As much as we’d like it, not every weekend ends up with a sail. This last weekend was looking like a bust wind-wise, but that wasn’t going to keep us from heading down to the boat. Nope, it just meant that this was going to be a weekend for some boat chores – and apparently two trips to Defender.
We stopped at Defender on our way down to pick up 75 feet of dinghy line for the new dinghy slip. We’ve joined Shennecosset Yacht Club (the subject of a future post) and they have some sort of pulley system for tying the dink into the slip. I’m sure there’s a name for it, but my Google searches so far haven’t helped me to find it. I can’t even describe it well, so a picture will have to suffice. Continue reading “Boat chores.”→
One of our big goals for this season is to anchor overnight, and get comfortable doing it. The key for our cruising plans is to be able to spend 99% of our nights on the hook, so this is an important skill for us to develop.
The forecast for the weekend of June 6th was calling for two days of winds from the north – very unusual for this time of year. Initially we had planned to anchor for an afternoon, and then if it went well try an overnight another time. Earlier that week I suggested to Jeff that we just go for it. Anchor for the afternoon and if we were feeling comfortable, just stay the night. He was up for that idea, so the next task was to find a place to anchor.
We have several spots in mind that we want to go this season, but they were all selected with the thought that we’d have the prevailing southwesterly winds. Since these winds were going to be from the north, then clock around to the southeast, then back to the north again, they weren’t going to work. The winds weren’t going to be heavy at all, but we wanted to find somewhere that would give us protection for all of the forecasted directions.
We checked out Active Captain and found a potential anchorage near Rocky Neck State Park in Niantic – Black Point. It wasn’t a place that we would ever stay at in a southwesterly, but it was well protected in the north and east. After another check of the weather on Saturday morning, we decided to go for it. Continue reading “Anchor aweigh!”→
Last Saturday’s forecast looked great – bright sun, 69 degrees on the water, and the promise of good wind in the afternoon. Now that I had decided I was going to take advantage of all wind conditions short of a small craft advisory, I was raring to go.
We settled in on Pegu Club and proceeded to wait. The promised wind wasn’t arriving (it was under 5 knots), so I hung out on the foredeck with my Kindle. Just when I was starting to fret that the wind would never arrive, it started stirring. We prepped the boat, cast off the lines, and headed out. Little did we know that we were going to have one of our best sails ever on Fishers Island Sound. Continue reading “What a sail!”→
Friday saw us tossing off the mooring line at 7:00 a.m. It was chilly but sunny, and the forecast called for light winds out of the southwest until 9:00 a.m. or so when they would begin to steadily build, along with the seas. Having learned what “building seas” meant during our first trip to Block, our goal was to be in the Great Salt Pond before it started blowing over 20.
What followed was a lovely sail – our best one yet to Block. 19 NM, 5 hours. We motored for a few hours, and then, true to the forecast’s word, we were able to to turn off the outboard and sail the entire rest of the way. And I mean the entire way. We were feeling great: sunny, 59 degrees on the water, 12-15 knots of wind, a beam reach the entire way.
Jeff at the helm.Seems like we’re always dodging a trawler or two out on Block Island Sound.
I started thinking about how some of my co-workers had told me that they used to sail into the Great Salt Pond. Filled with confidence, I suggested to Jeff that we give it a go. We figured that it was early on a Friday so the channel wasn’t going to be crowded, the winds were perfect – why not? So we did. We did turn on the outboard before we entered the channel, keeping it in neutral, just in case things got out of hand, but we didn’t put it in forward until we turned into the wind to drop the sails. It was awesome! I felt very salty, and I proudly told the Harbormaster that we had sailed into the Pond when she showed up a few minutes later to collect our mooring fee. I’m sure she was thinking, “Newb” the whole time, but I didn’t care. I was PSYCHED. Continue reading “Back on the Block, part 2”→
Adventures on the Club 