September 5 - 11 -- First Week Back - Living Aboard

It is always good to be back and there are always a lot of things to do: car needed inspection, shopping. banking, paying bills, propane refill, haircut, etc. Our nephew, Mendy, spent three nights aboard with us including one of the two day-sails during the period, together with Christine and Heather. The wind was strong on a cool grey drizzly afternoon and when we came near to close hauled, with just the small jib and main, we were heeled considerably. Lene pointed out that we were not in cruising mode -- that we had no destination to make before nightfall. Could we please respect the cats wishes by reducing the heeling?
Aye Aye, Admiral!
So we furled the headsail and tacked back and forth across the mouth of  Eastchester Bay with the wind near the beam for the rest of our two hours before regaining the mooring for the noshing. I really appreciated Mendy's prodigious upper body strength. My crew performed a very nicely done controlled jibe.
The other sail during this week was on the first day we got back, on Mark's Deuce of Hearts, a very comfortable catamaran. I reserved ILENE form the service of the Old Salts until we get the cats moved back ashore. In addition to Mark and I, we had three couples and Claire. Our Club's secretary, Doug, hosted Karen, a social member, and two of her girl friends on his
Cape Dory 28, "Aquila". They joined us after for the digestibles. My problem with these events is that I eat too much; dinner - forget about it!
Some of the nights aboard have been hot and humid. others rainy, windy and or foggy.
The rest of the time this week: a visit to our apartment to get "city clothing", an matinee on Broadway, a day's trip to Kent, CT, to visit our friend Fran, a meeting on the upper east side of my Book Group, religious high holiday services, and a huge family dinner at cousin Judy's in New Jersey.
Back in August, at Frenchboro, Maine, we met up with and had blueberry pancakes with liveaboards Rick, Claudia and their son Dylan, but I failed to capture them photographically. But they are now at the Harlem so my error was correctable before they head south soon.

See ya next week!

Cruise Summary -- Maine 2018

We left the Harlem Yacht Club on July 4 and returned on September 4, 63 days later. But seven of those days were spent off the boat on a car trip to Quebec City while an addition to ILENE's keel was attached. So the cruise itself was only 56 days, considerably shorter than our Nova Scotia cruise of 2017.

The events of each of those 56 days, the delightful and the ugly, have been reported in 33 posts to this blog -- details and highlights. This posting attempts to describe the forest instead of the individual trees -- by statistical. as well as subjective approaches.

The 56 days are the sum of  45 passages (to 44 destinations - two visits to Rockport Maine) plus eleven lay days. About eighty percent passage days. Some of the lay days were weather related. One of them was devoted to the round trip visit to beautiful Monhegan Island, by ferry, a highlight of our summer. Our lomgest stop was three nights - in Belfast, associated with Witty's illness. We like to keep moving.

Among the 44 ports were 15  that provided the thrill of entering a new destination and 29 old friends; so almost a third were new ports.

The nights: no overnight passages like the three last summer. The vast majority of our nights were spent on moorings: 40  (ten of them were free!). Only 14 were on our anchor and two at docks. One of the docks was at Sandwich Mass, which seemed a necessary place to stop and has only docks. The other dock was at the Great Island Boat Yard in Casco Bay, where ILENE was hauled to permit her keel to be re-soled. At docks our kitties get frisky so we seek to avoid them.

How about the mileage, which added up to 1079, round trip. Roque Island, the furthest destination , is only 356 miles from our mooring at the Harlem as the crow flies, which would mean 712 crow miles, But the shortest locical course, without going in and out of ports and backtracking is probably about 450 miles on e way compared to our 539 miles each way.

Here is a chart showing the distribution of our days, passages and miles into the three segments of the trip:

SEGMENT	MILES	DAYS	PASSAGES	MILES/PASSAGE
To Maine	324	10	8	40.5
In Maine	407	35	27	15
From Maine	348	11	10	35
Total	1079	56	45

No matter how you slice it, it is about 300 - 350 miles to get to Maine from New York City.
By driving through the nights this could be done in about 70 hours, less than three days. We took a more leisurely pace with about nine passages each way ending up using one third of our cruise in the coming and going phases, but we saw some very nice spots along the way, taking our time to smell the coffee. Still, we did an average of about 35 to 40 miles per passage on the outbound and return passages, compared to only 15 miles per passage in the target vacation area where we spent two thirds of our time.

