How do you eat an elephant? (in Port Washington, NY)

(One bite at a time)

(We’ve made it through Long Island Sound!)

Night watch in Buzzard's Bay in November -- BRRRR

Sailing with Zephyr - six month old baby on a boat

I literally haven’t wanted to check the weather for the New Jersey coast because Buzzards Bay and Long Island Sound felt like such huge stretches to get through. Maybe especially because when we came through here in 2014 we had a couple truly awful days of fighting tides, awful seas and wind that always seemed to be on the nose!!

So while we loved New Bedford and thought we might be there a while longer, when a perfectly windless weather window came up Sunday night we decided to go for it!

Leaving at night is a little weird feeling — it’s hard to tell how far away lights are and you get extra attached to your nav instruments — but watching the sun rise over Block Island with nary a breath of wind was 100% worth it.

Think maybe he’s teething again?

Sidenote: Have I mentioned I like motoring? I’m like a fair weather sailor who reeeally likes going new places so sometimes has to sail 😉 But especially when the lows are below freezing (our new reality), motoring means the diesel stove can be running and the boat can be toasty warm. It actually got hot last night and we had to crack hatches to let more cold air in. Standing watch in the cockpit with warm air just billowing out the companionway is a pretty great feeling too 🙂

Chilly watch with 6-month old baby Zephyr all bundled up

Anyways, we reserved a slip in Port Washington and snaked our way in here super late last night, shining flashlights to make sure we didn’t run into any unlit boats at anchor. The glow of NYC lights up the area quite nicely, and the staff made it easy by letting us tie up wherever we wanted.

Sadly the $16/night days are over (New York is living up to its reputation with prices in the $70-$100/night range) but it sure was nice to wake up at a dock with easy WiFi for my 8 am meetings and hot showers for everyone!

Zephyr crunched the numbers & determined we can’t afford to stay here forever

Zephyr’s continued to be a little champ… he spends most of the day in the Boba wrap with me, the Onya carrier with Jon, or desperately trying to crawl inside on the floor. He even managed some jolly jumping while underway on this last trip (best. invention. ever)!

I will admit there’s some irony to the baby sleeping through the night while his parents are awake every 3 hours, especially since we haven’t figured out how to get sleep during the day (it’s hard to be on watch AND on baby duty, which means off watches are spent on baby duty… a conundrum I’m sure we’ll spend many more days working on!).

Pouring rain at Capri Marina in Port Washington, NY - thank god for the rain cover on the Onya!

Anyways, so far we’ve managed to balance cruising in November while working with a baby and having some fun… so fingers crossed it continues!!

Trying to catch up on sleep after our passage while Zephyr is wiiiiide awake

…but first, family nap time!

– LMK


Comments

How do you eat an elephant? (in Port Washington, NY) — 2 Comments

  1. You guys are amazing! With a little tike no less! I am enjoying following your adventure. Try to stay toasty warm and keep those updates coming!

    • Haha thank you Dan! It’s definitely been an adventure already 😉 We’re staying super warm with the Dickinson but I would *love* to get south enough that a) snow wasn’t in the forecast and b) we could turn the Dickinson off!! 😛 Soon enough, I hope 🙂 Thanks again for looking into the CT marina info for us — felt really good to know we had options!

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