As written in the last post, we arrived in Connecticut a few days earlier than normal. The earliest ever, in fact. This was to take advantage of a small weather window off the New Jersey coast. Not a great one but a small period when it wasn't awful. It was awful for many days after we got home justifying our push to beat the weather. Just two days after arriving home we took Amtrak to Penn Station and then the LIRR to visit the kids and retrieve our car. It was cold, rainy and windy and remained so for days when we got back to the boat. Lovely. We usually spend some time tied to a dock at the marina in May but there were some moorings installed (not ours) so we spent a few weeks at a slightly rougher mooring location. Closer to the dinghy dock, however.
We started our medical visits and I started working weekends at the museum a little sooner than planned since we had the car back earlier than usual. Carol had the first serious medical test with a cardiac catheterization to continue to investigate her stamina/tiredness issues. We spent 8 hours at the clinic for the test. Good news and bad news... no acute problems but no interventional solutions either.
Memorial Day weekend saw our first boating excursion of the season. The kids came to Hamburg Cove by car and met us there. Only one other squadron vessel (Miss Ruby) joined us with one other daytrip member dropping by. Miss Ruby only stayed for 24 hours. It seems fewer members still have boats and most have multiple complications that make continuing this tradition difficult. The future of the Waterbury Power Squadron may be in jeopardy. The forecast 10 days ahead of the weekend was not good but as it evolved it got better and it turned out to be great, weather-wise. In spite of the weather, Hamburg Cove was not overly crowded and it was a quietish weekend.
Fish caught by James Quigley
Medical visits ramped up after the holiday: eyes, teeth, endocrinology, neurology, etc. I needed some junk lasered out of one eye but otherwise all was good. Two doctors said I did not need to come back see them again. Finally a reduction in my collection of specialists! Yay!
Strange weather events occured the first full week of June. Actually not weather related but affecting it. A series of fires in Canada sent heavy smoke down into New England and well beyond. First from western Canada, then Nova Scotia, then Quebec. The last one made it hard to breathe and seriously reduced visibility. To well under two miles. Had to start wearing a mask outdoors. On the boat. With no people around. Weird change from Covid days. This will have major effects on worldwide weather. Here, we barely saw the sun. It was orange and everything else was gray with a bitter taste in the throat. Tough on people and other living things that are fond of breathing.
My eye issue was a normal complication of my cataract surgery last year. Nothing serious. I had to have the surface of my right eye lasered to remove 'debris'. Only problem: my sight is so clear in my right eye now that I can tell my left eye is 70 years old. Not quite clear. Normal but 70 years old. Sigh.
On Flag Day (14 June), MSM restarted its tradition of hosting a naturalization ceremony for new citizens and I volunteered to help out. People (our staff, politicians, and the judge) made moving speeches that were personal and short. Short being the more important factor. People from all over the world were made U. S. citizens and it was all very moving. I also qualified for two new (to me) exhibits at the museum to increase my range of interpretation skills. They also removed two slots for us volunteers to man and moved them to paid staff positions. This was great because those spots were the most boring. Not terrible but not my favorites.
The start of the 4th of July week had us attending the housewarming of a nephew and his fiancee. Their new-to-them house is in an area that was farm and woodland when I was a kid and where we (trespassed) went sledding in the winter. We picnicked with our family and met (briefly) with the fiancee's family. Perhaps we will chat more with them at the wedding in November. Perhaps.
Two days after the 4th (a stormy Tuesday) we went to a rented house on Martha's Vineyard for a week with the kids. This was instead of a two week cruise on the boat. A 5 year old and a 1 year old on the boat might have proved a bit trying. Maybe. A shorter cruise to Block Island is planned for August. Reports on these events in the next posting. Perhaps.
