OK.....All Decisions are Final

The decision was made last month to winter the Lucky Find III in Stony Point, NY at Patsy's Bay Marina.
Check out their website, as it is a real nice, affordable marina specializing in winter storage. I did not want to say anything earlier because the manager of the Tarrytown Marina is also a part-owner of Charles Point Marina, which is where we told them we would winter the Lucky Find III.

Our plans, and they are final, are to return to Tarrytown this Wednesday, stay aboard the Lucky Find III until the following Tuesday or Wednesday and then bring the boat over to Patsy's Bay. Our in-water storage is paid through the 15th of October at the Tarrytown Boat Club and Marina, but the manager of Patsy's Bay said we could stay there, in the water, until haul-out season begins in Mid-October at no charge. I guess boating south of Albany automatically adds a month or two to the season. Being back homne this past week, I stopped at Oak Park Resort Marina, and they are already hauling out, winterizing ands shrink-wrapping boats.

Also, we have made plans and bought tickets to attend Progressive Insurance's  Norwalk Boat Show.
The show begins on Thursday the 20th and runs through Sunday the 23rd of September. It bills itself as the "Premeir Boat Show of Northeast", and we will see just how true that is by next Saturday.

I would have liked to return a day or two earlier, but work is work, and I have funerals scheduled for this coming Monday and Tuesday.

And Back Home Again for a While

Let me sum it all up by saying that this has definitely been a summer to remember. On Monday we came back to Clyde and found everything in order. A special thanks goes out to Ms. Andrea Steele for keeping the house in order for us.

We forewent the Forrogasto Festival on Sunday. My friend Karen called and said that her sister had invited her and Gary to dinner in Rockland County.

So, we had taken a ride out to City Island instead. There was an arts and crafts festival going on with plenty of arts, crafts and my favorite......food!!

But after eating like pigs and feeling stuffed we stumbled upon a clambake. It was being held at the Leonard Hawkins American Legion Post 3253 in City Island. After a bit of persuading (Dropping a white lie or two) we were in. For $15.00 per person we ate, and drank....all we wanted. The reason it was so inexpensive was that the party was scheduled for 1-7 PM for $50.00 a ticket. But we did not get there until 4:00PM. so they discounted the entry fee. Raw clams, steamed clams, mussels cooked 4 different ways, hamburgers, hot dogs, liver w/bacon, corn on the cob and numerous salads were on the menu, and they served you as fast as you could eat it. Of course there was an OPEN bar also, but being that Dottie and I don't really drink we had homemade fresh brewed iced tea. They had a live band and they were fantastic.
Anyway, I want to thank all of their members for making us feel right at home!!

After the clambake, we continued walking down City island Ave, but it was dark by 7:30PM, so we found our car, and headed back to the marina in Tarrytown....with overly full bellies of clams and mussels.

Back to Tarrytown...AGAIN!!

The 4.5 hour ride from Clyde to Tarrytown was uneventful and easy-going. There is no such thing as traffic in upstate NY and I did not hit any real traffic the whole way down. I left Clyde at 7:30 AM and arrived back to the marina at 12 Noon. Dottie and I had a nice lunch at the El Dorado in Tarrytown, and then it hit....a storm from the south with as much rain, wind and power as we had never seen.....5 minutes later it was over and the sun was out.
Due to the storm, a scheduled "Chili Cook-Off" at the marina was cancelled, and re-scheduled for the following day.
At 5:30 PM, Karen Berlingo and her SO, Gary, showed up bearing gifts of wine and wine glasses. After a few cocktails aboard the Lucky Find III we headed out to dinner at the Red Hat Restaurant and Bistro.
Dinner was good and company we had, even better. The Red Hat Restaurant is a nice place for dinner, but truthfully, nothing spectacular. It tries it's hand at a French-Italian menu, but at a cost of about $100.00 per person ($375.27 including tax and tip), it could have been a lot nicer and the food could have been a bit more traditional for restaurants in that price range. I had the Mussells and Dottie, Karen and Gary all had Osso Buco. We had a great time, but I was really disappointed in the restaurant. Oh well, we live and learn! I'll rate the food as OK.
Karen and I had dinner about 5 or 6 years ago at a place called Harvest on the Hudson, in Hastings-on-the-Hudson, NY and Harvest ran circles around Red Hat in it's quality and service.

Later on today we are heading to Arthur Ave. in the Bronx for the Ferragosto Festival and plenty of really good and authentic Italian food. Karen and Gary will join us there.

Thursday, September 13 through Sunday September 23rd is the 11 day Italian Festival on Mulberry Street in Manhattan. It is well known as the Feast of San Gennaro.....and I plan on being there......LOL

Again, The Best Laid Plans.......

