Getting Ready for a New Season

We magically turned Monday into a second Sunday last weekend and now Gerty is ready for her fourth and final coat of antifouling paint. After spending many winter weekends flat on his back scraping barnacles off her belly, Michael wants to make absolutely sure the process is less painstaking in the future.  So we painted, and painted, and painted! You may think we’re nuts, but it was fun.

The clocks have recently sprung forward so the days are longer, the sun is stronger and the temperature is regularly tipping fifty degrees. Our boat is not in the water yet, but the marina is stirring. The tasteful men are gloating about the fish they are going to catch and last summer’s best family vacation anchorage. The idiots are making stupid remarks about me being a paid hand to work on Michael’s boat.  Regardless, they are present and happy to know they will be in the water soon with their girls.

In our marina on the Hudson, we are unique as sailors. I think subconsciously we were feeling a little lonely because when the forecast was for rain in the mountains this weekend and skiing was not in the cards, we effortlessly wound up in Newport, Rhode Island in good company.  We love to walk and walk we did- likely about ten miles or so over a day and a half- past the clang, clang, clang of masts in the harbor, to the ocean on the cliff walk and to Fort Adams. Michael nearly burst with joy when he saw the wetsuit clad Sail Rhode Island members launching their dinghies.  I am sure if he had brought his wetsuit, he would have joined the club on the spot and sailed off into the harbor!

Which brings me to point out the thrilling fact that we actually own wetsuits now!  For the last two years or so, we have tried hard to only purchase items we ‘need’ for the boat. When Michael asked me what I wanted for my birthday, a wetsuit seemed like the obvious purchase to ensure a really hilarious evening at the very least.  Indeed trying on the his and her versions after work one evening made us contort, twist, and crack up in hysterics for a good forty five minutes or so. Now as the proud owners of wetsuits, we have no choice but to learn to scuba dive in the Caribbean some day!

I’m writing this from our apartment.  If I lean to the right just so, I can watch the sunset over the palisades without falling off the sofa.  There are electrical wires criss crossing across my window sliver view of the Hudson River, but they don’t obstruct my future of unobstructed sunsets.