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| We wake to a foggy morning on the Connecticut River. |
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| Look closely and you'll see a wake from the moored sailboat off Nellie's bow. The ebbing current is 2 mph. |
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| Yale's Grace Hopper residential dorm. |
While exploring Yale University we came across a residential hall with a familiar name. In the early 1980's a then nearly 80 year-old Admiral Grace Hopper spoke to a group of young, inexperienced officers at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. I was lucky enough to attend. She told us to challenge convention--memorable in itself coming from a senior officer. A computer pioneer with a forte in software, Hopper is credited with being the mother of COBOL. Handing each of us wires that were exactly 11.8" long, she explained, "That's how far light travels in a nanosecond." We were then asked to imagine how many of these nanosecond wires, put end to end, would be be required to reach a geostationary satellite. The answer, about 23,000 wires. She went on to explain that that's why satellite communications is relatively slow. The author Jay Elliot came up with a fitting epitaph for Grace Hopper: "'All Navy', but when you reach inside, you find a 'Pirate' dying to be released.
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| Nellie's crew in New Haven Harbor. |
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| Shelter Island, NY to New Haven, CT |
On a Pequonnock Yacht Club mooring. 41 miles today, 1151 miles in 2019 and 9384 miles from Naples.
