Day 37. -- August 28. -- New Haven YC -- 30 nm

Some folks, alright, it was Ilene, have suggested that yesterday's post was boring. Well it is true that it was closer to a log than a diary, but I do not get bored by sailing and enjoy the changes that the different conditions compel me to confront. And there were not many land activities to report on in Niantic. In fact I have answered a friend's question: "Do you ever get bored with sailing?" with a question of my own: "Do you ever get bored making love with your wife?"

That said, today's passage, 30 miles by the direct route, was as close to boring as it gets. A nice warm sunny day with not enough wind to sail so the engine worked all day, 9:15 to 4:30, with the sails up but hardly contributing.

So what to do on such a day to add excitement? A three mile detour for a passage through the Thimble Islands, where I have never been. They are granite outcroppings that are private and have homes on them -- No trespassing. One can anchor in the passages between them, but holding is not good and cables run across from island to island.  There is little protection from the prevailing southwesterlies. Those are the reasons we did not anchor. Instead, we dropped sails for unimpeded maneuverability and took the tour. There are many buoys, navigational and mooring, and many islands and it took some figuring to make sure we were in the correct passage. A good day for it, with light winds, and we drove slowly. Many smaller power boats were on moorings inside, the folks just lolling about and enjoying doing nothing.

We have never been by boat to New Haven either. The marinas are quite deeply into the large, mostly industrial, mostly shallow harbor, near the city, several miles away. There were two anchorages. One is directly behind the massive sea walls that protects the harbor. We took the other, the New Haven Yacht Club, nestled in Morris Cove, on the eastern side of the harbor behind Lighthouse Point. They are friendly and offer a free mooring to transient cruisers and said it was available. But when we inquired we learned that it is too small in weight and in distance from other moorings for ILENE so we anchored about 100 yards away with plenty of snubbed chain out and enjoyed another of Lene's delicious home (boat) cooked dinners. The club appears to be small based on the number of its moorings, with most boats in the 20 to 30 foot range and the clubhouse is small and serves food only for parties. It probably thereby has low cost. Still, if we had more time on this cruise it would have been fun to lower the dink, spend a day and get to know the locals.
It was supposed to be a rather calm night, but despite being behind both the breakwater and Lookout Point, what wind there was rocked the boat. Not a comfortable night's sleep.