Cotytto 2.0

     I sat, quietly for a moment, and thought, the winter seemed especially long this year. With the usual cast of characters, minus my wife, who is stuck working, I sipped my virgin gin and tonic, at a pub, in Solomons Island, Maryland, with great anticipation of the season's first adventure aboard Cotytto, the new, and improved Cotytto, or Cotytto 2.0, as Susan puts it.

     In a previous post , I had said my friend was selling his Grand Banks, and buying a new boat. The Grand Banks is on the market, not yet sold, and the new boat is his, and what a great boat. She is a custom built 56ft. Bruckmann. With three staterooms, two heads and a spacious salon, she is beautiful, and now it's time to bring her to home port, in Newport, R.I.

     I am writing this as we are motoring up the Chesapeake Bay, the Captain is in the engine room, investigating a noise and I am at the helm. With the wind in my face, motoring up the bay, with a bearing of 15 degrees, I just past red buoy "86" on my starboard  side, and now looking for green "83." The only thing that could make this day better, is for Day to be with me, and her friends, Dan and Susan, where she belongs. As I write those words, "where she belongs," I think of the four of us, and the times we have spent together. We belong together, we are a family, a friendship like no other. Years and years, of enjoying one another's company, food, drink and adventure. Our family of friends has grown, but we are, the original four, through thick and thin, for almost 20 years, always, in search of another adventure. Anyhow, we have a two hour motor before we reach the C&D canal, and this seems like a good place to stop writing, and take a nap.

     We left Hopkinton, Mass in a rental car, and headed to Solomons Island, Maryland on Thursday morning. Once at the boat, provisioning and readying the boat was the task at hand Thursday night. We woke early Friday morning to plot our route, my task, then fuel up and shove off. From there, our plan was to motor for 8 hours, from Solomons to Cape May, New Jersey, and spend the night. We would then motor 10 hours on Saturday from Cape May to New York City, and spend the night there. Our last leg would be from NYC to Newport, a 6 hour motor on Sunday, back in time for work on Monday. It seems, I may miss work on Monday though, plans do need to be flexible on a boat.

     The boat was purchased knowing there are engine issues, which will be addressed at the end of this season. For now, enjoy the boat, and don't push the engines. We were not sure how fast we would be able to go, we were hoping between 15 and 20 knots, before the engines may or may not overheat. They were overheating between 12 and 15 though, and we will not be reaching Cape May today. As I was writing this, an alarm went off, and there was quite bit of chaos for the next few hours.

     I am still learning how best to blog, how to write an interesting story and keep my few readers reading. Short and interesting, with a teaser at the end? I will end this here, and hope you are interested enough to read chapter two, "Taking on Water."