Wednesday afternoon I had to return to Clyde on business, so instead of both Dottie and I going back on Saturday, I went solo.
On the way home, an old friend of mine called to say she received my e-mail invitation to come to dinner with us while we stayed in Tarrytown. My plans now are;
to return to Tarrytown on Saturday, go to dinner Saturday night at a restaurant called Red Hat on the River in Irvington, NY (well recommended by others) with Karen Berlingo and her date, and then on Sunday go to Arthur Ave. in the Bronx for the  Ferragosto Festival   (End of the Harvest Celebration)....more to come on Sunday.

On to Connecticut and a Great Dinner

What a fantastic day we had on Tuesday. We left Tarrytown at 9AM and drove to Connecticut, which has some beautiful marinas along Long Island Sound. We also stopped at Bryam PArk in Bryam CT, a place Dottie and I had been to many times as kids to sleigh ride. It was really more of a day of memories, than anything else. But first marinas....and there are hundreds of them in CT.
Here are a few pictures:

The Del Mar Marina in Greenwhich CT caters mostly to Super or Mega yachts. Pictured is a 181' Benetti Yacht




A Westport 112, my favorite and most sought after yacht





 .

Cost....$22M new... this one happens to be for sale, at a mere $12M.

From Greenwich, we drove a few minutes north to the Stamford Landing Marina where we had a terrific lunch at the Crab Shell Restaurant. I had the Crab Shells Lunch and Dottie had a salad. Stamford is noted for both it's boats and cars, like the yellow Ferari pictured below.

In fact, Route 1 between Greenwich and Stamford boasts a Rolls Royce dealer, a Ferrari, Maserti, Bugati, McLaren,and Bentley dealerships along with numerous Lexus', Mercedes, and whatever else type of luxury car "you can think of" dealerships.

Of course a yellow Ferrari complements either of the two yachts pictured above.

After lunch we drove south on US 1 to Rye, NY, Mamaroneck, Larchmont and New Rochelle. I stopped at my high school Alma Mater in New Rochelle, Salesian High, just to reminise a bit with Dottie. Nothing much changed at the school as it looked exactly the same as it did when I attended in the late 60's.

From New Rochelle, it is a 10 mile ride along Shore Road to the Bronx, and on to the Parisi household, where we picked up Jimmy and Helene and went to dinner at a small, quaint neighborhood restaurant called Rino's Ristorante. These are the type of places I miss the most of living in upstate, NY. The food and service is nothing short of excellent.

Dottie and Helene both had the Osso Bucco, and Jimmy and I had Veal Sorrentino. Many thanks to Gaspare and his staff, especially Arturo.

We were back in Tarrytown and on the Lucky Find III by 10:30PM, all in all a great day.

P.S. I lost my cell phone, somewhere between CT and "Da Bronx", however, I dialed my number from Dotties phone and a Latina woman answered, explained she had just found it outside the Dunkin Donuts in New Rochelle, and I could meet her at a place called Chat 19 in Larchmont, NY. at 9PM.....I did, she did and the rest is history.

Thank you very much for returning my phone.

Labor Day Weekend

What a quiet weekend it was here in Tarrytown. Everyone that we met here told us that this past weekend was the quietest it has been in years. They blame it on the economy....oh well , so is life.
Even the guy working the fuel dock brought in some extra help, and they sat around all day pumping fuel in only a handful of boats. Monday morning there were a total of 6 cars in the marina parking lot.....it kind of reminded me of Oak Park Resort Marina.... LOL



My father, who passed in 1968 at the age of 50, is entombed in an underground vault in  St. Raymond's Cemetery, in the Bronx
(Click on the picture for a larger image)

 On Saturday, we drove to the Bronx, stopped at St. Raymonds Cemetery to check on my dad's grave, and then on to visiting some of Dottie's family at Askov Hall in the old neighborhood of Throgs Neck. Sunday and Monday was spent driving around the Hudson Valley looking at different marinas in which to keep our boat. It is still up in the air.
We hit upon some very nice marinas in this area, so now it really just becomes a matter of cost.

We made plans to drive to Connecticut to see a few more marinas then meet our friends, the Parisis' for dinner on Tuesday, and we will be returning to Clyde on Thursday.

Once in a Blue Moon

We drove back to Tarrytown yesterday to spend another week on the Lucky Find III.
We left our home in Clyde at 10:00AM and arrived here at about 02:15PM, after a stop for lunch in Schnectedy and a rest stop in Poughkeepsie. Traffic was a bear with Labor Day coming up and the constant construction on the Thruway between exits 13 and 10. We exited the NYS Thruway at exit #14 and took Route 59 southeast to the Tappan Zee Bridge. We had avoided all the traffic that way.

Anyway, we are here and last night was the second full moon of August. That is better known as a blue moon, and the expression "Once in A Blue Moon"stems from this fact. The next time this will happen will be 4 years away.

What is really coincidential about this Blue Moon night is the fact that Captain Neil Armstrong's Memorial Service took place yesterday in Cincinnati, Ohio. Captain Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon.

The Blue Moon shown brightly at 5:30am on Saturday