The same Cape Cod trip day (see below) eventually landed us in TD Garden, Boston. Also known as the home of the Celtics and the Bruins. Once again we somehow managed to find our way into the corporate box.
This finally rounded out the Big 4 for me, that being Ice Hockey, Baseball, American Football and Basketball. One startling fact however is of the 4 games I went to, only one home team (the one I was supporting) won on the day.
The New York Rangers (always strong) lost the ice hockey to Tampa Bay on my first trip four years ago.
Boston Red Sox beat Atlanta this year (which is funny as it was the Sox worst season in a long time).
Patriots (the most dominant team of the last 10 years) lost to the Cardinals.
And on this night, the Celtics (made the Eastern Conference final last year) lost to the Bucks.
Luckily for the home team, I don't think I will be back for a little while!
Ears: Tycho
Our Box was one of those ones with its own toilet and fridge and stuff.
Fall has pretty much fled this year in most of New England, and with that so have the tourists and holiday makers. The bay that is directly in front of the boat in Newport is now empty, an area that 2 months ago had upwards of 150 boats. Restaurants are now shutting up shop, and the once common tourist stand now appears to have gone the same way as the Dodo.
Cold is one way of describing here now, not in a measure of temperature, but more in the way you see a photo of a townscape in one of those random Russian States in the 80's. Almost desolate, vacant and with a heap of people crowding around a bin that they lit on fire.
Hurricane Sandy a few weeks ago got a lot of attention, yes it was 80knots for us, and a little sketchy at times too. But as it was a system born in the tropics and fuelled by the Gulf Stream, it did bring quite warm (15c instead of 5c) and humid conditions. Plus the 80knots only lasted 3 or 4 hours, and it was 60 knots for another 6 hours. All up it was back to normal programming by sun up.
Winter Storm Athena on the other hand came our way a week later, it being a nor'easter, brought snow to New York and much of the North East, a system that is fed by a land mass that got its name changed to make it sound not so cold (Greenland) is never a pleasant system to have around. We ended up having almost 3 days straight of 60knot winds, at a temperature that was often below 0c and never above 5c (that's before wind chill too!). For us on the boat it was a pretty rough little period, the stairs on the dock went in the water, we spent hours on the dock in the rain and ice fixing a power cable (on a dock that was literally falling apart, accessed to by climbing our dock lines), and the rest of the time making sure we weren't going to float away!
We had snow flurries falling at one stage, this is apparently snow that is not snowy enough to stay snow when it lands on the ground, instead it decides to turn into really miserable chilled water.
Enough of that, here is a trip we did in between storms to Cape Cod. Henry Thoreau (whoever that is?) once said about Cape Cod "A man may stand there and put all of America behind him".
With this weather in mind, I think I might go back there soon!
Ears: Vampire Weekend with Cape Cod Kwasa Kwassa
Provincetown
As you can see here, these things help you hover!
Race Point
The beach at Race Point
The last bit of colour in the whole of New England, on the very tip of Cape Cod.
We bought some bikes when we first got to the States in May, they cost about the same as a good lobster feed from, only with an aftertaste of cheapness due to the fact we got them from Walmart. It's all good though because when they aren't being used they live in our shipping container, squeezed in between some sails and boat bits. When we do use them (which has been about 10 times in 5 months, they either live on the dock, or at a bike rack which is more packed than an Indian train carriage.
We decided to take them for a ride a few weeks back, to do the Ocean Drive, this route reminds me a lot of Europe, from the farms of Ireland to the chateaus of the Loire Valley and the coastline of somewhere else which I haven't quite figured.........
Here is a video I made of the Hurricane that paid us a visit last week. We knew this thing was coming, and there were plans to get away from it by going back up north to Maine, however our engine was right in the middle of being serviced (half of it wasn't even on the boat)! By the time it was back together it was too late to leave, so we took our medicine and strapped ourselves in.
Top wind speed that we saw was 79.6 knots, that's a tick under 150km/h for you land lubbers! One of the hardest things to do was actually get onto the boat, usually made easy by a passeralle (a 1m wide x 5m long ramp from the back of the boat to the dock). However Hurricane Mode meant we were off the dock a little more, which meant a metre jump onto a boat leaning over and moving in the wind - doesn't sound that hard, but picture being on a car roof driving at 150 clicks and jumping onto another car that is rocking around like it has oblong wheels and being driven by a drunk. Hence the footage of Valentin on his hands and knees about 2/3 into the vid.
