First priority upgrade for us was Auto Pilot. A boat that we plan to cruise in … which only goes 10 mph requires Auto Pilot! Its almost like having a third crew member aboard, saves fuel and time, as a computer can steer way more accurately over long distances than a human.

Today was my very first experience using Auto Pilot. At first, I was not impressed. “It must need calibration or tweaking.” But, then after I read the manual, it started to work. I wasn’t doing anything different. But remarkably, the thing started working much better.

There are two of these control units, one at the lower helm (shown here), and another at the upper helm.

I’m looking for an orientation and sea trial with SeaCurity Systems of Lindenhurst NY who did the install for us in a timely manner this past week.

Donna and Shelly were patient with me this morning while I was “playing” with this navigational aid for the first time.

Donna with a surprised Shelly!

The Elbaums and the Romanos scored two surprise birthday gifts today for the birthday girl, PLUS cousin Donna Lambert (from Salem MA) showed up for a two-day outing aboard MV Shellerina! Shelly likes being surprised, and today we all scored for her.

Then! Nick and Desiree came through with their surprise too!

All the dock lights are on and working, no wind, beautiful night!

S-Dock is a very protected spot to ride out storms like this one.

I doubled each line and put out some extra fenders this evening after work. It was sunny and clear… but not for long. Two hours later we now hear wind, and thunder overhead, 9:30pm.

I’m also glad to see signs of headway by the professional Auto-Pilot installation crew today.

Same hour moonrise and sunset.

Just got off a great call with Russ, my bro from Edgecomb Maine. So many boat things and life things going on!

Cellphone pic of Shelly after a productive day getting lots of projects done!

We had a great evening and sunset cruise with Nick and girlfriend, Desiree.

We even dropped the hook in Cedar Beach Cove and went for a swim!

The champagne for this event was provided by Rick and Jane Hergt, the previous owners. We really regret that we did not get any pictures of them when they were visiting us Saturday July 18 as we prepared for our first voyage aboard their former boat! We wish them many days of happy cruising aboard their beautiful ‘new’ Grand Banks trawler!

This boat affords Shelly the ability to walk the whole perimeter of the boat. Here she has gone forward to clean the anchor rode as it comes up out of the mud and sand.

The electronics are very cool!

On my iPhone, I can even view/monitor what is showing up on the chart plotter at any given time while I am away from it at the lower helm or wherever. Amazing!

This shows my iPhone displaying what is currently on screen upstairs on the upper bridge. “Two helms, one chart plotter, no problem!”

New stainless steel boarding handle enables Shelly to come and go without assistance!

Shelly and I took a “get organized” day today. Starting to get things set up the way we want.

After dinner, we went upstairs to have a cocktail on the flybridge while the sun set.

Very cool perspective on the world! Back to work in the morning! 8:00 ET call with the UK. I’m going back to the apartment during the business day.

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Maiden voyage today 6:00am.

Steve has his coffee! And there is no fog!

Just arrived at the dock!

Mike was finishing up his fiberglass work when we arrived. Lower helm seen above.

Upper helm seen below.

View of the bow from the upper helm / fly bridge.

Master stateroom below.

Huge thanks to dock mate Steve Ramano for these pics and for accompanying us on this maiden voyage of 150 miles home to the South Shore of Long Island, a two day trip. Tomorrow we make Greenport NY on the North Fork of eastern Long Island.

Supper time!

Shelly and Steve at dinner … take out from nearby McKinley’s Irish Pub.

We plan to push off at 6:00am.

Perfect timing to coordinate the sale of our Chaparral the day after closing on the Mainship 390!

They say the two happiest days of a person’s life is the day one buys a boat, and when one sells a boat!

So these two days are pretty special for us!

Congratulations to Tony DeLuka, new owner of the Chaparral Signature 27!

Took the boat name and hailing port off the transom this evening. The boat is all ready for its new owner!

Spring 2012 was our first season aboard this boat. So 2020 is our 9th season.

Two boat transfers of ownership are likely in the next 48 hours.

