Today was a day of firsts, and they were all good firsts!
I left with my wife and kid to catch the 9:17 AM train from Penn Station. There were no trains stopping at our 23rd and 8th stop, so we took the 1 from 23rd and 7th. We made sure to arrive later this time. At only 20 minutes early, we didn’t have to entertain the kid too much in the train station.
My wife got me an insulated cooler backpack as an early Father’s Day gift. I brought food and drinks for the day, so we didn’t have to pick up food along the way. We took the LIRR to Port Washington and an Uber down to the Town Dock.
We called the water taxi at 10:30 AM and arrived at the boat around 10:45 AM. It seemed that a bird had had some sort of a feast on the bow. There was dried something all over the foredeck. We had been told that birds will do this, and you can use fishing line and other dangling, shiny things to scare the birds away from your boat. Some boats hang fake animals, others hang dolls. We’d hung fishing line along the boom and even left a Cocomelon JJ doll in the cockpit, but nothing along the foredeck. Note to self…
Rather than immediately setting sail, we decided to try to keep the kid happy for a bit (he did just get off a long train ride, after all). On Grandpa’s advice, we shoved some rags into the cockpit scuppers and filled the cockpit with seawater to create a makeshift pool. Combined with squirt guns, sponges, and other water toys, this proved quite successful.
Around 11:30 AM, we decided to leave the mooring. The kid was kind of cranky, so my wife occupied him down below while I started the engine and untied. I motored out of Manhasset Bay and was surprised to find 8 kts blowing from the Northeast. With wife and kid below, I decided to try to raise the sails on my own for the first time. This somehow went off without a hitch. I turned of the engine, and then we were sailing (again, first time sailing with the kid).
We finally coaxed the kid to put on a life jacket and come on board. I gave my wife the wheel and tried to distract the kid from the uncomfortable life jacket. The wind picked up to 10 - 12 kts. We cruised on a close reach and made it past Hart Island for the first time. The day was a bit hazy, on account of the past week’s wildfires, but we were able to make out Orchard Beach. I’ve been wanting to see it in person ever since reading in the Power Broker about how Robert Moses combined two islands into the single beach.
We were approaching naptime, so my wife took the kid down below to see if she could get him to sleep. I tacked and then sailed back on a broad reach to Manhasset Bay. The wind died inside the bay, and I lowered the sails. I turned on the engine, and, as we motored in, the kid fell asleep (for the first time on the boat) on my wife in the starboard birth. I tied up to the mooring, turned off the engine, and the family continued to snooze down below.
I used the rare free time to finally open the box containing the batteries in the starboard cockpit locker. Unfortunately, my multimeter was underneath the sleeping family, so there wasn’t much I could do other than document.
I then hopped in the water for a cold swim.
The kid woke up a little after 2:30 PM. He was in a pretty good, goofy mood. We played around the boat for a bit and then decided we wanted to catch the 4:08 PM train.
We packed everything up, and I hung a plastic Peregrine falcon (leftover from the previous owner) from the jib sheets coming off the roller furler. We probably won’t be back for a month (I’m setting sail with my dad and brother in a week for Bermuda on my dad’s boat), so hopefully the birds leave Peregrine alone in the meantime.
We took the water taxi to the Town Dock but couldn’t find an Uber. It was 3:47 PM, so we decided to huff it on foot all the way to the train station. This was an epic, sweaty piggy-back ride, but we made it with 5 minutes to spare.
A solid day, all around.
