September 17 - Cruise 2, Day 11 — Price Bend, Hunington Bay to the Harlem YC, 23 NM

I usually try for a relatively short passage on a cruise’s final day; keeps the mate happy.  8:45 to 2:15 is 5.5 hours but the only good unassisted sailing was coming north out of Huntington Bay. Then the wind was behind us, from the east, and at twelve knots. Very nice wind for going north or south, but going west there was too little relative wind and the faster we went the less relative wind. The engine was on for 3.2 of the 5.5 hours. Our speed was slow. We eventually sailed with just the Genoa, and the wind 170 degrees from the starboard bow. 

And I sorely missed Autopilot during this passage. When AP  works it aids both the mind and the body. The body part is easy to understand: I do not have to steer the boat, working the wheel gently back and forth to keep us on the straight and narrow. After a few minutes, when I have lost keen attention, AP steers straighter than I can. AP also helps mentally. I don’t sail in a “set it and forget it” mode, but rather I look at the chart plotter every few minutes because AP can go off by a degree or two. If it is off, pressing the “Plus One” or “Minus One” button changes our course one degree at a time to get us back on. But currently, those two buttons are not working and even when I can get us on course, with AP steering, the worst part of its current nasty perniciousness is that after a random one to three minutes it will silently shut itself off and the boat will veer sharply to one side or the other. 

So I hand steered and with the wind so far behind, the risk of accidental gybe is ever present. After a while we furled the last sail, the Genoa and it degenerated into a pure motoring passage. When we got past Execution Rocks I took the Yanmar to 2500 rpms, twenty percent above normal fast cruising speed, for ten minutes. This was to test it (close to home in case it failed the test) and to “burn out” carbon deposits that grow in it at lower speeds. Was that test fast enough or long enough?  I don’t know. 

We off loaded and we’re back in our apartment at 4:15, the end of the second short cruise.

SUMMARY:

Eleven days, but with two rainy lay days in Block Island, only nine passages. 259 NM averages only 24 miles per passage. We were (A) on moorings five of the ten nights that  we were away (one free at Glen Cove), (B) on anchor five nights and (C) spent one night at an expensive dock. We had three dinners off the boat, one at Milford and two at Block Island, and one lunch in Westerly, via dinghy. I count four of our nights at “new” ports, but they were actually new neighborhoods in old ports. 1. Behind the seawall at Glen Cove is a stone throw from the Seacliff YC. 2. The Milford YC is in Milford, where we usually anchor out behind Charles island in The Gulf, or go further in to the Milford Landing Marina. 3. Our anchorage in the Pawcatuck River is very close to our old friend, the Nappatree Beach anchorage. And 4. Price Bend, while more than a mile away, is close by the four other places in Huntington Bay we have been.

With the Huguenot planning to  dredge its dock area, the docks must be temporarily removed, which requires us to be hauled early this year, by October 9, making for a short sailing season. But we are not done yet!

Sept 16 Cruise 2, Day 10 — Mattituck, LI to Price Bend Anchorage in Huntington Bay, LI, 44NM

Tide was lower on the way out of Mattituck Inlet to the Sound, but enough water all the way. This picture reminds me, in a way, of the ICW in the Carolinas.

 

Boating along the bayou:

But the egrets were not home today.

After three spectacular sailing days: Pawcatuck to Block, Block to Stonington and Stonington to Mattituck, today’s passage was a disappointment. Not enough wind and too close to the bow.

Once in the Sound we had the Main up throughout the 8 1/4 hour passage, and the Genoa or jib deployed during parts of it, but the motor was on almost all the way — 8.1 engine hours. We pulled anchor at 8:15 and dropped it again at 4:30. A long day’s drive to cover 44 miles, compared to perhaps 500 miles if we had been driving a car. Our course was west and in the morning the wind had enough north in it to let us motor sail. But around noon the wind died and it came back from due east so no headsail could be used.

