Port Jeff layover

We are underway westbound in Long Island Sound. We are headed for Port Washington, since the yard in Mamaroneck is not yet ready for us. It's been a fairly comfortable ride, even though seas are higher than forecast.

Port Jeff from our anchorage, with the ferry P.T. Barnum at the terminal. Tug and barge center frame reminds us of our friend Tim who skippered an identical setup and made this stop many times.

We had a nice four nights in Port Jefferson, anchored in our usual spot (map). During the course of our stay I made two separate pilgrimages to the Amazon locker on the county bus, bringing in a massive haul. My first visit the app had to open full 12 separate lockers, and the second trip was necessitated by the fact that the locker was full and I could not place any more orders until I made the first pickup. I stopped at the adjacent grocery store both times for provisions.

On 9/11 we walked past the 9/11 monument.

With lots of parts now in hand I spent much of the four days working on the solar installation, including drilling and tapping holes in the weather deck and the soft top frame for the wiring, and setting up the breaker box. A separate post is forthcoming with details when that project is complete.

Starting to take shape, with panel pre-wired and ready for wires from the panels and batteries.

The dining scene is unchanged since our last visit, and we ate at Castaways on the patio, Joey Z's, The Pie for their excellent coal-fired pizza, and Billie's 1890 Saloon, where we ate on the deck. While the harbor is emptying out, downtown was still busy in pleasant fall weather. On Friday afternoon we took Vector to the free town pump-out, only accessible at high tide, where we also took on water.

Shaolin booth at the festival, with the colorful heads for the lion dance.

On Saturday we also went ashore in the afternoon to take in some of the annual Dragon Boat Festival. More festival than dragon boat races, we wandered through the vendor booths and watched a bit of the Shaolin Kung-Fu demonstration. We did not watch any dragon boat races, which comprised quite a few public safety teams, including NYPD, as we've done quite a bit of that with our serious dragon-boating friends. There was supposedly a dragon-themed dog costume contest, but we only spotted one costumed dog.

The lone dog costume at the festival. To be fair, the actual contest was at a church several blocks away.

Louise has been struggling with her Windows laptop, which has been insistent on trying to upgrade itself to Windows 11 even though it does not meet the specs. She's been beating on it to get it to either succeed or stop trying, and whatever last steps she took Saturday basically bricked the system. I ended up spending part of yesterday installing Linux on it instead, so at least she can use it until she does something else. Who knows, that may grow on her.

Shaolin demonstration.

We were more or less done with Port Jeff by last night, and this morning we weighed anchor to have a favorable tide at Mamaroneck if they could get us in. The route to the yard and the route to Port Washington are identical up to Lloyd Point, off Oyster Bay, and when I had not heard anything back from texts I've been sending since Friday, I called as we passed the point to get the bad news.

Walking home from the locker I passed this lawn care service, which has this genuine putting green out front as an advertising display. I guess if you bring a putter and a ball you can get some practice in.

The stop in Port Washington is maybe a dozen miles out of our way, but it's a nice protected harbor with a lot of services, and is a good place to wait. It's just an hour and a half from the yard whenever they are ready for us, and I will continue to make progress on the solar project while we wait.