Hi everyone. It has been more than 2 months now since I've written.  Our social calendar has been full of family and friends, and we've been having a great time. We've gone from the outer end of Long Island Sound to the middle of the Chesapeake. We've stayed in deserted anchorages and on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. We've done nothing much all day, and we've spent all day at the Natural History Museum. Here are some of the highlights:

When we left Wickford, RI (August 20), we had a long day, starting in dense fog, to get across Block Island Sound to Montauk. From this point on, we would be heading south. We spent a great weekend at Montauk, visiting John and Carol Roscoe and their family. We swam in the pool, watched the kids play, did laundry, went out for lunch, caught up on each others lives, had a tour of the town, did some grocery shopping, had a beach BBQ, and even went sailing. Now it has been a long time since we went for a recreational sail, so it took a while for the idea to even occur to us. But what a beautiful afternoon sail it was. So thanks to John and Carol for getting us out there just for the enjoyment of it.

Our next destination was back on the mainland side of Long Island Sound. We spent one night in Stonington, CT before heading up the Mystic River to the Mystic Seaport Museum. We had made reservations at the dock of the Seaport Museum itself. This is not an inexpensive option, but we were right inside the museum itself, a living history seaport village of the 1800's. On August 26, my mom and dad arrived for a visit. We toured the Seaport, had a great lobster dinner, and the next day went to the wonderful Mashantucket Pequot Museum. This impressive tribal museum tells the geologic story of the local area as well as the tribal history from pre-colonial to modern times. My favorite area was the extensive life size reconstruction of a Pequot village with an audio tour that provided many details of daily life in the early colonial period. By the late 1600's, though, the Pequot were nearly wiped out. With the assistance of other local tribes, the British attacked and destroyed Pequot villages, killing hundreds. The animosity apparently started because a Dutch trader killed a Pequot chief, and the Pequot killed an English man in retaliation, not understanding the difference between the 2 nationalities of white men. The English then vowed revenge, and the fight was on. As with all the Native American tribes, the white man won in the end. The few remaining Pequot were given as slaves to the tribes friendly to the English, and the Pequots as a nation formally ceased to exist. But somehow they were able to maintain some semblance of their families and history, and what a triumph for the Pequot people to finally gain federal recognition as a tribe in the 1980's.

After a final brunch with my parents, and a Girl Scout ceremony awarding Vienna and Rhiannon their recently earned badges, we said good-bye to Mom and Dad, and to Mystic, and made our way back down the Mystic River. We anchored that night at Ram Island, the small palm tree island we had seen from the lobster restaurant several nights earlier. The following couple nights we anchored in the Thimble Islands, which were very crowded on that last weekend in August. Gradually making our way down Long Island Sound, we stopped at Port Jefferson and Oyster Bay on our way to NY.

On September 3, having waited until the Republicans vacated the city (the visiting ones anyway), we motored from Long Island Sound, through Hell Gate, into the East River, around the tip of Manhattan, and up the Hudson River. This is a trip that requites strict attention to the tides and currents, and Michael timed the whole thing just right. For some security reason, the Coast Guard was preventing boats from using the Manhattan side channel around Roosevelt Island, but the bridge on the other side opened promptly for us, so we passed without incident. (This bridge can be a problem if boats have to wait and get swept down toward the bridge by the current, which can run very strongly through here.) It was exciting to see familiar landmarks as we passed by but odd not to see the Twin Towers. (For those who don't know, Michael and I lived in Manhattan for 2 years before moving to WA.) After a long day, we tied up to a mooring at the 79th Street Boat Basin. But having just arrived in NYC, we couldn't not go ashore! So we rounded up the kids and headed for Central Park.  As we walked through our old neighborhood, we pointed out landmarks and showed Rhiannon and Vienna where we lived, back in the old days before they were born. The next morning we were surprised to hear horns blaring close by. I stuck my head up just in time for the beginning of a tug boat race down the Hudson River, complete with a fire boat spraying water!

