these really nice boats!”  So funny.  I think our boat is pretty amazing, but it IS Newport and there are some truly gorgeous yachts here.

At this point, I was starting to panic even while keeping in mind that you can’t get far in a boat that averages about 7 miles per hour and has the word “Patronus” on it in giant letters on both sides.  So we motored all the way back to the yacht club and I found the launch operator.  I yelled to him, “We can’t find our boat!”  He looked at me like I was crazy.  I’m guessing a lot of people go out at night, get drunk and can’t find their boats.  Then he said, “Oh, are you from Patronus? We moved you to a new mooring.  You’re on #423 now.”  It turns out that a bigger boat is coming in tonight and needs the mooring we were on because that mooring can handle a heavier load.  So they had to move us to a lighter one.

I didn’t realize that that was a normal thing that could happen.  In New Jersey, you could get in a fist fight for moving someone’s shopping cart three feet to get past it in the aisle.  It was a little bizarre to think that someone just got on our boat and moved it.  Chris says they probably towed it with the launch, but still.  The launch operator had to lead us to our boat because we never would have found it in the dark.  So here we are, safe and sound, with one little mini-adventure under our belts.  Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings (besides the Wickford Art Fair, a possible bicycle ride, a nice dinner in town, and an overnight on the boat with the Armitage’s!)

a serious game of cards

ok, not so serious…

Calan and Liam having fun on Patronus

Newport Fireworks with the bridge in the background

in the Armitage pool

in front of a pond i fell in love with. all it needs is a little island in the middle…

standing still for one second

Bryson at the Hanging Rock

Chris and Lana on the way to the Hanging Rock

Porter chats it up with a local fisherman

Moments before we decide this is too dangerous

Cliff Walk, Newport. At the bottom of the 40 steps

Running away from the crashing waves

Reese and Porter found this bunny and took the picture

Reese and one of the mansions on the Cliff Walk

We hope everyone enjoyed a festive Independence Day! We explored the bird sanctuary with our friend Lana and her children, Liam and Calan. The kids enjoyed climbing to the top of Hanging Rock and taking in the sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean.
Later, the kids played at Lana and Dave’s while Chris and I worked on settling in on the boat. We still had a laundry list of tasks, such as installing the EPIRB, locating the source of an antifreeze leak, stowing last minute items brought from home (more books, first aid supplies, an umbrella, stamps and stationary, and way too many shoes).
In the evening, we enjoyed a picnic dinner at a park, where Porter got in his first playground fight, complete with a (minor) bloody nose. Let’s hope he has learned his lesson about going up the slide when someone is coming down…
To top off the holiday, we took in the amazing fireworks in Newport harbor from Patronus’ deck. Best seats in the house, especially when surrounded by our dear friends.

patronus from the george washington bridge

First of all, I’m so excited (and a little intimidated) that we almost have 10,000 hits on our website.  We have lots of subscribers (THANK YOU!!!!) and even more people who are checking the website through Facebook; websites where I have links set up; and google searches.  Thank you to all our friends and family who are telling friends about us and posting about our trip on Facebook.  It is really helping!  My goal is to have 1000 subscribers, so if you haven’t signed up yet, please type in your email in the left margin (all the way at the bottom if you are on your cell phone) and hit “Subscribe”.  You will get an email when I post something new.

Our boat name, Patronus, is attracting fans already as we sail from place to place (no doubt in part because I ordered the name in the LARGEST font they make!)  Yesterday, a young woman (after seeing our boat from the launch in Port Jefferson) googled our boat name and signed up for our website because she loves Harry Potter, too.  We emailed back and forth and we now have some new Long Island friends following our journey.  Hi, Kenzi and family!!!  Tonight, after a 90 mile sail in gorgeous weather to Newport, Rhode Island, we passed a sailboat in the mooring field and the captain yelled to us, “MY POWERBOAT’S NAME IS THE GOLDEN SNITCH!”  I have a feeling we will have many more Harry Potter moments before the year is through!

entering newport harbor

As I mentioned, we are safe and sound in Newport harbor, my favorite place on earth (followed very closely by the Norwegian fjords and Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands).  Newport is considered the sailing capital of the world by many people.  When you enter the harbor, even on a Tuesday afternoon, you are met with the awesome sight of thousands of sailboat masts from one end of the harbor to the other.  The Newport Bridge, Fort Adams, the seaport/downtown area, and the stately presence of the New York Yacht Club and other mainstays of the gilded age round out the view.  When I look around, I see water, white clapboard buildings, and all the signs of a fishing town partially stuck in history.  The air here feels like home to me.  Even the sounds are comforting.

We left Port Jefferson at 0540 this morning.  We had the tides against us for about 4 hours, but they turned in our favor before Plum Gut and added up to an extra 3 knots by the time we hit The Race.  The boat is handling extremely well, even with the extra weight of a year’s worth of supplies.  The kids handled the long sail well today, which surprised me.  It’s been a long couple of weeks and a very busy start to the trip.  They slept late due to the rocking of the boat and the gentle rushing sound of the water outside the hull next to their heads.  When they woke up, they ate, played cards and mancala, read books, played house in their stateroom, and napped up on deck.  Just to remind us they are still kids/siblings, they threw in a little arguing and Porter managed to fall down and bump his bottom, resulting in some tears.

dinner at nyyc

After getting our mooring, we traipsed into NYYC trying not to look like a bunch of liveaboard vagabonds and took nice, long, hot showers.  We dressed for dinner and ate on the back lawn of the club, overlooking the harbor with a great view of Patronus.  I swear I will not bore you with a year of food descriptions, but the Lobster Mac and Cheese had so much lobster in it that we had trouble finding pasta to put on the fork with it!  And they had a buttered toast appetizer with fresh ricotta, pepper, and roasted red peppers that was out of this world.  Then again, put me at a table with bread, pepper, and cheese and you really can’t go wrong.

ready for the sunset flag ceremony at nyyc

After three hot days, we are finally in the city of moist, cool breezes, about to fall asleep with the hatches open, staring at the stars above us, listening to the pre-fireworks, and basking in the sounds of sailboat halyards clanking against their masts (but not ours.  Ours are properly fastened:)I will figure out a solution to our media situation in the next few days.  We are on day 3 and I already have 677 photos/videos, which I just loaded on to my computer from 5 different devices.  We need a better plan!  In the meantime, here are just a few scenes from the last few days.

first family picture of the voyage

our amazing family and friends wishing us farewell on our voyage

with mema and bestefar in pt washington

playing games under way

mindy and erica: pt jeff friends since 1986

reese and reenie in port washington

bryson meditating on the lido deck:)

erica and sue on danford’s dock. patronus in background

acupuncturist sue treating reese for an earache in pt jefferson

the moon and the sun in port jefferson