Heading to NYC

Chris here... Saturday was a wonderful day filled with random acts of generosity by former strangers, now friends. I'll let Kristen fill in the details, but we had a wonderful afternoon on the American Rover, an excursion sailboat located at the Waterside Marina, and then having dinner with a family who are blog followers, for now, and cruisers in the next couple of years - Chris and Karen. In addition, Poppi, Kristen's Dad, arrived yesterday afternoon to help us bring Pelican on the next leg of our journey.

Tomorrow, Monday, we head for New York City. It's about 280nm away, so I'm estimating that if we leave at around 9am or so, we should arrive to Liberty Landing Marina on Wednesday afternoon. As always, follow along on our SPOT tracker by clicking the "Track Us" link to the right. It will be great to have Poppi aboard as that will give us some extra sleep at night.

Tomorrow morning we'll head across the river from the marina we're at and go to a different marina, get fuel, and then head out to the open ocean. The weather forecast shows light winds from the north for most of the day on Monday, then 10-15 Monday to Tuesday, then 15-25 Tuesday to Wednesday, depending on how far off the coast we are. I plan on staying within 10-15nm of the coast, and I'm hoping for some actual sailing on the way north once the wind picks up. Waves are supposed to be 1-2ft to start, and then 2-4ft later on. That means 2-4ft to start, and 4-8ft later on. Rule of thumb - double the wave estimates and you'll be good.

Once in NYC, we'll probably catch a good night's sleep, and then continue our trek north for 3 more days (stopping overnight) to Albany. I've lined us up a slip at the Albany Yacht Club for the next month, so that will be our base of operations.


One other thing I would like to mention. Seven years ago last night (August 15, 2002) at around 9pm a terrible, awful thing happened. A good friend of mine - Shawn Chandler - passed away in his hotel room in Virginia. He was about 30 years old. He worked for me, and I had sent him to training. He didn't show up to class on the last day and his hotel room door was locked from the inside, so the police were called to break down the door. They found him in his room, having died from a heart defect. Through a chain of events and because I didn't want her hearing from a stranger, I volunteered to tell his wife, his widow, what happened. I'll never, ever, ever, get the screams and cries of anguish and sorrow out of my head - ever. I still hear them on a regular basis. Unfortunately, I screwed up royally with taking care of his wife, and she and I are no longer communicating. I wish it was different, but it is what it is. I still check in on her through friends, and I understand she is doing well.

Anyway, Shawn is a big reason we're out here. His passing really made me understand how important it is to seize hold of the time that you have available, today, in the here and now. You never know what is going to happen tomorrow, so if there's something you've always wanted to do - go do it. It's easy to say you don't have time, but understand that if you don't make time, you may never have the chance. Even with the problems I'm facing today, I still count my blessings every day for the fact that I have a wonderful family, good friends, and have been lucky enough to get out for a while and follow one of my life's dreams. Yes, it may or may not come to an end shortly, but it's still amazing.

So - here are your marching orders. First, find me new business. Then - I want everyone to start writing down the things they really want to do during their lifetime, and to pick one of them and go do it within the next month. Don't pick the easiest one on the list, and don't pick the hardest, but make something happen in your life that's extraordinary - follow a dream.