We spent a wonderful 2 weeks in Manhattan. I hadn't been back to NYC since we moved in June '89. The city has really cleaned up since then. Less garbage, less smell, fewer beggars and certainly not as aggressive, much less honking (there is a $350 fine for honking!), and many fewer homeless people, at least where we could see them. The follow-up question is, of course, where did they all go? While there, we saw friends Dan & Andrea and adorable daughter Cassie, Brian, as warm and amiable as ever, Michael's cousin Cressida, and John Roscoe again. We also made new friends Jack & Elizabeth, who sailed from Honduras with their kids Sam and Annie (and an older daughter now at the University of Rhode Island whom we didn't meet) on their boat Kitty Hawk.  

Here's what we did in Manhattan: Central Park, Times Square, Natural History Museum, Broadway show Fiddler on the Roof, dinner with Dan and Cassie, lunch with Cressida (complete with a tour of the New Yorker magazine offices), lunch with Brian at the roof-top pool side restaurant of his private club (so New York!), bought jeans and long sleeved shirts because it is getting cooler, dinner from Zabar's, Michael went to a reading and recording session of a new musical co-written by Dan, Sunday service at 4th Unitarian (a beautiful church on Central Park West), tea at American Girl Place, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Natural History Museum (planetarium this time), out for dinner with John and the adult Kitty Hawks (Annie baby sat all the younger kids), bought new sneakers for Vienna and Rhiannon, went to Starbuck's many times, Riverside Park, Natural History Museum again (dinosaurs this time), dinner with Dan, Andrea and Cassie, last trip to Zabar's and H&H for bagels. And the list of things we didn't get to is almost as long!

The Museum of Natural History was certainly a highlight of our stay. We became members, anticipating several trips there during this visit, as well as more visits in the spring. We saw the special exhibit "Frogs," a Lewis and Clark IMAX movie, the ocean life hall, most of the dinosaurs, all the planetarium shows, and most of the Rose Center for Earth and Space, but barely scratched the surface of the other permanent exhibits. What a spectacular resource! The dinosaur halls, which take up most of one floor, are actually not just dinosaurs, but rather a complete study of vertebrate evolution. Instead of the usual kingdom, phylum, class, order distinctions, the species are grouped according to "advanced traits." For example, the first advanced trait considered in this study is the development of a vertebral column. All subsequent vertebrates are related to these first vertebrates. Other examples would be the development of 4 limbs, a hard shelled egg, a certain type of jaw structure. We didn't get as far as even the primitive mammals, and there is a very complete display on the evolution of the horse that Vienna was looking forward to, so we will have to go back for that.  

Another interesting day was spent at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. This is where the new security measures started to become apparent. There was a security screening line similar to the airport, but our Swiss Army knife made it through. However, on the ferry back from Ellis Island, there were heavily armed Coast Guardsmen on board. We spoke with one of them for a bit after arriving safely back at the Battery. He said they were just looking for anything suspicious. Did they ever find anything? Not really, sometimes someone just being stupid. But if anything ever happened, the Coast Guard didn't want people asking why they hadn't been there. The Statue of Liberty itself is more regulated now. You can only get up to the pedestal level, and that only with a timed ticket for a ranger led tour, and only after an additional security screening. We walked all around the base and got a lot of information from the audio tour, but did not go on the ranger led tour. After park hot dogs for lunch, we got the ferry to Ellis Island. Ellis Island was still under renovation when we left NY, so we had never been there before. What an amazing building, history and museum. We spent about 3 hours there, and the adults among us could have used a few more hours. I particularly liked the wall of pictures of immigrants and their families, wondering what had motivated them to give up everything they knew and venture across an ocean to a new land, what had they done when they got here, where were their descendants now? We didn't know of any relatives from either side of the family who had arrived via Ellis Island, so we couldn't look up any names in the registry. I did try "Joseph Eberle" just for fun and got 10 matches, mostly from Switzerland, a couple from Russia, and one from Poland. So maybe there are some relatives out there somewhere.

