June 15 -- Port Jefferson, Long Island to Essex, Connecticut

Yep, light winds, and from too far behind us to move us at speed, so we had to motor sail most of the way. It was about 2 miles to the Sound, 38 in the Sound and 6 miles up the Connecticut River from the Sound, for a total of  46 miles and in just about eight hours. If we had sailed without motor, at half the speed, it would have been sixteen hours. We sailed off the mooring but quickly added motor and kept it on except for about 3-4 miles headed north up the CT River. We really felt the effect of the tide getting stronger and stronger against us as our motor-controlled speed over the bottom kept slowing down.

And I overcame a mental barrier today by crossing Long Sand Shoal. This shoal runs east-west, parallel to and 1.5 miles south of the Connecticut coast and is 6.5 miles long. There is a red and green buoy at each end and the issue, the other 20 or so times I have sailed this way, was always whether to sail inside (north of) the shoal or outside. My original plan today was to sail inside so I set the western buoy as our waypoint. But what wind we did have made a course for the eastern end more favorable so I quickly changed the waypoint and our course, to get to it. And later came the breakthrough.  The eastern waypoint is about a mile further east than the breakwaters marking the entrance to the navigable channel of the Connecticut River, so I would have to sail a course like an upside down “7”. And while there are parts of the shoal that the chart says are as little as 4 feet deep, at low tide, others are in the teens, especially for the eastern couple of miles. So we picked a spot where the chart said  the water was 16 feet deep at low tide, set that as the waypoint, and reaching it, jibed and headed north across the shoal! Such excitement! A forbidden treat! What joy! Lene was totally unimpressed. And once we jibed we were able to turn off that infernal combustion engine and enjoy sailing with the wind from near our port beam.

The Essex YC is a very upscale place. Twenty coats of varnish gleam on the wooden parts of the launch. The whole town of Essex is upscale, beautiful and it seems everyone there has a boat!. The Club assigned us to the mooring closest to the dock (dropping a member’s name never hurts)  where we had a good view of four 44 foot navy blue hulled racing/cruising yachts that some Midshipmen of the US Naval Academy had sailed up from Annapolis as a training exercise. Here they are, breasted out in pairs, bow to stern each named for a desirable character trait;  "Brave" and "Honest" were two of the names. For an interesting and well photographed comparison of these rugged 44 foot boats boats with a Saga 43 like ILENE, go to Bob's blog's, June 19 posting.

The Club feted them with a banquet in the posh clubhouse shown behind. When I was in Navy ROTC at Cornell, sailing was not part of the curriculum. If it had been, I would have been infected by the sailing bug much earlier in life. Some would quip: Your taxpayer dollars at work.

Bob and Brenda, back from an eight months jaunt in the Bahamas, invited us to their big beautiful new home for dinner. They moved here from Upper Saddle River N.J. about a year ago but then sailed for eight of the twelve months. And a great dinner it was, including home cured lox! Very cool. Their son, Chris, a few months from his PhD in optical physics at Columbia, was visiting in honor of Fathers Day. Excellent, intelligent conversation about science, literature, sailing and other subjects with the yummy food. Stupid me; I had a brain freeze and took no photos. Sorry folks.

A quiet night in anticipation of an early departure to catch the end of the favorable tide in The Race on the way to Block Island tomorrow.