And the food: Lene puts out the three squares each day subject to occasional meals off the boat.
During the 56 days we had one breakfast (on Monhegan Island), four lunches and 17 dinners "out".

We do have a few prejudices: toward moorings, against docks and in favor of healthy boat cooked food. But subject to these, the patterns simply emerge when I count things up at the end, rather than with set targets.

Subjectively, first. what went wrong:
1. I somehow left our clear plastic cockpit enclosure "walls" at home, and the Club burgee too. I was sorry about the burgee but it was such a warm summer that the cockpit enclosure was not missed.
2. I put water in the fuel tank, necessitating a tough job this winter.
3. Witty's illness put a crimp in our style- the reason for the second visit to Rockport Maine, and we hope he gets better soon and that the motion of the boat did not contribute to his pain.
4. The biggest problem was the light winds. We did a lot more motoring than we wanted to.
5. The transformation of nice places into berths for superyachts to the exclusion of sailors like us was a problem to which I do not have a solution.

The positives:
1. People whether it is unexpected accidntal unplanned rendezvous with boats associated with our Club -- four of them.
meeting with old friends or making new ones, we are social animals and enjoy being with other people in port.
2.  We escaped the brutally hot New York City summer.
3. The new ports we visited -- and there are so many more.
4. The new addition to the bottom of the keel has been a big success in making for a more comfortable ride.
5. We got back alive and safe.

This blog will continue with many fall sailing activies already planned. Thanks for reading.

September 3 and 4 -- Port Jeff to Cockenoe Island Anchorage to the Harlem Yacht Club, 17 and 29 Miles

We are home. Continuing to live aboard the next ten days or so but home.

Cockenoe Island and its spit extending quite a bit east, (to the right) underwater, is a tiny lump of land at the eastern end of a group of islands called the Norwalk Islands. They protect Norwalk and Saugatuck from the winds and waves of Long Island Sound. I had thought to possibly go to Northport on the north shore of Long Island for our last night away, but once out in the Sound it was clear that crossing to its Connecticut shore would make for a better ride. We feared too little wind and it was indeed light, and from the southwest. Northbound across the Sound was sailable, though slowly. we made between 4 and six knots. A short passage on a steamy hot day; why not sail slowly, give the Yanmar a break and take advantage of the water cooled air contitioned breeze. We were headed too far to the east, toward Fairfield, CT, where I had planned to tack and go west to Norwalk. But during the three hours the wind came very gradually but steadily about 35 degrees to the south and with each increment we turned a few degrees further west until me were almost parallel to the Connecticut coast, making landfall near Cockenoe, our track a long curve.  Lots of room for lots of boats and our Rocna got well set. I had planned to dink over to explore the island, having never been here before, but it was so darn hot and Lene was engrossed with her tennis watching so I just stayed put and rested up for the final passage home the next day.
The next day was windless, six hours to motor the 29 miles. Then a laundry, dinner abord and reading before bed.
And an article called "Nova Scotia Idyll" has now come out in the September issue of Points East magazine, starting at page 26. I wrote it, condensed down a lot, based on the facts in the posts to this blog about our summer cruise there in 2017. It is the sort of article I wish I had been able to read before we went there. pointseast.com
So while we will be reaclimating to city life, the sailing of 2018 is far from over.

September 1and 2 -- Newport to Chocomount Cove on the North Side of Fishers Island,to Port Jefferson, 34 and 55 Mil