On September 18, in company with Kitty Hawk, we left Manhattan bound for Staten Island. The remains of Hurricane Ivan joined with a strong cold front to create a wet and stormy day. Luckily the 40 knots of wind were behind us! We hunkered down in Great Kills Harbor, waiting for this front to pass but hoping to complete our passage to Cape May, NJ before Hurricane Jeanne got too far up the coast.  On the 19th we had a great day ashore with the Kitty Hawks in the brisk fall weather, and enjoyed an excellent steak dinner that night. Michael wanted to try a prime aged steak, so he had gotten a couple before leaving Manhattan. It was very good, but also very expensive! At first light on the 20th, we set off on the approximately 24 hour passage to Cape May. It was a fine passage with nice sailing most of the way, and we had to slow down a bit so as not to arrive before daylight. We spent 2 days enjoying the town of Cape May. Since Vienna learned to ride a bike on Block Island, we were pleased to find rental bikes in Cape May. Together with the Kitty Hawks, we set out for the lighthouse on our rented bikes. It was a long ride and a challenge for Vienna, still a very new bike rider. Most of the way was along a main road with not too much traffic, but cars coming by were not slowing for bikes. Michael rode next to Vienna, between her and the cars. Unfortunately at one point Vienna swerved, and she and Michael crashed, but this was much preferable to her crashing in to the car that was passing by at the time! She scraped up her hands and knees, and got a good scare. After that she was more nervous about the whole idea of bike riding, but we still had to get back to the marina. The next day she and Michael traded in their 2 bikes for a tandem, and we whizzed happily along after that. On our second day, we rode out to Sunset Beach to search for Cape May diamonds. These clear quartz crystals come from the upper reaches of the Delaware River, where the swiftly moving water erodes away veins of quartz. When tumbled, polished and cut, they do look like diamonds. We collected a little bag full to take home and put in our rock tumbler, so in a few years, we'll have a lot of "diamonds"!

After Cape May, we started up the Delaware Bay. Our first stop was Reedy Island. The next morning, Saturday, we said good-bye to the Kitty Hawks as we continued up the river to Philadelphia, and they went through the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal. That afternoon we arrived in Philadelphia, stopped at a fuel dock, and heard someone calling our name. It was Williwaw! We hadn't seen them since Stuart, FL. But there wasn't space in that marina, so we moved next door where we had a reservation. Ray and Susan, on a trawler a couple slips down, came over to introduce themselves and offer to show us the way to the market. In less than 15 minutes we were off the boat and ready to go, a new speed record. We were glad we went, since the Amish farmers are at the market from Wednesday through Saturday. Years ago (well pre-kids), Michael and I had taken the train from Manhattan to Philadelphia to meet my Aunt Susan and then see my great Aunt Myrtle for lunch. On that trip we had been to the Reading Market and had the best soft pretzels ever. So now we were on a quest for soft pretzels. After getting some lunch (supposedly the best cheese steak in Philadelphia, but I wasn't that impressed), we wandered through the market. There was the pretzel stand, just the way we remembered it! The pretzels were still very tasty, but the best part was watching the young woman rolling out the rope of dough, then flipping and twisting it so it magically plopped down on the counter, a perfect pretzel shape.

That afternoon, Michael's parents, Pam and Roger, arrived, as well as his Aunt Yvonne and Uncle Mike. We all went out for dinner that night, and the next day we saw the sights of Philadelphia: the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Franklin Court and the Franklin Museum. The Liberty Bell has the same security requirements as the Statue of Liberty, so we are getting used to these lines. The real question, of course, is are we any safer because of it? (We could have a long political digression here, but I will restrain myself, for now anyway.) Anyway, the next day, Pam, Roger, Uncle Mike, Aunt Yvonne, Vienna and Rhiannon drove off to Williamsburg, leaving me and Michael home alone for a few days. We went to the Constitution Center, a new, expensive and well-meaning museum which unfortunately chose the MTV style of information dissemination: lots of video terminals, short quotes, catchy phrases and images, which made it difficult to string together a coherent idea of the flow of history. But sifting through all that, there was a tremendous amount of historical information there. We didn't get all the way through though, so we never got to the debates on the meaning of the Constitution today.