Next log entry will likely be with new owner aboard. Then its off to E. Greewich RI to bring the next Shellerina home to her new landing.

We are anchored in position to watch to the North all along the south shore of Long Island for private and municipal fireworks displays. Plenty of social distance out here on the anchor!

It isn’t dark yet.

It isn’t 9:00pm yet.

Yet hundreds or thousands of people are launching their loads of fireworks this evening. Lots of pent up need to celebrate things, I think. Happy Birthday America!

I wish I could capture what we are seeing from this vantage point. 7.5 M people on Long Island needing to vent on the 4th of July!

160 degrees of panoramic fireworks! Going for over an hour.

Can’t wait any longer for supper! We brought the stove up in the cockpit so Shelly would not miss any of the fireworks!

It is impossible to capture the wide panoramic display of fireworks that we’ve been seeing for the past couple hours. This vid does not even come close!

Of course, it got better after dark, but the camera becomes less capable to capture what we are seeing tonight.

10:30pm. Fireworks are still going strong on Great South Bay. Remarkable.

Almost two weeks after her successful cataract surgery, Shelly now sports some new sunglasses.

I never knew that the replacement lens that they implant in the eye for this procedure is prescription, so corrective lenses are no longer needed for driving etc.

So, these are non-prescription glasses except for “reading”. She loves them and they look great. Also, they are “Clic”s. Meaning a magnetic bridge can be separated for taking them off temporarily, and a cord going in back around the neck keeps them secured. Perfect for boating.

It all started with breakfast!

Then, as we headed out the Lindenhurst Cut we saw a Mainship 390… very similar to ours. POThe swim platform on this one is not typical; it’s shorter. An interesting change from the original design. They docked at Cedar Beach Marina… so we may go ashore to meet them.

Then we both jumped in for a while; the water was a very nice 72F.

AND

The Summer Solstice just occurred a few minutes ago at 5:44pm ET. Longest day of the year.

More papers e-signed on the purchase of the Mainship this hour. The Internet service was not adequate out at CB Cove this afternoon. So we came back to S-Dock to sign… now heading back to anchor for the night.

Anchored back at Cedar for what might be out last overnight aboard this Shellerina. In a few days, maybe next weekend this boat will be transferred to Kim and Josh. So, we are getting our last licks in!

I have started working on an equipment list for them so they know what not to buy.

As the sun goes down, Shelly radiates with her inner beauty!

It is going to be a magical evening and morning here on the hook, our favorite place to sleep and wake!

Note that she does not need corrective lenses since her cataract surgery on Monday this past week! She uses ‘readers’ sometimes; but she is in great shape now, five days after cataract surgery. For those of you who don’t know, the man-made replacement lens that they put in with this procedure is a corrective lens, improving one’s sight in more than one way!

Pizza on the Magma Grill/Oven on the Starboard quarter.

Done to perfection!

Nice crunchy crust, great cheese and tomato sauce up top.

Meet Kim and Josh from Riverhead. We have accepted their deposit and offer to purchase our Chaparral… contingent upon our successful close on the Mainship 390 in RI.

The east-west inside channel through Moriches, south shore of Long Island, was not navigable for several seasons due to shoaling. This made us have to go outside for a 47 mile trip from Fire Island Inlet to Shinnecock Inlet, which means needing to have ideal weather conditions for our small 27 footer.

Last year during Labor Day weekend at Riverhead, we learned from locals that dredging had opened up the E-W channel through Moriches! So that made our return trip a lot more relaxing.

Today, I have it on good authority that Moriches has NOT shoaled back up, and it is safe and open to make that passage on the inside.

I am posting this in hopes that people searching for safety information about Moriches will know they can plan trips through that area this season!

There has NOT been a lot of good information about this on-line. This is one guy trying to change that!

Be safe afloat!

Nick lives with Desiree and her parents in Seaford; their home is on a canal (which is a challenging place to get to by boat) the canal’s name is “Sunrise Lagoon.”

