After leaving Newport we headed on down to New York, or rather Port Washington, where there was a good anchorage which was good for provisioning and the train station was a short walk which took us directly into New York for our second visit this year.

Our first trip back into New York took us to Times Square.  This cat was in one of the shop windows, taking “Big Cat” to the extreme. 

Maggie had been asked to get a particular Jelly Cat toy.  Now, like me, you may not have heard of Jelly Cat.  Well, it is a worldwide brand and British.  We thought, we’d just go in the store, collect what was needed off the shelf.  OH NO!  You have to make an appointment and luckily they had had a cancellation so we had to come back later in the day. 

Now I thought for the price, it must be “what it says on the tin” a diner and you get real food.  OH NO! It’s an experience at the Jelly Cat Diner.  You go to the diner counter and you and the person serving you, both pretend they are going to make the item, in this case a cheesecake.  Believe me this wasn’t just kids, adults too.  It’s amazing what takes off and how it has become such a craze and it had quite a price tag to go with it.  Great marketing!   You can only get the Cheesecake in New York.  Other countries have certain toys that are exclusive to that country, the Fish and Chips experience is only available in Selfridges in London.  It was certainly an experience watching it. 

We also visited MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art, which amongst lots of paintings was the collection of Campbell Soups that Andy Warhol painted.  I had not appreciated that there were in fact 32 of them, all individually painted. Why cans of soup you may ask?  Well apparently, he drank (not ate, his words) Campbells Soup every day for lunch for 20 years. 

One of things you should do while in New York is see a Broadway show.  Recommended to us was The Book of Mormons, which was really good. 

After a week in Port Washington we meandered down the coast stopping at various creeks along the way until we reached Baltimore where the Fells Point Festival was being held.  There were lots of stalls selling crafts, beer (craft beers are a big thing in the US and some of them are falling over strong) and food.  The main stage had bands playing.  As often is the case at these type of events there were some great bands. 

After leaving Baltimore we parted company, for the time being, with our boating buddies, Colin and Maggie on Serafina, as they were heading home earlier than us and plus they had insurance that covered them further south earlier than us.  So, we had to take it slower. Our next stop was Annapolis which is a very yacht friendly town.

There are many very old houses in Annapolis, streets with shiplap houses.  Shiplap House, is one of the oldest buildings, built around 1715, originally a store and tavern.

We visited the Maryland State House which was the first peacetime capital of the United States and is the only state house ever to have served as the nation’s capital. Congress met in the Old Senate Chamber from November 26, 1783 to August 13, 1784. It was during this time that General George Washington came before Congress to resign as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army and the Treaty of Paris was ratified, marking the official end of the Revolutionary War. George Washington was elected the first president of the USA in 1789.

We were now headed back to Portsmouth for a couple of nights.  The weather wasn’t great, windy and raining but we were tucked up nicely in the marina.  This was at the time Jamaica was taking a hit with Hurricane Melissa, so we definitely couldn’t complain after the devastation that Jamaica suffered. 

October 2025