We have been to several ports in Huntington Bay: Lloyds Harbor to the west, Huntington Harbor to the south and the Northport and Centerport YCs to the east. Today we tried the wide open anchorage of Price Bend, in the north, snuggled behind Easton’s Neck. I’ve never been there before. Poor protection in winds from the south, but the forecast said NW. There’s even a small cove further in with its own marked channel, full of smaller boats.

The area, with 7 to 10 feet of water at low, is huge and we anchored about 100 yards from shore, near our neighbor’s home.

There was good enough protection from the light winds.  The drawback, as predicted by the Cruising Guides, is the wakes created by large motor boats passing in and out of the eastern yacht clubs. But all quiet at night. 

No cooking needed for tonight’s dinner; let’s see if green propane canister number one can last through tomorrow’s breakfast. We have to go home tomorrow.

September 15 — Cruise 2, Day 9 — Stonington, CT to Mattituck, LI, 35 NM

Another beautiful long passage under sail today. Sails up and engine off from the Stonington breakwater at 8:15 to the entrance to Mattituck Inlet after 33 of our 35 NM, at 2:15, with another half hour of motoring the two miles up the inlet to the anchoring basin off Strong’s Marina.

Outside, with reefed main and small jib we saw speeds of more than eight tide assisted knots earlier and only four toward the end when the wind died down a lot. Our course averaged about 260 degrees and the wind, from NNW and NW, varied from close hauled to near the beam. When at very high speed we were over powered so we furled the small jib and under reefed main alone, did better than six knots. Later we let half the small jib work and still later, the rest of it again. Autopilot handled things pretty well with a few notable lapses, but only when on the highest “rudder gain” which uses the most electricity to try harder to steer straight. 

Some interesting communiques from the Coast Guard, that did not affect us because we had already passed New London. One, was a warning of a hazard to navigation off the entrance: a ten foot by ten foot piece of concrete floating out there. Later a warning to remain 100 yards from the “special vessel” that was transiting. Yes, one of our submarines, going out or coming home to its New London base. 

In the Anchoring Basin there is room for maybe a dozen anchored boats. Today there were two others when we arrived and only two more came in later. It must irritate Strong’s intensely for us to pay zero, as compared to their rate of over $6 per foot for the night. We used the small dinghy dock of the County Park where my picture was taken.

That dock is an even shorter walk to Love Lane, the town’s quaint one block business district, than via the Marina’s exit to the road. The only restriction: a three hour maximum stay at the dock. But that was much longer than we needed. Coffee, a donut, that missing postage stamp, some treasures from the hardware store and a chance to stretch our legs after two days aboard.

At dinner time the flame went out! No propane!  Raw meat did not appeal to us. But we have an adapter (acquired in Grenada back in 2012) so we can supply propane from those small green camping canisters. And we have a pair of the canisters. The problem was my fault; I had noticed a faint whiff of propane from the lazaratte where the tanks are stored, but did nothing about it. Apparently I had not tightened the big tank to the hose tightly enough, allowing a very small leak all summer. But attaching the adapter and the canister are better performed in daylight than by flashlight. And the adapter was not in the baggie that had its instruction manual!  What to do? Raw meat? No, the adapter was found near where it should have been.  Another quiet cool night.

September 14 - Cruise 2, Day 8 — Block Island RI to Stonington CT, 25 NM

A problem at first: both the shackle and its pin, which hold the tack of the mainsail (that ring top center sewn into the sail) to the forward end of the boom, we’re found lying on the deck. The pin had worked its way out! This picture shows it after reattachment at our destination where it took a lot of time, the effort of both of us, and four lines tying away the rest of the sail and pulling the ring forward, down, forward and vertical to get the horizontal pin through its hole. The problem was made difficult by having put the reef in the sail, for the day’s passage, which has the effect of pulling the mass of the sail aft. 

