End of 2019 Cruise Summary August 1 to September 11

Well, as you know, I started out planning to head south this coming winter,leaving in October and  returning to Grenada West Indies after an absence since 2012, or maybe only to the Abacos, which we missed on our transit north from there. But Lene’s dentist told us: “Sure, as long as you don’t leave before Christmas”. I know that John Adams, in the service of his unborn nation, crossed the Atlantic is a wooden three master in January but we didn’t feature the Atlantic, even coast wise, in winter. So was born Plan B: Newfoundland. Sailors we had met in Nova Scotia in 2017 and in Maine in 2018 were going and a buddy boat arrangement promised much fun. But again, my Mate, who suffered several fractures in a non-boating accident in the fall of 2018 said: “Not so far this Summer.” Hence Plan C was called for and it became a sail in Rhode Island.

With only six weeks to sail I was able to combine it with and include the Harlem's Annual Club Cruise, and sailed the first seven days with Huck and Cindy on their 36 foot Pearson, "Miraval". Two boats are needed to call it a "club cruise" but we had more Club activity when we were met by Lloyd and Rhoda who drove their car for a weekend in Bristol, which included a day sail with a flotilla of Herreshoff boats including this beauty. We also met up with retired Harlemites, Hadley and Susan for a dinner in Tiverton. That rendezvous would also have included a day sail except that Hadley is recovering from a surgical procedure and the dinghy-to-boat transitions would not have been safe.

This was the easiest cruise I have done since starting this blog in 2010. For one thing, RI is only about 100 miles from the Harlem in The Bronx, New York. Second, RI is the smallest state of the union so the distances between ports are small. And finally, we took at least one lay day in most of the ports we visited once in Rhode Island.

My plan was to put ILENE into every port I could, with her 5’10’ draft and mast height of 63.5 feet especially to ports I had not been to before. Also, with our crew, the 12 year veteran Alfie Girl and her newly adopted eight year old brother, Cruiser, we strongly prefer moorings or anchoring to docks; to prevent their wanderlust from getting them lost from us. We managed to only dock (other than for fuel and water) in one port. it was "dock only" accomodations that kept us from Allen Harbor, Apponaug, Warwick and Mellville.  My only disappointment was in failing to push a bit harder to anchor in the unnamed cove north of Quonset Point and south of Davisville Depot, and Mackerel Cove on the SE side of Conanicut Island, and visiting (by dink) the historic village of Westerly at the head of the Pawcatuck River. That's why there is a "next year".

We also took the first week of the six to participate in the Harlem Yacht Club's annual cruise, visiting ports in and about Long Island Sound with Huck and Cindy on “Miraval”, their Pearson 36. We visited Port Jeff, both ways, Duck Island Roads, both ways, and on Shelter Island both Coecles and Deering Harbors.

But Rhode Island was our focus and this chart shows where we went:

Port	Nights	Lay Days	New stop?	Anch, Moor or Dock	Dining out?	Comments
Stonington CT	1	0	No	Mooring	Lunch	Not really RI, but on the border
Nappatree Beach/Watch Hill	2,3	1	No	Anchor	Dinner
Point Judith Pond	4-6	2 (but see next two entries)	No	Anchor	No
Wakefield (by dink)	-	0: not by boat	Yes	Dink at Dock	Lunch	Visited by day by dink
Snug Harbor	-	0: Not by boat	No	Dink at Dock	Lunch and Theater	Visited by day by dink
Dutch Harbor	7	0	Yes	Mooring	Lunch and Dinner
Wickford	8,8	1	No	Mooring	Lunch
E. Green- wich	10,11	1	No	Mooring	Lunch
E. Provi- dence	12-14	2	Yes	Dock	2 lunches & 2 dinners
Edgewood	15-16	1	Yes	Mooring	1 lunch, 1 dinner
Bristol	17-20	2 (another night after a day sail)	No	Mooring 2 and anchor 2	1 breakfast, 2 lunchs & 2 dinners
Potter Cove, Prudence is.	21	0	No	Anchor	No
Kickamuit River	22	0	Yes	Anchor	No
Battleship Cove, Fall River MA	23, 24	1	Yes	Mooring	1 breakfast; 1 dinner
Tiverton, Standish Boatyard1	25-26	1	Yes	Mooring	Dinner
Fogland Anchorage	27	0	Yes	Anchor	No
Third Beach, Aquidneck Is.	28	0	No	Anchor	No
Newport	29-30	1	No	Mooring	Dinner
Block Island	31-33	2	No	Mooring	Dinner
Stonington	34	0	No	Mooring	Lunch	2d stop here this cruise
TOTALS:	19 ports	15 lay days

So that’s 19 ports (one twice, and two of them only by dink -- is that cheating?) in 34 days, with 15 lay days: in other words, a lazy man’s cruise.

We had only 184 miles round trip between City Island and Stonington. And we drove only 194 miles "in Rhode Island", divided among the 18 passages (including the day sail with friends from home near the Herreshoff Regata out of Bristol, but excluding the dinghy transit to two ports in Point Judith Pond). The math shows an average of less than eleven miles per passage. And for some of those passages we did not put up sails due to lack of wind or wind in the wrong direction. For those of my friends who still consider me a sailing purist this is proof that I am not!

And of the 19 distinct ports we visited, including two by dink, only eight were new, with 11 old friends, though we discovered new treats in them.

I keep track of this stuff so of our 34 nights, we spent three on the dock in East Providence, 11 on our anchor and 20 on moorings.

The only bad night was in the Great Salt Pond of Block Island, during Hurricane Dorian. This was an avoidable discomfort and hazard. I should have stayed in Newport, more inland and further north from the eye. But I was in love with the idea of visiting Block after the season, when it is quiet and empty -- and we survived.

During the 34 days we had two breakfasts, twelve lunches and eleven dinners in 25 different restaurants, ranging from the appropriately named The Shack in the marina in Dutch Harbor (think Chipotles but better) to fine dining at several places and interesting imaginative grub at ____Diner (since 1916) in East Greenwich. The other 77 meals were taken aboard, mostly cooked by Lene with a few cameo appearances in the galley by the Captain.

We wanted to visit Providence by boat and the problem is the absence of places to anchor or moor. We ended up in very nearby East Providence on a very poor dock for a very high price and we learned from our next stop, in Edgewood, that Edgewood with its lovely little club, would have been a much better bet. Everyone told us "Why Providence; that's where we want to get away from." But we are urban people and the Brown university campus the RISD museum of art, movies, and a Bolivian Cultural festival, plus a free "ticket", a seat of a moored houseboat, to the Beachboys concert made it a fulfilling stop. The harbor master helped us to the "ticket" and the Uber ride to town was short and cheap. But next time, we learned, we can achieve the same result with an Uber ride from Edgewood.

The Kickamuit River was a kick; it looks hard to navigate the entrance by chart, but once in forms a large harbor with lots of anchoring depth and protection. It is only 2.5 road miles from all the commercial activity in Bristol, but there is no commercial activity in the harbor and no indication of anyplace where a stranger can land a dink.