Overall our trip back north was uneventful, well … except for our haul-out & … a hail storm!  While docked at Delaware City Marina, we walked to get take-out at a nearby crab shack, as we were under several weather warnings which didn’t disappoint!  Although only quarter-sized, we had quite the show & boy was it loud on our fiberglass hull.  While hail may be common in many parts of the country, this is only the second time in my life I recall sizable hail – the first was in the late ’90’s.  Our house in Essex sustained several thousands in damage including damaged windows & broken glass.  For several years you still saw the occasional dented car.

We like redundancy, which is one reason we like catamarans … 2 hulls, 2 engines, etc.  While our main navigational electronics are 13 years old & were working sort-of o.k., our flybridge chartplotter would often go dim and/or beep warnings about this or that.  We have been supplementing them with an iPad mounted at the helm … again … redundancy.  I have often considered a major upgrade, but had stopped counting at a $17,000 replacement cost, as we have a large chartplotter both on the helm below & on the flybridge.  With changes in technology, we would also have to replace our radar, our heading sensor & so on.  “Just living with them” ended during our trip north when our flybridge chartplotter went dark at the same time our iPad’s internal GPS “got lost”.  In a particularly hazardous portion of the ICW, we had to navigate by iPhone.

Still, not wanting to spend $17,000+ along with several weeks of installation – eBay to the rescue!  For only $400, I replaced our flybridge chartplotter with a similar used model which works perfectly.  We will replace our iPad this summer with a new model.

Do you recall in the “olden” days when the postal service offered package delivery sent to a Post Office c/o General Delivery?  Well, they still do!  We had our eBay purchase sent to a town we knew we would be stopping at a week later & it all worked out well.

Lots of osprey nests, as usual.

A lovely sunset over Atlantic Highlands, NJ

Never tire of transversing the East River in NYC

The Old Saybrook, CT breakwater for the 200+th time. Home!

We’ll be at a slip in Deep River, Connecticut for a few weeks, before wandering around Long Island & the Vineyard for the rest of the summer.  It looks like returning to Maine will have to wait until next summer.