June 4th-June 22nd, 2021
Our daughter Claire left to go back to Virginia to start her remote internship with Capital One, so we decided to leave Annapolis and expensive downtown Airbnbs and headed up to the Taylor farm in New Jersey on the Delaware River. It’s so beautiful there and Peter and Lily and their daughter Abby are fun to be around, so we are as happy as we can be while boat projects proceed at glacial speeds. AT least some of the stuff we sent out for work is starting to reappear. Yesterday, we picked up the re-galvanized anchor chain in Baltimore. It weighs almost 400lbs, so it was a sweaty job stretching it all out in the sunshine, and spray painting yellow and then red stripes on the chain every 20 feet. We also got our canvas back from Yacht Canvas of Annapolis. They are great. They do good work, and it was ready on the exact day they said it would be. This is a total miracle in the marine industry. We put that in the boat, but can’t install until the engine goes back in. Jeff also decided to pull the Glendinning shore power cable reel to refurb it. So two projects done, and one added to the list. Always a good day if the list gets shorter.
Life on the farm for the past couple weeks has been great. Just like last year, only less COVID discussion now that we are all vaccinated. We’ve been loving the fresh veggies, and the river views, and the great company. I did get a call from my daughter, who relocated to the Upper East Side to continue her internship in NYC for the rest of June. She has always had roommates at school, so she wasn’t liking living alone in a new place. I went up to spend an excellent 5 days with her. She had Friday off for Juneteenth, so after 2 days of work, we had 3 days to play. I feel so lucky that we survived the teen years and are still good playmates. She’s keeping young, showing me how to use Instagram, take a halfway decent selfie, and understand interesting new concepts like the male gaze/female gaze.
We visited South Street Seaport and toured the Wavertree, an old sailing ship, so I did do something slightly related to sailing. Also, Jeff and I took a wonderful kayak trip a couple miles down the Delaware to Riverton, where they have a historic yacht club with an awesome clubhouse on the “Iron Pier”. The pier is the last remaining ferry dock on the Delaware, although it’s been a long time since a paddlewheel has come to call. When the built the clubhouse in 1880, the one stipulation was that they had to provide a ticket window and waiting room for ferry passengers headed down to Philadelphia.