Reunions & New York

Since the last post we’ve been somewhat busy with everything except sailing, last weekend being the first trip which turned out to be a bit of a reunion with my Uncle Colin and “Auntie” Penny who first introduced us to sailing. They’ve now retired from working in the BVI’s and have returned to Lymington after some 20+ years sailing and chartering. We sailed up to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight and met them in East Cowes where they were staying for the Isle of Wight music festival. They came back to Silhouette for the evening and Colin’s son Lee and daughter in law Julie came over in their RiB from Lymington too… not forgetting our daughter Charlotte back from Greece for a while. A great evening was had by all, followed by a very windy sail back to Poole in Westerly F6/7 which was exactly the direction we needed to go.  I’d not encountered such a big swell off Christchurch ledge before, along with the breaking waves which made their presence felt in the cockpit ! Exciting would be a good description but Charlotte decided to sleep through it in the saloon, laid back or what !

Away from sailing, Caroline and I made a 4 night visit to New York to celebrate her 50th birthday. As a one time event we managed to get first class tickets out & business class for the return which was quite something. Neither of us had been before and New York didn’t disappoint. We got up early on our first day as the weather was due to be perfect and we wanted to see as much as possible due to a weather bomb coming in the next day. We did all the sightseeing, empire state, Rockerfeller, Times square etc and then took a water taxi down to the financial district.

This was to see the 9/11 memorial and then to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. Much has been printed over the years about the World trade centers but nothing can prepare you for what you see in person. Above all it is the one thing that will remain with us from the trip. The footprint of the original towers are now a memorial to the lost with their names engraved around the perimeter.

NYC place a rose by the name of each person on their birthday and we saw quite a number. The museum which is underground is within the footings…. if you’re ever able to visit New York this has to be at the top of your list, with survivors guiding you around with their accounts as it happened.

Brooklyn bridge was an amazing sight, we were warned by the captain on our flight not to walk in the cycle lane as “they don’t like it”, he wasn’t wrong ! The pound unfortunately is a little weak against the dollar and as such everything is quite expensive, even the hotdogs !!!

which is something we will need to be aware of as we travel, especially if we sail up to New York in the future. The weather bomb duly hit and New York was dumped on by 4″ rain and President Trump who made a visit to his home, which caused major road closures, protests along with some very menacing looking people with very big guns and body armour outside Trump Tower… so what did we do? We went in for a Starbucks 🙂

We also a small package arrive from Steve & Helen (Allegrini) with a very clever digital countdown to their departure. As I write this they’re at 322 days 21 hours which is on par with us, so very exciting all round.

In the last post I mentioned we were getting a quote from Kemp sails for a replacement bimini along with drop down sides to make a full enclosure. We had anticipated the cost to be around £3000 which would’ve made it an order but they quoted nearly £6000 which really meant in my mind they just didn’t want to take it on!!! Shame really as they are a great company. So we’re looking elsewhere.