We loved the hospitality, food, and birthday ice cream cake. Thank you so much! Because of the pandemic, months have passed with us not meeting Kirk and Nancy, Dez’s parents, until TODAY. The setting was perfect, as we could stay on the boat, and tie up to their seawall/dock which is right in their back yard. It was a perfect day for it.

Safely anchored during some big T-Boomers! Fun to watch from a safe anchored spot. Trying to make our way to Seaford to see Nick and Desiree, and finally meet her parents!

“Scattered Thundershowers” means: Perfect day unless you are lined up with one of these T-Storms peppered across the map! Fortunately, they are fast moving almost all the time. So, find a safe anchorage, and wait a while, then back to sail plan when things stabilize.

We don’t mind it one bit!!! It is all about being close to the elements. We love it actually.

Here we are loving the setting sun and some fillet mignon, asparagus, shrooms.

Shelly and I took the Orient Point-New London ferry across to CT and RI today for a second look at this baby:

I love to see women at the helm of a boat! She’s my Admiral!

Prior to seeing this boat, we shared a great fish taco dish for lunch at McKinley’s Irish Pub next to the dock. It was, like, day 1 or day 2 that they were re-opened after the Covid-19 lockdown. We hope we are safe to have gone outside of our self-quarantine on this RI trip. But, we need to get on with our life’s dreams.

Ray got a haircut this morning! First time in over two months!!!

No, barber shops are not open yet in NYS due to Covid-19, but the governor told him who has been secretly trimming his hair! That’s who Ray went to.

Anchored at our usual place for the afternoon.

Tonight we got to see the ISS, International Space Station, with the naked eye again. There are great apps that help you determine when the best viewing times will be. There is another visible pass tomorrow evening when the new SpaceX capsule should be linked up.

Nights are fun aboard Shellerina, either at S-Dock or on-the-hook. I like on the hook, but having shore power for heat and microwave is handy, must admit.

68F water was not bad after a minute or so!

In this video you can see how the wind was out of the NW when we left. But, it started shifting to west and it will continue to shift until it is SW around sunset. The changing color gradient indicates wind speed (mph) on the color scale at the bottom.

The Predict Wind app is amazing!

Skies have cleared up nicely here on the south shore of Long Island.

After watching the paint dry on our anchor rode we decided to go try it out. CB Cove as usual. We are back all secured at S-Dock 6:30 pm. Planning to stay aboard for the night.

So exciting to wait for paint to dry! It is time for our annual anchor chain marking paint to be re-applied. Each end of our 75 feet of chain is painted, as well as a 1 foot marker at 25 feet, and two foot long markers at 50 feet spaced a foot apart. “We always know exactly how much chain is out.” Behind the chain is 150feet of half inch nylon. The anchor is a 26 pound Ultra Anchor… stainless steel with lead inside the casting. We love it… and this whole system gets used a LOT!

I got up early enough to beat the sunrise this morn!

100% clear sky and light wind points to a probable great boating day today.

Awoke at slip Saturday to fog and rain… just hung out here as long as we could before leaks in the biminis forced us to head home for the rest of the afternoon.

Thirteen boats are tied up here now, the most we’ve seen in a few years. Matt and Diana are back in their Chaparral 28 + center console. Their dog needed some extra persuading before daring to jump across the gap between the dock and their swim platform. Restauranteur Anthony is promising to show up with FOOD on Memorial Day so we will all have to figure out how to socialize with Covid19 distancing rules still being the smart way to assemble.

This was the set up Friday, enabling Ray to check in with his co-workers at Microdesk for their weekly Virtual Happy Hour.

The laptop has a webcam camera built into the bottom of its bezel; this was the resulting “background” for his resulting broadcast!

So called “Virtual” Happy Hours have become common since the Covid19 Pandemic has prevented friends and coworkers from gathering at bars and restaurants.

Needless to say, our ability to self quarantine both at home AND here on the boat has given us an unfair advantage on our mental health. <grin>

There is some good news this week:

Today I finally figured out what the big construction project is that is happening very close to our favorite anchoring spot!

For a year or two there has been a sizable construction project going on just west near Cedar Beach cove.