On September 30, Michael and I took the train to Washington DC, and Pam and Roger delivered Vienna and Rhiannon to us there, at Aunt Susan and Uncle Warren's house, before returning to Williamsburg for a few more days. While Michael and Uncle Warren had a far ranging discussion on the Middle East, Vienna, Rhiannon and I walked to the pet store with Aunt Susan to get goldfish for their backyard fishpond. The next day we had tickets for the White House Tour. The only way to get these tickets is to request them 3-6 months in advance through your Congressman's office. We had requested them through our Senator's office back in June when Vienna, Rhiannon and I were in DC. The security instructions that we received regarding the tour were more stringent than any other tour we'd been on so far. No backpacks, bags, purses, cameras, video or audio recorders. The only things allowed were wallets, cell phones, car keys and umbrellas. But we knew all this ahead of time and arrived at the tour site carrying nothing. The tour is a self-guided tour of the public and ceremonial areas of the East Wing. In every room were Secret Service agents, looking intimidating but very willing to answer questions. There are certainly some beautiful and impressive rooms there, but it all felt like a museum, which, in fact, it is. There was no sense at all that this was the seat of government and that important decisions were being made close by. But I can certainly understand that they weren't going to let every tour group go through the West Wing.  Too bad; that would have been much more interesting and exciting.

We spent an entire week in Washington, DC. On Sunday, Pam, Roger, Uncle Mike and Aunt Yvonne joined us there. In addition to our White House Tour, we also had scheduled tours of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the National Archives. At the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, it was exciting to see the money whizzing through the printing presses, but we were surprised at how often the presses had to be stopped to clear a jam. Just like a copy machine. We watched one worker pull several wadded sheets of money out of a printer and then carefully tape it all back together to make sure he had gotten it all. The engraving is all still done by hand, but we didn't get to see any of the engravers at work. A different department there is devoted to salvaging money after various disasters. Your bedroom got flooded after the latest hurricane? Send those rolls of money from under your mattress to the Bureau. Don't try unrolling them yourself! House fire? Send those charred bills to the Bureau. It is their job to figure out how much real money is represented by those soggy rolls and charred flakes. That same afternoon we went to the Archives for a tour there. The tour wasn't really a tour, it was a presentation about the Archives and the types of documents contained there. The docent showed us copies of several documents held there. Vienna's favorite example was the homestead deed issued to Almanzo Wilder. (For those who haven't read the Little House on the Prairie books recently, he was the husband of Laura Ingalls.) After the presentation, we went to the Charters of Freedom display, where the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are on display (locked in highly climate controlled cases).

Another stop this time in DC was the new National Museum of the American Indian. This museum opened very recently and was still quite crowded. It covers native peoples from all over the Americas, not just the United States. The focus of the museum is not historical. It presents native culture as very alive and vibrant. It was interesting to see so many different tribes and cultures, with all their similarities and differences, but there was little geographic or historic organization, so it felt quite scattered. One of the best parts was an exhibit of art works by 2 contemporary native American artists. Some of the sculptures were so beautiful. That evening, Michael and I went out for dinner with long time friend Val Crites and her new husband Chip Fowler. (Aunt Susan was babysitting.) So close to the election, in Washington DC, with friends employed by the government and the military, the talk naturally turned to politics. While we did not agree on all issues or on the candidates, it was refreshing to have a political discussion that involved a thoughtful exchange of ideas on both sides and respectful acknowledgements of differences. While I am glad that more people are interested in the political process this time around, it is discouraging that viewpoints are so polarized, and it is difficult to see how the winning candidate, whoever that is, will be able to reconcile those differences.  