The first of this pair of days was a lovely sail and since we did not get off the boat (in either port) I have no land based activities to report. We planned to stop at Stonington CT, where Dodson would rent us a mooring for $58. But NOAA forecast only five to ten knots from the southeast at night and so the security/cost of a mooring seemed unneeded and a bother. We have walked the one lovely main street of historic Stonington many times and saw no need to go ashore there. So we looked for an anchorage. One, on the east side of Mason's Island, where Past Commodore Tom keeps his boat, "Rally Point", would have done nicely and his is a very hospitable Club, but it is exposed to the southeast. Chockomount, on the north side of Fishers Island, on the other hand, was new to us, ideal for the wind, and we anchored in 24 feet of water with 80 feet of snubbed chain, and were the only boat in the broad cove. Great view of the Connecticut coast. well lighted by the several towns across Fishers Island Sound. The land on Fishers is all privately owned and no access to the island itself by dink was available from Chocomount had we wanted to go ashore.
How we got to Chocomount: There was so little wind in Newport Harbor that we raised the main while on the mooring. We passed this craft docked by Fort Adams

while motoring out and then the Crystal Symphony, the very ship on which we cruised Alaska, June 2-10, anchored in the harbor. Of course, it got here by sea through the Panama Canal while we flew between the coasts.

Once out in Narraganset Bay, the wind was a broad port reach and not really strong enough to fill our big sails which flopped about. Once we got away from land the wind built. After the starboard turn and gybe off Point Judith, we were on  a broad reach, almost a run. I connected the preventer lines to protect against the accidental gybe and we sailed slowly until the wind built up a bit more. To get more speed we would have had to steer north of west --  close the beach and I saw the possibility of avoiding that by sailing wing on wing, with the genoa out to starboard. This worked for about an hour and a half, until it too had us closing the beach. But by then the wind was sufficiently south of west and we jibed the main and sailed on a port broad reach all the rest of the way along the western half of the Atlantic coast of Rhode Island.

We saw the big modernized but intentionally old fashioned looking hotel on the hill and then Watch Hill Light.

We sailed through Watch Hill Passage and most of the way through Fishers Island Sound to our cove. It is circled by the large homes of the rich-who-do-not-want-to-be-famous. Underway almost six hours at an average speed of 5.9 knots with a lot above 7.5 but a lot of time going in the fours as well. A warm sunny day with good visibility and enough wind to actually sail. Hooray.
I recalled making the same passage with my friends, Jim and KC, before this blog started, when it was cold, grey and nasty and we had to beat into it all the way. This time, just the opposite. And we timed the tide right too. Sunrise at Chocomount:

Though Chocomount was nice, my  mistake was not going 20 or thirty miles further with the good sailable wind on the first day, becaust the next day's long passage from Chocomount to Port Jeff was windless. Here is a view of the Connecticut coast to starboard  from eight miles away (the white dot on  the horizon is a 53 foot power boat
(AIS told me her length) half a mile away) and next the North Shore of Long Island, from six miles off our port beam. A bit boring, won't you agree?

Well actually there were brief interludes of weak wind, but from behind us, at speeds less than our six knots of boat speed over the bottom, causing a couple of knots of apparent wind on our nose. The main was up throughout but it did no work.

In Port Jeff we chucked a right, anchored behind the beach and checked for possible dragging. In came a boat that looked like it had a Harlem YC burgee. And a Past Commodore Burgee, too! It was "Thai Hot", Bob and Laura's Island Packet, in from Block Island. I had helped him sail her back from Bermuda in perhaps 2008, and he crewed with me on ILENE's big passage in 2010, from Hampton Virginia to Tortola, BVIs.  Again it is a very small world. And here are views the next morning around the anchorage.
Thai Hot with the Port Jeff smokestacks to her port side and the town further left.

The west, north and east sides of the anchorge with one of the ferries just come in from Bridgeport through the cut in the beach.

