Togetherness

My worry was really building as the week days passed by. To my surprise, it was none of the traditional sailing fears that were surfacing; what if Michael falls off the boat?, What if we hit a whale?, and so on. Instead, it was a whole different category of worry that was tensing the back of my neck- the dreaded ‘parent of teenagers’ worry category. This includes things like: what if their bored?, what if they fight?, what if their ungrateful?, what if they crap up the boat? My pre-vacation gitters started to calm when the kids miraculously shuffled into the car at 5:15 am on Friday morning. I was so pleased that my two young adult children motivated to rise and shine with the ebbing tide that I felt a tingle of positivity from the start.  Michael brought the provisions over to Gerty the night before and had her waiting at the dock, like a sea chariot when we arrived. We literally sailed off into the sunrise!

Two hours in route to Sag Harbor the boys were still sleeping. We were running with a westerly breeze at about 15 knots on a very smooth Long Island Sound. The next ten hours filled up with pop music, sunbathing, Rummikub games, lunch, naps, reading and of course sailing.

And, Michael found the perfect spot to do push-ups without hurting his bad wrist.

In the harbor we ate fajitas in the cockpit and then dinghied into town.

And what a swanky town Sag Harbor is!  Luckily we were able to navigate through the high heels and fancy cars to find not one, but three different ice-cream places.  Success!

Saturday Michael went for a quick paddle board and then we dinghied back into town, rented bikes and rode to Bridgehampton. The beach was vast and mostly empty, with cool water and warm sand, just how a beach should be.

On the way back we took the scenic route past horse farms and then through a wooded sandy path that proved to be quite the workout.

Sweaty and exhausted we settled back onto Gerty to try out our grill for the first time.

Sunday the real fun started when the temperature dropped from eighty to fifty, and rain mixed with sea spray to produce a sort of rotating sprinkler effect so that it became impossible to escape the water on deck.  Winds of 20 knots from the east and gusting higher, blowing against an ebbing tide, caused a high chop and turned Plum Gut into a washing machine of sorts. It wasn’t long before Zachary was vomiting over the side of the boat! But somehow, I swear, it was STILL FUN!  When we made the turn due west things smoothed.  We had a strong wind at our backs and finished with a flooding current helping us to fly to Port Jefferson Harbor. Some saltines and soup helped our stomachs to recover in route and we snuggled into the cove by sunset.

On Memorial Day we were able to meet Grandma Polly and Lee for lunch before motoring back to Mamaroneck with 5 knots of wind at our stern. The dull vibrating ride turned out to be perfect for some Gerty Groov’n.