December 19-23, 2017
Wrightsville Beach ended up being a four day stopover. We hadn’t been off the boat in about ten days so it was well overdue; plus we needed to do some prepping for the following week. On the 19th we needed to take Exit eleven miles south to Carolina Beach where we could secure her on a mooring ball in a very protected area.
We hadn’t spent a single night off of Exit since we moved aboard her on July 5th, just over five months ago. Now, the plan was to leave her tied secure to the mooring ball and set off in a rental car with James and Dena on a four day road trip to New York City.
We had longed to sail there… sailing under the Brooklyn Bridge and anchoring next to the Statue of Liberty seemed like an incredible experience. However, it just wasn’t in the cards for this year. So a road trip with James and Dena, who had lived in NYC, seemed like a great alternative option.
The only thing was, we weren’t sure what seemed more daunting and intimidating – leaving Exit unattended for four days or the thought of trying to drive our share of East Coast miles in a rental car. Driving was something we had almost completely foregone over the past decade; ironically, it now seemed more stressful than navigating a forty two thousand pound boat!
Despite any trepidations, we made it to the Big Apple unscathed.
The primary purpose of the road trip was to attend Dena’s reading of a book she had just finished. Quite a major event for any author; though she has published many books and is already a veteran of many previous readings.
The fact that the reading was taking place in a lesbian bar called “KGB” only added to the unique ambience of the whole situation (we were already leaving our sailboat we had purchased only five months ago tied to a mooring ball to go on a road trip to NYC with good friends we had only met in August).
Once we settled in our Air B&B accommodations, much larger and more comfortable than any hotel that would have cost far more, Dena and James were stars taking us to all the places James reported “he had spent years, while living there, trying to avoid!”
Having lived in New York and being very familiar with getting around, they made things extremely easy.
It would have been amazing to sail into NYC. I can’t imagine a more iconic and representative scene reflecting our current situation than us aboard Exit, at anchor, next to the Statue of Liberty.
But, then again, walking along the frigid streets of pre-Christmas Manhattan, drinking Kraken rum from a bottle in a brown paper bag is certainly an iconic scene as well… perhaps just a bit more Brooklyn in its’ accent.
sv-exit.com 