The next day, Pam, Roger and Michael went to the Holocaust Museum. Vienna, Rhiannon and I were on our way to the Building Museum when we discovered a new science museum, so in we went. It was sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences, and was actually a science museum for grown-ups. Vienna enjoyed many of the exhibits, but quite a bit of it was too advanced for Rhiannon. We enjoyed the global warming exhibit together, especially the globes showing different effects on climate and sea levels around the world.  After that detour, we continued to the Building Museum where we met Michael, Pam and Roger, and also the Kitty Hawks, who had arrived up the Potomac the day before. We didn't see many of the exhibits at the Building Museum, but we loved sitting in the beautiful center atrium admiring the building itself. On our last visit to DC, I had spent quite a bit of money on science kits at the gift shop here, but there was nothing new this time, so my VISA card stayed safely stowed in my wallet.  

On October 7, the 4 of us took the train back to Philadelphia, having said good-bye to Pam & Roger and the Kitty Hawks the night before. The following morning we were back on the train out to Wallingford to visit my Aunt Mary, whom we hadn't seen for many years. We had a lovely day with her including a picnic in the park, an orchard with apple picking, face painting and hay rides, a visit to the Swarthmore campus, a brew pub dinner, and a quick trip to Trader Joe's. It was a beautiful fall day, and Vienna and Rhiannon barely ate their lunch, they were so busy playing in the fallen leaves. The town of Swarthmore is very pretty, and now ranks high among our favorite east coast towns.

We had now been in Philadelphia for so long that it was less expensive for us to pay the monthly rate at the marina than to continue paying the weekly rate. So no big rush to leave. Over the next several days we went to the Franklin Institute, the Betsey Ross House and the Mint (with tickets in advance from our Senator).  Rhiannon's favorite exhibit at the Franklin Institute was the giant walk-through model of a human heart. She also was very interested in the video of open heart surgery. At another display we watched an animated video about blood with a very catchy tune, which we are still humming: "The bloodmobile, the bloodmobile, a delivery service inside us...."  The Mint was having a slow day when we were there, only making pennies, but as at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the amount of money sitting around down there was staggering.

We left Philadelphia on October 13, heading for the Chesapeake. We went through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal the next day, then spent the following several nights anchored in Fairlee Creek. Vienna had a fever and the winds were high, so we stayed home for a couple days. We tried to leave on October 17 but turned back because the winds were still high and the seas big and choppy. We could have gone, but it would have been an uncomfortable day. The channel entering Fairlee Creek is narrow and tricky, and we scraped through the mud every time. When we finally left for real on October 18, our 4th time through that channel, we made it without touching bottom. Our destination that night was Queenstown Creek off the Chester River. Another narrow channel going in, but we had good directions. The harbor master saw us coming and called to say we were through the shallowest spot, so we got in without incident. We did plow through the mud a bit farther in though. But when we were anchoring, a bald eagle flew over and perched on a snag close by, so we took that as a good omen.

The next day was a grey and grumpy day. I felt better that evening after calling Dad to sing Happy Birthday and calling Aunt Susan to arrange our next meeting in Chestertown. We had one more stop, the Corsica River, on our way to Chestertown, where we arrived on October 21. We decided to treat ourselves to a marina stay, only to find out that the marina was flooded. We could tie up at the dock but would have to wait for the tide to go down before we could cross the parking lot to get to town. Granted these are fall tides and almost a full moon, but a marina that floods at high tide? Other than this minor problem, we had a wonderful time in Chestertown. The weather was crisp and clear, the trees flaming with color, the town charming and colonial. We walked the streets, picking the houses where we would like to live. On Friday night we went to a wine tasting evening with live music at the local coffee shop. The wine was mediocre and the music was worse, but it was a nice idea! At the Saturday farmers' market on the village green, Vienna and Rhiannon picked out their pumpkins. Aunt Susan arrived with our mail (including our absentee ballots), and we all went back to the coffee shop for a lunch that rated much higher than the wine and music evening. We walked around town again after lunch, showing Aunt Susan the houses we had picked out, then she drove me to the grocery store while Michael and the girls went back to the boat.

