U.S.A.
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Wed 27 Jul 2011 18:26
|
WEDNESDAY 27th JULY
2011
Here we are today in " Martha's Vinyard " , we
sailed up from Pilots Point yesterday, the wind was light yesterday
morning
at 08.00 when we slipped out of the Marina and
headed east in Long Island Sound,
The wind picked up at 14.00 hours and we had a
great sail in a 20 knot breeze with flat water and we arrived at our destination
at 7pm , having sailed almost 90
miles,
So much has happened since the last blog,
We spent 5 days in New port, R.I. the first 2
nights in the "New York Yacht Club" and the rest in B& B in down town New
port.
mind you the B & B was more like a botique
hotel, small and well maintained,
Our NBF " Tom Delaney arranged the Yacht Club
accomodation for us and we had dinner with Tom and his wife linda on the
Saturday
night in the club. we all had a great relaxing
night and do you know what, its great to be in America, where most people have
such
a positive attitude
to everything and almost everyone were full of praise for Aileen & Myself
for sailing " A Lady " around the world,
Of course we had to go and visit the famous "
Mansions " in new Port, these were built in the golden era of Rhode
Island
and consisted of buildings belonging to the
Vanderbilts, and their society friends, massive holiday residences , used for
basically
10 weeks of entertainment during the summer
months, One of these " The Marble House " cost $ 11,000,000
in the late 1800's
Most of the society ladies here would spend
$ 12,000 each on their clothes in Paris once a year, how about
that,
Skipper spent a day down at the Shipyard, thats
where all the boat things happen, skipper had a coffee with Bob Johnstone,
the brother of J24
designer Rob Johnstone, Also met Molly from
Oyster and lots of other people, mostly Irish Students out there
on their J1 visa's ..... Gawd be with the days when
Skipper worked in a Hospital on Statin Island N.Y. ( last centuary ) for his
student
summer holidays, designing extensions
and alterations to the hospital , plus driving the ambulance occasionaly
when the
drivers of the gear shift vechicle would call
in sick. and then , to make real money, get to do the garbage on a
saturday.
You had to be well in with the boss for that
job,
Thats another thing thats great here in the States,
Pull and Connections, and all that stuff, it really works well here. You can
get or do anything here, all you need to do is find
the right connections ......and when they promise something, you know it will be
done.
We travelled to and from NewPort by " Amtrack" ,
the local train service, a bit unrealible when it came to time keeping, so we
decided to hire a car to go up to Christine and her family ,plus our grandchildren in Merry
meeting Lake in NewHampshire,
There was a party on the 20th for Christines Dad, "
Hector" and that was a good night, Hector did a BBQ and we all stuffed
ourselves to the gills with steaks and chicken ,
plus lots of other goodies. It was great to meet Aunt Jackie, Aunt
Pattie
Bob , Hector, and all the other relations again,
plus our grandchildren Emily, Rachel, and Annabel.
Everyone at the party had to relate a storey which
referred to Hector, this was funny and Skipper told the storey of the
time Hector took skipper in a dug out canoe up to
the big falls outside " Manilla" in the Phillipnes .. on reaching the
Falls
Hector pointed out to skipper that he was the only
white person in the massive crowd and that kidnappers loved whites for their
ransome's
............................Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh Shit !
The following day Skipper and Aileen took the kids out for a ride in a " Cris Craft"
reproduction on lake Winepesaukee ,
this was followed with big IceCreams and a tour of " WolfBoro" on a tram.
The week flew by very quickly and before we could
scratch ourselves, we were off on the 23 rd to the inaugeration of Christines
mothers ( Cynthia ) memorial garden at the Fells
,near lake Sunapee ( thats not quite right ) These gardens and the
original house were
once owned by John Hay who was Secretary of state
for Roosvelt, and played a big part in American overseas forign
policy.
We were royally fed and given a few glasses of
Champaigne to celebrate the occasion, everyone had a great day. It was late
when
we all returned to the family home for a skinny dip
in the lake before going to bed....
We returned to the boat the following day, having
been to Mass first and a trip to the Outlets on route,
Actually , Mass was interesting, A Franciscan
friend of the priest did a 15 year study of old civilizations, tribes,
countries, etc.
stretching back thousands of years and came up with
5 points that formed a common bond between all, usually handed
down from generation to generation..
They are as follows :-
1 Life is difficult,
2
You are not important.
3 Its not about you.
4 You are not in Control
5 You will die
mmmmmmmm,
When we returned to the Marina, we met skippers
other NBF, " Will " Will owns and operates the restaurant on the
marina
and skipper had some great nights there after hours
with Will, sipping glasses of wine and having the odd cigarette, yeah,
good for the
night, but maybe not so good for the body, We
told great stories and of course he has Irish Blood in him,
There were other things that occured in
merrymeeting Lake, Emily passed her stage 4 and rachel passed her
stage 1 in their
respective swimming courses. we also took a
trip to the fish farm close by. this place always amazes Skipper because of
the amount of 15lb trout just swimming around in
some of their ponds, this is on top of the millions of other trout at
various stages of growth in the multitude of ponds
spread along the side of the river, and no
security............ in fact one
can buy pellets for feeding the fish and its a
family trip to go to the ponds to feed the fish, with tables and benches for
picnic's
and relaxation,
On that, we will sign off,
Signed :-- Stephen
Hyde ( skipper )
|