Rhode Island Motor Vehicle Registration

I am always surprised by how busy we are when we return to our home port in the spring. Despite trying not to ignore administrative matters, inevitably something slips past me. The first concern to surface this year was that I did not received my coveted 2010 Newport resident parking sticker in the mail as expected.

It's already May, which means big changes in Newport, when parking meters are in effect from 8am to 9pm seven days a week through fall. With no time to waste I gathered all of my car documents and proof of residence to take to city hall where I was shocked to learn my car registration had expired in February--only 9 months from the date I had registered my new car! How could this be?

Turns out Rhode Island motor vehicle registration is based on the alphabet, so people with last names starting with A or B, like myself, renew in January. Plus, for the first year the length of registration is always less than one year. (The only mystery that remains is why I did not receive a renewal form in the mail.)

Because I was delinquent more than 3 months, I was forced to re-register verses renew, which means more money and another less-than-one-year registration term. After the first renewal, January 2011 for me, motor vehicle registration is every two years. Now I'm a much smarter RI resident.

East Coast Pollen Trail

To my disappointment, Event Horizon and crew arrived in Rhode Island ahead of spring. We unintentionally managed to travel north, nearly the entire eastern seaboard, just a head of the 2010 springtime pollen trail. The pale yellow air, reportedly one of the worst pollen seasons on record, has been greeting us in full force just after we arrive.

In the southeastern states the concentrated pollen was due to the unusually cold winter, which caused pollen delays in some trees. Then it was surprisingly warm and dry weather in the northeast that created concentrated pollen causing a lot of people, including my captain, to feel uncomfortable and leaving a sticky yellow coating on everything. The lack of rain has meant the added task--sometimes twice a day--of washing decks and despite keeping the boat closed, yellow powder keeps appearing everywhere down below.