July 23 - Gloucester, MA to Portsmouth, NH (Portsmouth Yacht Club)

A gorgeous day and a wonderful cruise to Portsmouth.  Again, it was so nice i stayed up top on the fly bridge and even read a few chapters in the kindle.  

Let’s see what I’ve been devouring lately in the book department.  

The Lifeboat - Charlotte Rogan

Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie

My Antonia - Willa Cather

IT - Stephen King

I have as good a time researching what to read as I do reading them.  I may have mentioned these before but many came from internet searches -  for ‘the best books ever!’  ‘top 10 books you must read’ or ‘the top 20 books every woman should read’…or friend’s suggestions, like Jamie’s suggestion of the Special Topics in Calamity Physics that i’ve downloaded but not started yet.  And Fonda, I do have Ahab’s Wife on my list.  Drop me a line with your favorite all time book!  

Stephen King’s IT appeared in the bunch, not that it made any of the afore mentioned lists, but because i wanted to shake it up a bit and read something scary.  I read ‘The Stand’ many years ago and remember it being the scariest thing i’ve ever read.  But not this one…did not care much for IT. ha.  I honestly admire his incessant ability to spill out so many ideas and random thoughts but I’ve determined i don’t like this writing style.  i found myself skipping many pages of those random thoughts to get me back to the main trail of the story.  Although it is a good lesson on applying several convergent thoughts on one page…

To get to our marina in Portsmouth, NH we hung a left into the Portsmouth Harbor and into the Piscataqua River.  Harry’s brother-in-law had arranged for us to stay as guests at the Portsmouth Yacht Club, a small, quaint marina.  We would stay here tonight (on a mooring) and then Harry’s sister Nancy and brother in-law Rod would pick us up tomorrow to stay at their house for 5 days.  Their son Jed was in town from Denver with his 4 year old son and girlfriend, Priscilla (she is not 4) - so a family visit was the plan.

Well we found out rather quickly that there is no, ‘No Wake’ speed in the Piscataqua River.  And there was a lot of traffic on this river…lobster boats, ferry boats, tour boats, boats, boats, boats, always moving up and down the river…it was SO rocky on the boat (while moored) that you couldn’t even make a cup of coffee and it would spill if you put it down.  it was like a bad day at sea but without the fear - just hard to move or get around.  But we knew we were not going to be staying on the boat for long because really it was just a place to park the boat while we went in to visit the Van Sciver family (Harry’s sister, Nancy and bro in-law, Rod) at their beautiful home.  

But that first day once we got there we hurried into the town to get on steady ground and grab a bit to eat.  I really love Portsmouth, and this area is known as New Castle.  SO darling and SO old…amazing really.  Founded in 1623 i think the sign said. 

Finally in the Piscataqua River 

After the day’s river traffic slowed, we were able to cook onboard what was left over after cleaning out the fridge.  Harry cooked some mean hotdogs on the grill and i made a mess of beans. 

Cook out view