A beautiful five hour cruise, from 8 to 1, early start because stronger winds were predicted in the afternoon. Favorable tide in Watch Hill Passage also called for an early morning departure.  The admiral ordered a reefed main and small jib, which were not enough power at the beginning when the apparent wind was only 12 knots, but more than enough at the end when our instruments read 24 knots of apparent wind. And it’s always better to reef earlier than later. The passage included 5.2 NM under motor, (1.5) going out of Block and (3.2) from Watch Hill Passage to the anchorage behind Stonington’s NE seawall: (60 feet of snubbed chain in 15 feet of water at high tide). During the in and out we put on 1.8 engine hours. The fun part was under sail in the Atlantic, 13.3 NM as the crow flies and the purple line is printed on the chart, but we were tacking back and forth (five legs) which took 19.7 NM for a total actual wake of 25 NM. Over the five hours we averaged five knots. On the third track auto was steering and suddenly Lene said, we’re headed too close to the wind. I thought that auto had failed again but he had not, it was a 30 degree wind shift. We were slow, at 4 knots or less on the first underpowered ocean leg, but built to over seven. The tide was helping at the end.  The cats just lay low when it gets rough — we were pounding through waves the tallest of which were five feet — but they lay low all the time anyway.

An alternative destination we considered was Shelter Island, between Long Island’s forks, but that would have been a longer passage, and would have put us on Long Island, more south than Stonington, and with NNE winds forecast for tomorrow morning, a more northerly departure site will be an advantage. All of the forecasts until we get home have some West in them, the prevailing direction in these part.

We are the blue dot. Behind the NE seawall. Lene feared that the SW waves would creep in through the gap between land and the east end of the wall, (the gap shows in the last photo of this post, at sunset) but the chart shows shoals there which broke up the waves, and in any event the winds came around to NW, putting us in the Lee of the houses on the headlands, and by sunset the water was calm.The docks in the NE corner of the harbor and the nearly placed moorings off of them are Dodsons, who we had no reason to patronize this time. The docks southward toward the point are of the Stonington YC, where we have eaten. This time we dined aboard. At sunset. Below, to the left, the dark strip of land seen atop the seawall is Fishers Island and the dot on the water, center, far away, is North Dumpling Island which we pass at the western end of Fishers Island Sound, tomorrow. 

Sept 13 - Cruise 2, Day 7 — Second Lay Day in Block Is. , Zero NM

 

The calm before the storm. It arrived on schedule at 10 with very heavy wind as the front passed, followed by heavy but intermittent rain, occasionally accompanied by thunder claps, until two. Terrific privacy in heavy rain because sensible people hunker down in their cabins. But it was warm and so clad in very little but a thin foulie top and armed with a stiff brush I used the abundant fresh water pouring down from the heavens to get rid of the rest of the bird mess.    

Lots of those hard-to-get-in-the-season green moorings available all around us after (as before) the storm:

Lots of dialogue: should we start back today, after the rain - get closer to home without fighting strong head winds in the future? But the winds were very weak. And if we stayed in Block on the mooring we had already prepaid for, we could have dinner at The Oar, right at the dock, after pumping out the water in the  dink. The Oar serves popular non-gourmet cuisine in a nautical ambience. And staying would perhaps provide a chance to mail that check to the Huguenot. The Admiral suggested an early start tomorrow. 