August 30 and 31 -- Cuttyhunk to Newport and Lay Day There, 26 Miles

First, let me note that this is the 600th posting to this Blog over the last eight years. The computer told me this.
We tried to sail but were about 25 degrees north of our direct course west and not going so fast even with full sails and the motor. After an hour of this Lene asked how long it would take if we motored along the direct route. So: in with the genoa and then steering on the route and the computer reported that our ETA was later, not sooner. Meanwhile, when Lene asked for me to reduce heeling while she cooked breakfast, I motored south of the direct course so that after breakfast, when we put out the big sail agian, we could beat toward the waypoint. Once rounding the mark to head north up into Narragansett Bay, the engine was no longer needed. But shortly thereafter the wind just about died.
 In any event the passage took about five hours. The harbormaster assigned us to a mooring on the eastern side of the harbor, rather than on the eastern side where we had always been before -- lots of room between boats but a longer dink ride than usual.
What is changed here is two additional new dinghy docks, One is at the northeast corner of the harbor and the other much further south than the one old dink dock in the heart of town, near the Seamans Church Institute. So the docks and no longer crowded. And the one at the south end is in a Sailors Visitor's Center (on the Anne Street Pier) which has rest rooms, showers ($1.75 for seven minutes of water), and  a large area with good free wifi. That Center is where the last three posts to this blog were prepared while Lene got her hair done and watched some of the US Open. We had planned to shower there but very dark and threatening skies, plus the forecast for rain chased us back to the boat to close the one open hatch and we showered in the cockpit instead. Too bad that it did not rain during the night. ILENE could use a rinse to shed her salty crust. We shopped both days, had a lunch at CRU, near the Tennis Center and saw BlackkKlansman, the new Spike Lee film. I checked the oil, the belts, the zinc in the refrigerator's condenser and the distilled water in the seven batteries. Everything seems to be OK.
Tomorrow we will reenter Long Island Sound, almost home.

August 28 and 29 -- Scituate to Redbrook to Cuttyhunk, 42 and 32 Miles

The passage from Scituate on Boston's south shore across the west side of Cape Cod Bay, through the Cape Cod Canal and to Redbrook is always problematic, consisting of three legs: to the Canal, in the Canal and from the Canal to the destination.. Last year it was our roughest ride of the cruise. The solvable part of the problem is timing the departure to arrive at the Cape Cod Bay end of the Canal when the tide has turned to ebb, the favorable tide. This was solved well with a 7:45 am departure with the tide turning fair at noon. We sailed, on a close reach and arrived at one pm. We were going very fast, 7.5 knots for  awhile, and Lene asked if we should depower the sails to slow down to not get there too early. But I replied "Let's put these miles 'in the bank' in case we slow down later", which we did. The forecast was for the wind to build in the afternoon , so we wanted to get the passage done before it got too strong.
Here is a photo of the entrance to the Sandwich Marina to the left and the local restaurant which we enjoyed while outbound. 
The second problem with this passage is that the prevailing winds in Buzzards Bay are from the SW while the ebbing favorable tide current is to the SW, causing big choppy waves close together. If there is no wind of light wind, this can be easily handled, but with strong prevailing winds, most every afternoon, the second half of the canal is very hard on the boat and its cats. I had always thought that the canal ran from Sandwich to the Mass. Maritime Academy near the railroad bridge.

This is the part seen in the photo with land on both sides. But the railroad bridge (I think it is always "up") is the midpoint of the Canal which also includes the more open waters at both sides of the well- marked Hog Island Channel, out into Buzzards Bay. And that part is where the water gets so violent. I took us out of the channel, to its side, a bit shallower, where the seas were less violent but Alfie gave a scream of frieght and was consoled by Lene. 

We had another problem within the Kingman Yacht Center, the marina where we have stayed four or five times before. We entered at near low tide with a full moon, making for lower low tides. We made it through the long twisting marked channel but in the mooring field, proceeding to our assigned mooring, with sails down, of course, and a lot of wind, we heard a knock and came to a stop. I was able to grab a different mooring so we were held roughly in place if we came off of whatever we hit, but while all the other boats close around us were facing the wind, we were broadside to it. Lene called the marina which sent out a man in a workboat with a powerful outboard. He used out spinaker halyard to tip us a bit, causing the "rock" to loose its grip on our keel. He explained that the moorings are large concrete blocks and in trying to reach our ball, we had contacted the block of the adjacent mooring. In such tight spaces we were going very slowly so I doubt much damage was done to our keel. But in tipping us, the halyard rubbed against and broke our radar reflector. We will need a new one. Not too expensive.
This was our third consecutive dinner with friends. Lee and Patty are from home. he is in my book group and we visited their home in Hyannisport two years ago and met them at Redbrook last fall. Neither two day friends not half century friends, but 21 year friends. I've been very guilty of late of failing to take enough pictures. Lene has been doing a good job as ILENE's Communications Officer and I would like her to become the boat's Photographer as well.
Next day was an all sailing day. We left the twisty channel at near high with an extra three feet of water under our keel and then covered the 18 mile "route" to near Cuttyhunk by four passes across Buzzards Bay, with our "track" measured at 29 miles. The first crossing was west, then south, west and south again. The first crossing was with main and Genoa but as you know we have to furl that sail to make each tack and Lene asked for the small jib on the remaining three tacks and we gave up some heel but not much speed with it. In Cuttyhunk, we took a mooring but did not lower the dink or go ashore. So I'm not a Gentleman afterall because Gentlemen don't beat to windward, but is was a lot of fun. Six hours underway, with 1.4 of them with the engine on.

