On Hurricane Watch

Saturday morning was a stunning day and Long Island Sound was sprinkled with yachts gliding along in light airs, it felt a bit odd to be running for cover in these conditions. The news on Hurricane Jose was better, however there was still a chance it could venture into the area in the middle of the following week and even if it didn't it was going to be pretty windy and rainy for a few days plus the swell would have made a lot of places uncomfortable, so to the marina we went. It's surprisingly shallow on the Connecticut side of Long Island Sound so we waited for a rising tide and made our way into the river and through the Hurricane barrier at Stamford to our snug berth, alongside OCC boat Dawn Piper.

Jokers at Flinders Lane - Andrew with Chef Brad

Pinot Noir Heaven

Reminders of home

Super excited to be in town we immediately set about booking a restaurant and couldn't believe it when we found an Australian Restaurant, called Flinders Lane - styled very much on Chin Chin in Melbourne..... we had a great night and the food and wine made me quite homesick. Brad the chef shouted us an entree of sausage rolls that were worthy to place high on the Zofia sausage-roll-table-of-fame.

Arriving at Grand Central Station was pretty cool

Next morning despite being a bit cloudy we jumped on the train to New York to meet Fi and Steve who were flying to the UK that night, but we couldn't miss the chance to spend a day with them. We had such fun - Empire State Building, Mexico Day Parade, lunch in roof top bar, walking the highline  and just taking in the sites. Andrew and I ended the day at Rockefeller Plaza where we always used to meet up for lunch when he was in the City working - memory lane....

Cloudy Day from Empire State

Empire State with Fi and Steve

Empire State

Roof top lunch in NYC

Mexico Day Parade photo bombed

Mexico Day

Mexico Day

Fi in the parade

The High Line Walk

Bubbles at Rockefeller Plaza

Rockefeller Plaza

We really enjoyed our time in Stamford, its a really young town with great food. We were taken in by the lovely Heather and Charles from Dawn Piper, who had an apartment overlooking the marina. Charles and Andrew prepared both yachts for the risk of bad weather and as they were going to be away we had the keys to their apartment and boat. They took us out to meet their sailing buddies from the CCA and OCC - we had a great night and Scott & Kitty's house with Bill and Sue plus John and Joan who we met briefly in Maine last month.

Lots of lines  and canvas down- Askari safe for the storm

Us with Charles, Heather, Scott and Kitty - the OCC photo 

The weather passed us by and the Army did close the barrier one night to protect the city from flooding at high tide but we were safe as anything. We provisioned, got hair cuts, had one last great dinner at a fabulous Italian, fitted about the 6th new fresh water pump and then headed off to New York City with Askari this time, to make it to our next safe spot before Hurricane Maria turns north.

The storm, Jose, stayed offshore but was pretty big

Andrew can now replace a water pump in about 10 minutes!

Going back through the hurricane barrier