A lovely, clear, brisk autumn day. Great for walking but not the greatest for swimming. Nevertheless, Roy had to get into his neoprene coveralls and jump in the water. He had noticed when we were in New Bedford that the perry-nut zinc was nearly gone, and he'd been trying to get up the courage to replace it ever since. This morning, the tide had gone out so far that we were sitting in less than four feet of water, so it was an ideal opportunity. He didn't really have to dive; he could stand on the bottom and squat, which helped a lot. But the water was so murky, he couldn't even see the propeller until he had his nose right on it. It was a struggle, but eventually he got the new zinc in place.
After breakfast, he walked up to the dockmaster's office to pay for last night and tonight. If the plunge into the icy water had been a shock, the rates were more so. TWO DOLLARS A FOOT! Unreal! And this is a long way from being a first-class marina. I'd classify it as less than mediocre. Usually we find out the rates before we tie up, but yesterday we couldn't because there was no one in the office, but there aren't any expensive-looking boats here, so we figured it would be $1 a foot a less. Roy managed to talk the dockmaster down to $1.50 a foot, plus $4 for the nickel's worth of electricity we'll use, but that's still outrageous. It costs as much for two nights here as it did for a month at the Gear Locker, but with 40-knot winds on the Sound, we don't have much choice.
After paying the king's ransom for the dock space, we started walking up the street to look for a bus stop. We'd only gone a couple of blocks when a guy in a car offered us a ride. He works downtown but comes out to the marina to eat lunch, because he loves boats. He had talked with Roy for a few minutes when Roy was going to the dock-
master's office and had admired the Jofian from a distance. Now he was on his way back to work, so he offered to drive us, and we were happy to accept. On the way downtown, he provided us with a lot of information about New Haven.
Even though Roy and I grew up in New York and New England, we had never been to New Haven, except passing through on a train or the Boston Post Road, so it was all new to us. We hadn't even known that Yale is right in downtown New Haven; we had assumed it was out in the country someplace. But the magnificent university, with its wonderful architecture, is adjacent to the Village Green, which is the heart of the city of New Haven. The buildings resemble medieval cathedrals. They are of varicolored stone, with towers and parapets and massive wooden doors and intricate stone carvings. We wandered around the campus, gaping in awe. Tuition at Yale is now $28,000 a year, and no wonder, with all these beautiful buildings to maintain. Later, a bus driver told us that Yale had been modeled after Cambridge University in England.
We ate lunch at a nearby restaurant that had been recommended by the man who drove us downtown. From the outside, it looked expensive, but it turned out to be remarkably reasonable. We both had crab-salad sandwiches and strawberry shakes for less than $10 for the two of us. The place had obviously been a popular student hangout for generations; every inch of the wooden table-tops and most of the wooden walls had names carved in them.
We walked around a little more and then hopped on the first bus that came along. Rode to the end of the line and back. Then we transferred to another bus that took us way out into the country. By then, it was getting dark, so we returned to downtown New Haven and walked around trying to find the stop for the bus that would take us back to the marina. Luckily, we found the stop minutes before the bus arrived. They only run once an hour, so we'd have had a long wait for the next one. The bus took us within a block of the marina, and we were back on the boat before 6:30.
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