August 26 and 27 -- Portsmouth to Manchester by the Sea to Scituate, 40 and 23 Miles

Here is a view in the morning sun of all of the Isles of Shoals, at which we stopped while outbound. There we had a free mooring provided by the Portsmouth YC, while in Portsmouth proper we paid the reasonable $32 and thanked the members.
Not enough sailable wind from Portsmouth until Thatcher Island, off Cape Ann. This was the longer of the two legs of the passage. Sail up but not enough wind. We tried sailing off course on a close reach but not enough wind to make it worthwhile. Once around the Cape, we turned off the engine and sailed the rest of the way using the genoa at first and then the small jib and finally only the main. It was not clear that we would have a mooring at Manchester; the club did not answer their phone. But was saw "Sea Quester, by name, on the AIS and called them. Jamie used his influeence and got a mooring assigned to us, by name and lat and lon, in the outer harbor. This is acually the Atlantic, but the big bay, off of which Gloucester, Manchester by the Sea , Salem and Marblehead are all ports, is somewhat protected by a group of off shore islands. Half an hour later, the owner of the mooring came alongside and told us to get off his mooring. We did so, of course and called the club by VHF. It sent out a young man to point out another mooring to us. Jamie and Lori had worse luck: Someone unknown to them or anyone else at the Club had taken their mooring and left their boat. So they tied Sea Quester at the Club dock.

useful for off loading all the stuff that was aboard for their cruise.











Here are views from the Club of the inner harbor and the outer harbor.

They invited us to what are frequent socials on the club veranda. They bought me a drink chit and free soft drinks offered by the club whetted Lene's whistle. There were lots of tasty edibles some provided by the Club and others by various members. Had we known I would have whipped up something to make a contribution. They introduced us to their fellow cruisers and after an hour of this, drove us to a local eatery in town where we were one of three couples. And they got us back to the dock to make the last launch ride back to I
Next morning the wind was from the northwest, the best direction for a passage to Scituate on the Boston Area's South Shore. But not enough of it after the first couple of hours, so another motoring day. We passed through a constellation of freighters anchored out and saw the outline of Boston's skyline on our starboard beam through the haze. I took down the main without help from Lene, who was chatting with friends, gradually, without heading directly into the wind. And while doing so, noted a pretty white lighthouse. When the job was done, i looked at the chart and saw that the light was Scituate's and we had motered about 1/4 mile past the entrance channel.
We tooka mooring at the Satuit Boat Club, lunched, and took the launch to the clubhouse for showers. Then walked about a mile to town to provision. As much as I like sailing, I think Lene likes provisioning. We buy some groceries, especially perishables, nearly every opportunity and this was no exception. But we eat well and of healthy foods. We carried our bags only to the nearby Harbormaster's office where he called our launch which picked us up in town and took us to our boat.
A few hours later it was time to have dinner with Hugh and Arlene. He served with he on the USS HAmmerberg, ending in 1967, and they live in Boston. They came out to dine with us and we ended at the same place in Scituate where i had first tasted Lobster, Mac and Cheeese. And it wass just as good this time. Hugh had just come back from an Alaska cruise with kids and grandkids so we swapped Alaska stories and got caught up. We had not seen Hugh for about four years, when he visited NY with grandson Levi and toured Governor's Island with me, as reported in this blog. Hugh is a good sailor. So on two consecutive nights we dined out with quite different friends: Jamie and Lori whi we knew for two days and Hugh and Arlene who I have known for 51 years!