On Sunday morning, Vienna, Rhiannon and I attended the morning service at the small local UU fellowship. The girls had a great time with the other kids, and I enjoyed the talk on the current role of the UN in world politics. After lunch we left Chestertown for the couple hours motor to the east fork of Langford Creek, another beautiful and peaceful spot. Rhiannon, Michael and I went for a row in the dinghy when we got there, going close enough to see the huge flock of geese resting on the water but not close enough to startle them into flight. We had a layover day there because Michael had a big project to do - fixing the Lectra San, our onboard sewage treatment system. The next day he started right in on that project, and the rest of us tried to stay out of his way, a sometimes challenging proposition in a space this size. After lunch, we girls went for a row. In Chestertown we had seen crews from 3 different schools racing, so we were inspired to work on our rowing. We took turns being the coxswain and did our best in our less than svelte craft.  

From Langford Creek, instead of one long day to Annapolis, we took 2 shorter days, and spent the night between back at Queenstown Creek. We didn't see our eagle this time, but we did have a very nice tea that afternoon with apple and pear slices and homemade gingersnaps. On October 27, we arrived in Annapolis. We picked up a mooring just off the end of the city pier. One of our closest neighbors was the Pride of Baltimore II. (You might ask, why is the Pride of Baltimore in Annapolis? It was visiting for the Naval Academy's homecoming week. The Lady Maryland, also of Baltimore, arrived for a couple days as well.) We rowed in to the dinghy dock, and set off for our get acquainted walk around town. Annapolis has a small and very walkable downtown historic district. As usual, we stopped to look at the local real estate offerings. Our conclusion: Annapolis is fully priced, not many good deals here. Luckily, our primary objective in Annapolis was not to find a house but to find a trick-or-treating neighborhood. This is where connections are important. We called a friend of Katherine Walters', and made a wonderful new friend for ourselves. Janice Simmons met us at a restaurant for dinner, and we hit it off right away. Vienna and Rhiannon liked her right away too, and were happy to tell her about their pumpkins which they had carved all by themselves that morning.

Trick-or-treating was looking questionable when Rhiannon came down with a fever on the 29th and threw up several times over night. Maybe it was something she ate because she was much better by the following evening, with time to spare before Halloween. We saw Aunt Susan and Uncle Warren again on Halloween. They drove over with another mail drop for us. We had a nice lunch with them and a friend of theirs at the Eastport Yacht Club. Vienna and Rhiannon were bouncing with excitement as the hour drew near. At 5:30, Janice came to pick us up, and we were off for a Halloween evening in the suburbs. When we got there, it was already getting dark. Vienna and Rhiannon put on their costumes for a preliminary run around the cul-de-sac with me while Janice fixed a lovely dinner. After dinner they went out with Michael on the complete neighborhood canvas. Vienna was dressed as the Statue of Liberty, wrapped in her green blanket and with a crown and torch purchased last month at the Statue of Liberty. Rhiannon wore a black robe with skeleton gloves and a bleeding skeleton mask. She had picked this out at a costume store in Philadelphia after looking at several costume displays in a variety of stores. She had been very clear about what she wanted, and was quite pleased with how it all worked. The mask comes with a hand held plastic heart with red "blood" and a series of tubes to circulate it to the mask and back to the heart. When Rhiannon squeezed the heart, the blood was pumped out the artery, trickled down her skeleton mask between its 2 layers, and collected in the vein to be returned to the heart. She held the heart in her hand, and the tubes went up her sleeve. She loved it, and she loved the reactions she got from others as she made her way around the neighborhood. (Most people assumed she was a boy.) In the meantime, I stayed at the house with Janice. We answered the door, drank some nice red wine, and chatted with a friend of hers. Vienna and Rhiannon returned an hour later with full bags of candy, and everyone was satisfied.

A Halloween sidebar: When Michael was tying up the dinghy that morning, the cell phone fell out of his pocket and disappeared into the briny deep. It isn't actually very deep next to the dinghy dock, and the Chesapeake isn't very briny, but the water is so murky that it was impossible to see anything. After 10 minutes probing with an oar, attempting to find and fish out the phone, we gave up. Even if we had found it, its experience in the water probably killed it. So we added "new cell phone" to the list.

