August 1 – 31, 2005

Sunday, August 21, 2:10 PM… ahh, yes, we are back on Rocinante!

As you know from our last few entries, our trip to Maine was temporarily interrupted by a call to duty from the office. That interruption quickly expanded to a full week back at the office as we sorted things out. But enough of that, we’re back on track (give or take) Friday evening, we started the process of getting ready to head out again; collecting our things, setting them out, etc. Saturday morning, we had breakfast; showered; packed up everything we had set out the night before and made arrangements for a cab ride to the train station.  We’re veterans now and had no problems! Once again, we slowly made our way to Northport – cab to station; train to Secaucus; Secaucus to Penn Station; Penn Station to Huntington; cab to marina… sorry, Yacht Club.

Now that we were back aboard Rocinante, we started to prep for the next two weeks at sea. We loaded up the laundry we had left behind and headed on down the hill. As we rushed off last week, we had decided it wasn’t a good idea to try heading home on a crowded commuter train lugging a bag of smelly laundry. Now like any true, honest to goodness cruisers, we had our backpacks and nothing was going to get in our way.

Ada at The Laundromat

Ha! Gotcha!

You were all expecting some sort of catastrophe, weren’t you?

Well, not this time; everything went as smooth as silk. We walked our now well known mile and a quarter to town, turned up one of the side streets and made our way to a local self serve laundry. Amazingly enough, we had a blast! It really took us back to our early years as a newly wed couple in Union City, lugging our laundry to the Laundromat… just something very visceral about the whole thing! Well, this place was truly a blast from the past and we just had to ham it up and take a few pictures.

While the laundry washed, we walked to main street and popped into a local “five and dime” (for our younger followers, go ask you parents… they’ll know what I’m talking about) we picked up a square baking pan, a few more kitchen towels and a couple of other odds & ends. It was about time for the wash to be done, so we cut through one of the side streets and found our way back to the laundromat.

We were a bit early, but within a few minutes our wash was done and was moved to the dryers… not fun, they simply took forever to dry. We folded our laundry, packed it all neatly into our backpacks and made our way back up the hill.

Oh, yes, we made one little side trip to a local frozen custard shop; nope, not an ice cream shop, a FROZEN CUSTARD SHOP! It was amazing! Maria had a scoop of coconut custard on a sugar cone and I had a cup of lemon custard. As Alton Brown would say, Seriously Good Eats!

We made our way back to Rocinante, put everything away and prepared for the evening ahead. The custard was actually quite filling, so we opted for a little appetizer instead of a full blown dinner: Sopressata, Kalamata Olives, Manchego Cheese and saltines washed down with some exceptional Margaritas (I must say, I make a mean rocks margarita)

Our slip-mates were having a heck of a party, so we just hung in the cockpit and listened to the mostly dated, but sometimes pretty good, music blasting through the marina and relaxed.

Today, we went through our usual Sunday routine… yep, pancakes…(fresh strawberries this time)
Cleaned up, pulled out the charts to plot our next two legs (Northport to Fishers Island; Fishers to Cuttyhunk) and then headed for the pool for a quick dip to refresh ourselves (very nice… water was 77 degrees!) and some lunch.

We’re now back on Rocinante writing this entry and waiting for 4:00 PM before heading out. We’ll be heading over to our favorite cove to wait out the tide change… we’ll have an early dinner (probably kielbasa with sauerkraut) and pull up anchor around 2:00 AM as we start our 12hr journey North East to Fishers Island.

Till next time,

Carlos & Maria
SV Rocinante…_/)