Our four-legged family member is an absolute champ. The morning after the attack (Saturday)we got a call from the Vet that Millie was eating and that her wounds had already made significant progress. No sutures for any of them - they would be able to heal open to the air. There were no signs of infections, no oozing, and no temperature. She does have a slight limp but also no nerve damage. The dock manager for The Great Kills Yacht Club allowed us to use his car to pick up Millie on Saturday afternoon. After lots of training from the vet tech, we brought her back to the boat.
Staying an extra night at Great Kills didn't throw off our schedule too much as we had a two-night stay at Half Moon Bay that we shortened to one night.
We made arrangements with another Looper to take pictures of each other's boats in front of the Statue of Liberty - kind of a Looper tradition.
On Sunday morning we started to head up the Hudson where we officially started our Loop. When we return here in about a year we will "cross our wake" which is Looper's talk for finishing the Loop.
So we've had a little bit of bad luck. "Bad luck" may be a bit generous. Actually, some of it was just plain bad boating. I don't actually think we're bad boaters, but there is a rhythm to boating that involves checking the weather in a very detailed manner, checking tides, and doing lots of planning - refueling, pumpouts, freshwater, groceries, laundry - you get the picture. At the beginning of the trip, we weren't in our stride - our rhythm. So I told you about the bad start of getting away from Jamestown where we ran into six-foot rollers off of Castle Hill - bad rhythm - we checked the weather and checked the tides but we were much more interested in getting started than in pausing to marry the two up to realize that max ebb was probably not the best time to leave.
Then there was the little issue that we encountered when we were heading down the Niantic River. I've been too upset about this to share it in the blog - but we got out of the channel and had what is known in the business as a soft grounding. Roger rounded a marker - headed to the next but wandered out of the channel. We got ourselves off, but it wasn't without a little stress - no bad words - just a little stress. Ok - now I've said it - we're done, but that was bad thing #2 to which Chrisy said ok - look out - "bad things happen in threes." Then Millie had her little run-in with a pit bull. Great! We're done!
Another possible explanation - other than the rhythm explanation - is the fact that we didn't have any Dinty Moore stew on board. It's kind of family lore that a cruiser should have a couple of cans of Dinty Moore stew on board - sort of an emergency ration - that the well-seasoned crew would have on board. The cruising gods look favorably on those who carry Dinty Moore on board. Well, you guessed it, we didn't have any Dinty Moore on board when we started. Why would we have emergency rations when we are almost always within walking distance of a market? When we picked up Millie we stopped to grab a few groceries AND some Dinty Moore - Chrisy threw in the Spam just for good measure. I'm afraid that I might offend the cruising gods if I share Chrisy's opinion of Dinty Moore Stew.
We have settled in at the Halfmoon Bay Marina in Croton on the Hudson for the night and are eagerly awaiting Courtney's arrival tomorrow who will be cruising with us for the next 2 days! Best medicine ever for Millie - and for us!
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