It is part of a new 2.6 mile wastewater outfall tunnel / pipeline which will bring treated effluent (water clean enough to reintroduce into the environment) out into the Atlantic Ocean.

FMI click here. https://www.ohlna.com/projects/tunnels/bergen-point-outfall-replacement/

Herehttps://tunnelingonline.com/ohl-led-jv-awarded-bergen-point-outfall/

And Here

https://tunnelbuilder.com/News/Bergen-Point-WWTP-TBM-ready-to-be-shipped-to-New-York-.aspx

Since I was a young boy when Senator Ed Muskie D-ME got the Clean Water Act passed into law (and the Clean Air Act) I have marveled at how good-for-business the environmental movement has been. Of course it has also been good for public health and quality of life!

It is GREAT to know that this big construction project is a clean water initiative! Makes my day!

Bergin Point WWTP, walking distance from our home.

This nautical chart (NOAA 12326) shows where the Bergen Point WWTP is located, where the construction site is for the new 10ft diameter pipeline-tunnel, and where the outfall is out to sea.

Wind was light out of the north when we left this morning, we anchored in Cedar Beach cove. As predicted by our app, the wind zeroed out at 1:30 pm and did a 180. It was our of the south by 2:30!

Got a few minor projects done, like the ensign and bow pendant as well as the new 22″ wiper blade. Pumped out on the way back.

Shelly spied this Southport center console near us today, manufactured in Maine by a friend, George Menezes. This one had FLIR night vision and computer controlled joystick maneuvering options! Very nice.

We had Shelly’s Lobster Rolls for supper aboard tonight.

Ray coached a couple who are first year boaters… they went out for a bit but turned back due to white caps etc. Good choice. But then they had to figure out how to dock into their slip!

We’ll keep coaching so long as we see them following our tips!!! e.g. #1: PFDs on the kids!!!, also getting a reliable VHF and SeaTow membership, learning how the wind affects their boat, etc. We also donated our waterproof NOAA Chart of Great South Bay to them… and recommended they both bring it out on the boat AND bring it home to study and plan their adventures from the dining room table.

Nice people to welcome to S-Dock. It was good to hear that they have Progressive Insurance whose Sign & Glide towing service *should* be as good as the others like SeaTow and BoatUS. This is our first year with Progressive too; hopefully we don’t need to learn firsthand how good it is!

Yacht Dogs and beans tonight.

Nice and calm.

Looking west the clouds are setting up for our first sunset afloat of this season.

Three different sources show that the tide is supposed to be high right now. But that is not what we are seeing here at S-Dock. Very odd. I’ve never seen anything like this.

Headed out to anchor in Great South Bay … everything is running great so far this year. Back at S-Dock, freshly hatched goslings are being given a tour by closely guarding parents! … off our starboard bow. Nick and gr8 GF Desiree visited yesterday!!! We are SOOoo proud of our son Nick for joining forces as a health care professional to combat COVID-19 on the front lines here in New York state!

Be Healthy all.

Capt Mike Winter delivering Shellerina to her slip on S-Dock this morning.

We are all waxed, bottom painted, and tuned up!

Won’t be long now!

We hopped the 10:00am ferry from Orient Point to New London.

On the way to E Greenwich RI, where the boat was, we stopped at this pizza place made famous by the 1988 movie which spring-boarded Julia Roberts’ career.

The pie here really was the best ‘Za’ we have had in a long time!

http://www.mysticpizza.com

These two pics (above) are from last season… whereas this time of year it is up on “the hard”. So we could inspect things below the waterline.

Looks like lots of love (wax and elbow grease) has gone into this boat over the years. Inside, things were also in good condition; the bilge was clean. Not bad for a 20 year old boat.

There are some concerns to learn more about… but we’ll see!

Huntington Harbor

This pic was taken on our first Christmas here on Long Island, 2015.

Robert Moses Causeway, from a unique viewpoint…

… from Captree Island…

Our boat was secured on the hard for winter the week before Thanksgiving.

Four more months until we launch. The Winter Solstice happens today! So days are getting longer starting tomorrow.