Robin got a rousing Chesapeake summer welcome last night, a real wing-ding of a party, but she’s fine the morning after, no worse for the wear. (Read More…)

Robin’s anchor was set at 7:15 last night in the anchorage near the Cape May Coast Guard station, eight weeks to the hour from when she had cleared the Cape May sea buoy on her way to Newport, Bermuda and Maine. Sometime tomorrow, the journey should come full circle. (Read More…)

Yesterday was, in the end, an easy day at sea, except for that fog coming out of New York Harbor. The sea was calm, the sun hot, the breeze cool, the current opposing but not too much. Along the northern New Jersey shore there were a lot of small boats filled with men fishing, enough to warm the midweek heart of a boating writer. I zigged and zagged around them, primarily by punching buttons on the autopilot. (Read More…)

Hell Gate was sweet. Really sweet. She was on time. I was on time. It was beautiful, although I must admit I got nervous at the last minute. (Read More…)

It is precisely 6 a.m. The sun is off Robin’s stern, about one finger above the northern approach ramp of the Throgs Neck Bridge in New York City. It is rising round and orange in an otherwise clear sky. To port, a jet engine roars for takeoff at La Guardia Airport. Ahead four miles is Hell Gate, the notorious confluence of the East River, Harlem River and Long Island Sound. The tales of her treachery are legendary, to borrow a cliché. (Read More…)

Today is a pretty good harmonica day. Robin is motoring at 2,200 rpm and is being steered by the autopilot into a 2- to 3-foot chop. The waves are close together. The deeper ones raise Robin’s bow sharply, which then falls into the following trough. The next wave comes along quickly and the bow slams into it. (Read More…)

You have to love small craft warnings. They give you some pretty good sailing. As we motorsailed down Long Island Sound this morning, we saw at least as many sailboats as we did ferries, and there were enough ferries to relieve rush hour traffic in Los Angeles. (Read More…)

The Maine Course is now officially a delivery. On Saturday, we made it through Woods Hole against the current. This turned out not to be the terrorizing experience one often is led to expect. The current was strong — well more than 3 knots in places — but Robin handled it easily, avoiding being swept onto the nearby rocks. (Read More…)

Robin is sailing on a broad reach across Buzzards Bay for Woods Hole, a passage that takes you to Vineyard Sound and Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. It is 7:15 a.m. on Saturday, and I have an interview in Edgartown when we arrive, sometime after 10 o’clock. (Read More…)

Our last night in Maine was a bit weird. It was the setting, the atmosphere. As John said, it was a bit like an Alfred Hitchcock film. (Read More…)