Full Tilt Sailing Team

Vacation Week

Our August vacation on the boat. Here's the highlights:

Joyce relaxing in Port Jefferson. We originally planned to head east to Mattituck on our first day, but the wind was howling out of the east that day. So rather than slog 6 or 7 hours through four-foot chop, we reached wickedly to PJ and stayed there for two days until the wind swung out of the south.

Once safely in Mattituck, we took the LIRR to Greenport with our bikes, with the intent of riding back and stopping at a few wineries along the way. It costs $2.50 one-way, which is a good deal.

Our bikes, on the double-decker LIRR trains on the Ronkonkama Line. We can't have these kinds of trains in Connecticut because of the many overpasses we have. On the North Fork, they designed their few overpasses to allow these taller trains to get through unsmashed.

Joyce enjoys one of many fine wines we tasted on our increasingly wobbly bike ride back. My tire went flat while here, but we got the maintenance people to pump it up at their on-site shop. We bought extra wine for that.

Another winery designed after an Italian villa. They have weddings there every week during the summer.

The next day (after we slept off all the vino) we kayaked down Mattituck Inlet to The Old Mill restaurant on the water. We gracefully climbed out of our kayaks onto their floating dock, and I didn't even notice I'd torn open my knee on a nail until the waitress asked, "Do you know you're bleeding?" There's nothing like losing a pint or so to build up a healthy appetite!

A very still post-sunset moment from the anchorage at Mattituck.

These I could have done without. Every morning the teeming bird colony decided to roost on our masthead for an hour or two, giving me plenty of cabin-top scrubbing work. The little bastards.

Me, kayaking outside the inlet, on a nice beach on the Sound. We swam the only time that week in the balmy 76 degree water. I can't remember a time when the Sound was warmer.

As we approached Milford, we spotted the schooner taking people out for a sunset sail the night before the Oyster Fest.

During our return sail, the wind freshened up nicely giving us a great sail home, and I enjoyed my final Cohiba from Habana, which was a gift from one of my crew (who knows who she is, but probably shouldn't be named publicly because she visited a rogue commie nation, probably illegally).

It was a fun and relaxing vacation; and Joyce is so great that she agreed to cut her vacation short by a day so I could accept a job doing production sound for a low-budget TV pilot for no money that weekend. Joyce is one awesome gal!

posted by CT Bob @ 6:10 PM