the big apple is what big dummy calls this town. i don't know why. no room here for apple orchards or anything else cause they have all these really really tall houses jammed up against each other. i think there are giants living in those houses and i guess they must sleep standing up there is one b.d. called lady liberty standing on a rock holding a book and an ice cream cone. she would make a good mouser she stands so perfectly still for a long long time. b.d. says she moved here from france (so they must have giants in france too) and that she invited all those stinky foreigners to move here. if b.d. would sail up closer to her i'd pee on her rock see how she likes that. (note to include in c.a.t. party platform kick out all the french too except uncle pierre who is my friend)

anywho big dummy had a pretty big dummy type day yesterday. he had it all planned out see that we would leave rowayton home of the linkbelt monster which by the way i saw again - that we would leave at two oclock in the morning and would then hit hell gate at just the right time. well big dummy didn't count on being parked in the mud at low tide extreme in rowayton at two oclock and we wasn't goin nowhere brother! it was six thirty before we were afloat and moving. then of course b.d. had planned on another excellent downwind sleigh ride into the city but the wind wasn't any place close to east like it was supposed to be so by the time we got to hell gate it was exactly the wrong time. at first we did ok and even had some good laughs when we saw uncle russ go by on the boat he was delivering but then when we made the turn to go down the east side of manhattan a wall of water made us go nowhere but backwards. that was exciting like whitewater kayaking. when we finally gave up and turned downcurrent we actually hit 9.4 knots for a few seconds! woohoo and hold on cousin but that only lasted a minute before we were headed up the harlem river looking for a place to tie up or anchor since we are too tall to go around the north side of manhattan and come down the hudson. we found a place to anchor right off wards island and when the tide went out we were careened and everything fell down from the starbord side at the rate of about one item every three minutes and chased me all over the boat till i figured out the safest place to sleep was on top of big dummy. crazy night man i tell you.

and you wanna hear another big dummy story? ha! he has been planning all summer on taking a canal from big apple town to trenton new joisey to catch the delaware river there so we can avoid the delaware bay but guess what. there aint no such canal. sometimes he gets his dreams mixed up with real life i think like when he dreams he already put fresh food in my bowl in the morning.

from here big dummy says we are going to follow the ickwu. i don't know what that is but anything that starts with 'ick' sounds like fun to me. uncle russ gave b.d. lots of notes about fun places and nice people along the ickwu. can't wait to meet them and see all that stuff. question do alligators really eat anchor rodes? just curious.

peace and love

kitty

first mate s/v JoHee

later

what a day! now we are in manasquan new joisey after a day of sailing mostly pretty ok but for about forty five minutes pretty hilarious. i’ll tell you about it see we were getting a lot of really strong wind out in ambrose channel and the chop was pretty huge so big dummy was flying only the working jib and the staysail which was like one jib too many but he was having fun so i didn’t say anything then all of a sudden bam! the wind went from turn your fur inside out to blow the whiskers clean off your face and suddenly the JoHee was on her side with the sheet blocks under water. i was screaming like god help us we’re all going to die and diving for the companionway but b.d. was trying to be all cool and stuff and said don’t worry it’s only a gust and she’ll right herself in a sec. only it wasn’t a gust and she didn’t right herself until finally b.d. let fly the jib and furled her in. apparently in the excitement he forgot to cleat the furling line for which consequence you will hear in a moment. after i had been hiding about half an hour i climbed out into the cockpit and said to b.d. how long are you planning to tow the dingy barnacle side up? he looked back and said something bad then spent the next fifteen minutes trying to get the dingy right side up again which he finally did just as a coast guard cutter appeared off our port bow. we were admiring how pretty the cutter was with the traditional white and the racing stripe instead of the new uber military schemes of the homeland security when suddenly zzzziiiiipppp bang! rattle rattle rattle rattle loud enough to make my ears hurt and once again i dove into the saloon and listened to b.d. on the radio saying sorry coast guard cutter i have a jammed headsail and am momentarily out of control then lots of thumping around up on the foredeck and cursing and whatnot until finally the rattling sound gradually went away then b.d. on the radio again saying thank you coast guard cutter for your patience and does this mean i don’t get the recommendation for crewing on the eagle? that is the coast guard academy’s training ship for those who don’t know their tall ships.

well with that three stage fiasco behind us we had a lovely day of sailing with only the staysail and now we’re in the ickwu so lots of motoring ahead and good thing b.d. did an oil change and changed all the filters and stuff before we left newport cause we’re gonna put a bunch of miles on the iron genny for the next few weeks.

peace and love

kitty

first mate s/v JoHee