In the afternoon I made a lot of progress in fixing the forward diesel fuel tank. It is the larger of the two but has not been used because in the first year it was installed, being an idiot, I put a bit of water in the fuel tank with the water hose. I suspect it was no more than a gallon in a 40 gallon tank. But since then we have not fed the engine from that tank. Water is heavier than diesel and hence will lay at the bottom of the tank. Fuel is drawn from tanks to the engine through pick up tubes that feed from the bottom.  So my method (I’ve done two batches of this before) has been to open the plug in the top of the tank, insert a battery operated fluid transfer pump and turn it on to discharge the liquid into a clear plastic one gallon former Poland Spring Water bottle. Once filled I let it sit for a few minutes to let any water settle to the bottom. The water is, uh, the color of water while marine diesel is dyed bright pink. I think that dying process has to do with preventing tax avoidance but it comes in handy. So far I have not seen a level of clear water at the bottom after letting each successive gallon settle for a few minutes. Next step is pouring the diesel from the bottle into the aft tank, the good tank, through a funnel with a “Baha filter”. I don’t know the science of how it works, but it lets the diesel through while keeping any water out. An the end of today’s operations there is plenty of pure diesel in the aft tank to get us home, and only about half an inch of fluids in the forward tank. It is so shallow that the fluid transfer pump is not picking it up. So this winter, before the freeze, when the boat has been hauled onto solid ground, I will take off the nine inch square cleaning port and get the rest of what is in there out, with sponges squeezed in my rubber gloved hands. When the tank is bone dry, I can reseal it and fill it next spring with diesel.  That’s the plan.

During the afternoon a dinghy with four people approached us. Alphie Girl was posing and Lene asked “So, are you cat people?”  They responded “No, we are Saga people. Peter and Cathy were of “White Star”, another Saga 43, and were home bound toward Annapolis from Nova Scotia with Curt and Kathy on “Five & Dime” a Beneteau First 42, on which they have lived without a land base for twenty years. They were headed south and Lene asked “Do you know Dean and Susan of Autumn Borne.” “Sure, they are so helpful to others.” We asked them to come aboard for a beer but they had plans. It turns out that ILENE is a newer boat than White Star — but not by much: their boat was the 22nd Saga 43 to come out of the mold and ours is hull number 23.

Dinner at The Oar was disappointing. Lene had expected more. But the charm of the place is its bar and it’s ambience, not the food.

The dink is hauled and we are ready to go tomorrow.

September 12 - Cruise 2, Day Six — Lay Day in Block Island, Zero NM

 Last time we were here was September 2019, during Hurricane Dorian. It rained last night, heavily, but without much wind. Lene, who sleeps under the large top-opening hatch, get her blanket a bit damp before I caught on and closed the hatch securely. But the bad news is that my latest effort to stop the mast boot leak, like it’s predecessors, has failed. Water dripping profusely down the mast. I set bowls on the table and the cabin sole to catch the majority, with the rest making its way into the bilge. When it dries up I will try again.

Morning chores: The square of blue canvas that closes the mainsail’s stack pack had its zipper jammed, with the talon in the middle and both ends open. I patiently, one at a time, with pliers pushing the sides together, got it off. Doyle will fix it this winter. The rain plus a scrub brush got most of the rest of the Milford birds’ poop of the canvas. More rain tonight and tomorrow, will let me finish that task. I wrote to the Huguenot, sending in our check for winter storage— but forgot to mail it!!!

But the most rewarding task was a long conversation with Joel, a tech at Raymarine. I sought guidance on restoring the vim and vigor of ILENE’s autopilot. When I described its symptoms Joel told me that three of its components (it has a lot of components) were suspect. The system was installed in 1999 and has given yeoman service during years of long mileage use, until weakening now; it owes me nothing. Raymarine now sells new autopilots that are five generations more advanced. But Joel gave me the names of two firms, both in Florida, who can test the components, decide which (or both of the computer unit and the control unit) is defective and probably not repair it but sell me a replacement, either new or refurbished with a one year warranty. The third suspect component, the drive motor, if I can get it out, will be bench tested by Bronx Ignition. So chores to keep me from getting bored this winter.

ILENE is in this photo with dark furled headsails, behind another boat in the mostly empty mooring field, center right.

After lunch,  a walk into town, a mile and a half away with a stop at the island’s only food market. But Lene’s sneaker started to raise a blister so big bandaids we’re added to the shopping list which solved the problem. We had our first disappointment due to it being post-season here; in season Aldo drives a boat among all the many moored boat yelling “Andiamo!!!” (accent on the last syllable) and selling fresh baked goods, especially the sweet Portuguese bread so excellent for French toast. Not enough boats here for that delivery service but we expected to be able to buy the bread at his bakery in town. No such luck.

