THE VOYAGES AND ADVENTURES OF M/Y INCOGNITO! : New York to Marthas Vineyard

Well, once again life got busy & the time to keep the blog current & updated fell by the wayside.

I've heard complaints of an inactive blog from neighbors and friends far & wide. HA! Glad I'm missed. Here's what shenanigans took place the month of July...

We landed back in New York City with such excitement for the next leg of our crazy adventure.

This next trip would take us to the northernmost point of our trip...Camden, Maine. But first...NYC!

Brad & I checked into our hotel as we were staying in town just for one night. We settled in and went out to peruse the city that afternoon so that we could pick up a few last minute boat provisions for our friends Kevin & Gael arriving that evening. (Bloody Mary provisions to be exact.. Kevin & Gael love those!) We were staying uptown and made a pit stop at Whole Foods in Columbus Circle. Wow. That was an event! I've never seen so many long grocery lines all in one place...such chaos.

Now I know why I had my groceries delivered when I lived there.

Brad stood in it for at least 20 minutes and made some new friends while there.

He's actually really riveted. HA!

We later ventured down the street and came upon the "SoupMan" storefront from Seinfeld fame.

Soupman, was better known as The Soup Nazi. Dun dun dun...

If you were in line & asked too many questions or made any kind of trouble- let's say you coughed too loud, he'd yell "No soup for you!" (The line that made him famous)

& send you packing out the door!

Brad couldn't believe it was a real thing. ha-ha!

I told him it's one popular joint, especially when it's chilly out. Their demand for product is outstripping supply, so they just hired the former CEO of Steve Madden shoes in order to turn their buzz into formative growth. Soupman is actually a publicly traded stock (shocker!) however currently resides as a penny stock. Prominent exec's include a co-founder of Outback Steakhouse & co-founder of Johnny Rockets. I bet these guys have plenty of soup!

Kevin & Gael arrived and we enjoyed a great dinner that night at Quality Italian... A new offshoot of Quality Meats. The food was fabulous and the place was packed!

Afterward, we had to find a horse & buggy to enjoy the gorgeous night out & take in a carriage ride.

Our hotel room had a great view of the city & the scene at night was illuminating.

New York city is infamous for their storefront windows. This one of Bergdorfs' was so chic.
They took every color in that dress and matched it to various travel postcards, conjuring up images of summer vacations. It comes across effortless, but the attention to detail they put into their efforts is quite artistic.

We made a pit stop at Chelsea market once again, as our friends had never been there.

It's such a fun & bustling place with oodles of foodies delights.

We didn't spot too many crazies in the city this round..but you knew they were lurking!

Gael couldn't stand the suspense and was dying to check out the Apple store.
We ventured into it's glass cube (somehow reminiscent of the glass pyramid at the Louvre in Paris) and ascended into it's bowels. Lookout!

There were hordes of people everywhere.

Amazing how this brand has become so iconic and such a part of our culture.

And what's going on at the new Apple iwatch counter? You could hear crickets! Quiet as can be.

I was so surprised not to see a huge crowd around this display. They have built such momentum & cloaked it in secrecy. Everyone hovered in every other niche of the store but here.

Later that afternoon, we "über'd" out (funny how Über has also become a verb) to Norwalk, Connecticut where our boat was docked. We stepped onboard as Bish already had the engines on & warmed up, untied the lines and off we went. The sunset that night was simply gorgeous and we couldn't have asked for better cruising weather. We had an overnight run to Martha's Vineyard and looked forward to getting there the next afternoon for fun in the sun.

I took the 10pm-1am "captain" shift and ran the boat alone while everyone slept. All lights inside the boat are off in the pilot house so that I can see clearly and don't get night blindness.

Here you can see our two radar screens that we use to navigate.

Every 20 minutes, each person on watch has to log our lat/long coordinates, COG (course over ground), do a visual engine check via security camera, check all gauges, etc...

For those of you not sure what lat/long is...it's an abbreviation for Latitude / Longitude coordinates, otherwise know as a GCS. A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on the Earth to be specified by a set of numbers or letters. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents vertical position, and two or three of the numbers represent horizontal position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation.

Somehow, after an hour and a half then I ended up staring at the radar screen looking upon the most precarious part of our overnight trip. I was about to navigate through a very shallow and narrow stretch with oil tankers coming into my view. Ruh ro! I had to wake Brad up for this bonanza...

This kind of navigating took an expert and I was over my skis so to speak. Ha!

My vibe was somewhere between this

and this...

We have an onboard electronic system that lets us "click" on any boat when it appears on the radar, see their name, hailing port, their destination as well as their size.

When I see 800' of boat and the word "TANKER", I steer clear & have to take us off auto pilot until it passes...then I secretly breathe a sigh of relief.

After my shift, off to sleep I went & we awoke to a gorgeous day...

We pulled into Edgartown Harbor on Martha's Vineyard. Martha's Vineyard is an island south of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. It includes the smaller Chappaquiddick Island, which is usually connected to the larger island, however storms and hurricanes have been known to separate the two.

Otherwise simply known as "the Vineyard", it's 100 square miles and the 58th largest island in the U.S. It's primarily a summer vacation spot, and accessible only by sea and air.

Luckily, there were no Obama on "vacay" sightings to report.

He's such a spazz & one I really don't care to see. I've heard musings that Martha's Vineyard is for the Democrats, and Nantucket is for the Republicans. Too funny!

There were many BIG boats already anchored out.

We were anchored out on the Vineyard and used our tender to shuttle us back & forth to town.

It worked out great and we were happy as could be.

We accessed the town dock via our tender...

Bish took it out for a spin after he dropped us off in town...He's the best!

And I was busy bothering the local fisherman... albeit asking too many questions
about what they were catching.

The center of town was incredibly charming.

There was a wonderful homage to the men of Edgartown who had served our country in WWII.

Could these bikes be any cuter?

Brad & Kevin took in the sights as we navigated ahead.

Little details were everywhere & summer blooms were out.

How awesome is this beach club on the waterfront?!

Reminds me of the European ones and their charming changing rooms for the bathing beauties.

The town was so charming, and all dolled up for the summer season.

Bicycles were the transportation preference in & around town.

Gael and I went shopping and came upon this men's choir apparently decked out in their J Crew best...busting out their tunes right in town.
They were promoting their evening performance. So hometown and cute!

Gael was feeling a kinship with her British roots below...amen sister!

And this nugget of wowza. Who knew rattan could be so stylish?

A little shoreline view...

Lighthouses abound on the eastern seaboard.

We ventured out into the harbor to cruise the bay. It was a bit chilly however, and we bundled up! Kevin was prepped with his down jacket & ready for fun.

Brad however was toasty & had no need to bundle.

That night we ventured across the island to this charming
18th century Inn & Farmhouse out in West Tisbury.

It was about a 20 minute cab ride which was a country adventure. The Inn was filled with period antiques and you felt like you were in someone's private home.