Another Halloween sidebar and another overboard experience: After our full evening of trick-or-treating, Janice took us back to our dinghy. We loaded in, costumes, kids and candy. Michael is always the last one in, and he pushes off from the dock as he steps in. Well he pushed too hard, or didn't step fast enough, or something, and this time he fell into the briny deep. But luckily he didn't sink as quickly as the cell phone, and he climbed back into the dinghy, soggy and cold and a trifle embarrassed but otherwise all right. (Editorial note from Michael: This is the only time in 10,000 miles of cruising that any of us have fallen in, and it had nothing to do with the 3 glasses of wine I had that evening.)

After the big events of Halloween, we got a slow start the next day, but finally we walked around the Naval Academy. The crowds of homecoming weekend had gone, and it was a beautiful day. We visited the chapel but the crypt of John Paul Jones is closed for renovation, so we didn't get to see that. Rhiannon was hoping to see the preserved body floating in brine, although we told her that wasn't likely. Then she was wondering if girls could go to school here and be in the army. After explaining that this was a Navy school, we found a female cadet to talk to. She was very nice, told Rhiannon what she was studying, and assured her that lots of girls go to school here. So Rhiannon is considering a naval career. Vienna at first rejected the Navy out of hand, but allowed that she might consider it after finding out that even the Navy needs lawyers.

Our last 2 days in Annapolis were spent trying to get a cell phone. Getting one wasn't really an issue. We took a taxi to the mall where the Verizon store is located. After some discussion, we were told that we could get our AT&T number switched to a Verizon phone. So we happily purchased our phone and went on to other errands. But that night Michael spent a couple hours on the phone with the Verizon service center trying to get that switch to happen. After a couple more hours the next morning, he returned to the store. Ultimately it was that phone which was defective. Finally, with a new phone in hand and programmed with our old number, we were seamlessly back in the world of cellular communications. Since it was too late in the day to set off on a long journey, we went 7 miles up the Severn River to a quiet anchorage.

And here we are still. It was very windy last night, and we were pushed a bit farther into our cozy, and increasingly shallow, nook than we might have liked. This morning, after it became clear that we couldn't drive away, Michael tried a couple things to get us out of the mud, but we are now waiting for the evening's higher high tide to hopefully float us free. Barring that, Michael has rigged a kedge anchor to pull the boat over on her side to get the keel free. If all goes well, we'll be leaving in the morning, heading back over to Maryland's eastern shore. Over the next couple weeks, we'll be making our way south to Norfolk where we'll hole up for the winter. We've gotten over our post-election depression and decided not to move to Canada after all, although we are still waiting to hear the outcome of the WA gubernatorial election.

And here is an incident that I forgot to include in the previous update. During one of our multi day ocean passages, Michael was napping, and Vienna, Rhiannon and I were up top reading and keeping watch. As I moved to the other side of the cockpit, something scurried past my foot. I looked down, didn't see anything, looked a bit farther, and discovered a small brown rat hiding between the seats in the cockpit. Now back in the old days, all ships had rats, but these are no longer the olden days of sail, so I woke Michael up. Luckily for us the rat had taken refuge behind the seats in the cockpit, with no access to the rest of the boat from there. So it was fairly easy to trap the rat in a plastic bag. Of course, the question then was, now what? Unfortunately, it was a small, kind of cute rat that wiggled its nose and blinked its tiny black eyes at us. There ensued a debate over whether it was actually a rat or only a mouse. Now as all readers of the Redwall series know, rats, especially sea rats, are vermin. Mice are the good guys. There was no way we could keep this animal on a boat at sea for another 2 days, so I came down firmly for the rat classification. With some tears and accusations of cruelty by the younger crew members, the rat was knocked unconscious and disposed of overboard. The good ship Atalanta has been vermin-free ever since.

So that is the up to the minute story from Atalanta. As always, we love to hear from you, but please remember not to include this message in your reply. Best wishes from all of us,

Ginny