Main Street:

The ferry across. the street with Ballard’s huge red roofed restaurant to the right:

It was foggy, the seawall barely visible:

Dinner was at Eli’s, a small 12 table restaurant named after its former owner’s dog. They open at six and take no reservations so folks line up outside, before six. We enjoyed fine dining — food and service — in pleasant low key ambience, e.g., no table cloths. I offered Lene a cab ride back to the dinghy dock but fortified by her bandaid we walked. And the fog banks created eerie optics on the way back.

A dry night. I removed the fuse to the bilge pump, shutting down its noisy test for water every two minutes. And in the morning, no increase in the level of water in the bilge.

September 7 — First Day of Our Second Cruise — Glen Cove 10 NM

How is it that we fly around the world each with “carry on and personal”, but require eleven bags of stuff for a short cruise. It’s because when flying we don’t pack bedding, towels,  cats, cat food, our food and pots and pans.

Anyway, we got to the club before 9 am to take advantage of high tide to bring ILENE to the dock and fill both water tanks and blast the remnants of the bird mess off the boat. A bit of a problem getting her tied to the dock with the wind blowing the boat away when going slow to approach. Fourth try was a success. Being at the dock made it easier to load the eleven bags and the two blocks of ice. All tasks achieved, including buying a sandwich for our lunch, removing a lot of cat food intended for the Florida trip to the car and taking the garbage from the boat to the dumpster — and we headed out at 11. A lot of time to get as far as we could toward Block Island before nightfall. No need for reservations after Labor Day they have plenty of room.

And the wind at 15 knots was nice and strong to move us. But from the wrong direction. Be could have beat our way east, tacking to cross the sound, back and forth, but the word beating has a secondary meaning relating to its effect of boat and crew. The wind and two foot waves were straight at us as we motored directly into it. Alpha Girl, a veteran in her fifteenth year of cruising, is becoming an old girl. She gave a loud yell of terror before losing her lunch.

Lene asked, what is near that provides protection from ENE wind? Well Zieglers is straight ahead, only 16 miles away. But at 2000 rpm’s we were making only between 5 and 5.5 knots speed over ground, so near, yes, but still more than three hours away. What is nearer?  We were passing Manhasset Bay. I thought about the area behind the sea wall jutting out from its east side at Glen Cove. We turned to starboard, put out just the small jib, doused the diesel and sailed at 4.5 knots. The chart shows lots or water behind that sea wall but much of it at 20 to 25 feet. Google earth’s photo view showed no boats moored there but that picture must have been taken in the winter because today, much of the area was full of moored boats and 100 feet of chain made for a swing radius larger than the holes between them. So we took a stranger’s mooring and its rode was quite dirty, meaning it was little used and its owner somewhat unlikely to show up on this grey Wednesday night. We backed down hard on it to test its holding power and it passed the test. We are the blue dot.

The sea wall was one end of the finish line of the Around Long Island Regatta, the other end being the committee boat anchored off of it. This was the case when I crewed for Sean on his 32 foot Oday “Kaithleen” back in the early 90’s. Fond memories, even the year when we did not finish within the time limit. Just south of us is the Sea Cliff YC, which we have visited several times in the past, but this behind-the-sea wall mooring field is a “new port” for us. My other memories of Glen Cove are not nautical of personal. When he came to this country fleeing from the NAZIs, and before he met and married my mom and needed to work year round in one place, my dad worked as a waiter “where the rich people were” as he told me. This meant Miami in the winter and the Glen Cove Country Club in the summer. I’ve never been to that Club but it is part of my inherited memory.

Underway two hours for ten Nautical miles. At this rate we won’t make it to Martha’s Vineyard and back in eleven days, but who cares?  No one is waiting for us in any port. We have nothing to prove by way of distance. Actually, most of the ports are fun. We’re taking it one day at a time and trying to enjoy each of them.

A cool, dry, quiet night.