Sept 10 & 11 — Days 63 &64 — Charles Is. Anchorage to Lloyd Harbor and Lay Day There Due to Weather — 26 NM

 Underway at 8, halyard on mainsail, unzipped, hoping for wind. But the seas were calm and to get in before the forecast rains start this afternoon we motored rather than sailed. The early departure also got us a bit of fair tide before the eastbound ebb set in. But with the planned destination of Zeiglers Cove, we would be arriving around noon this Sunday and the moorings would likely be full for a lot of hours. Why not combine today’s passage with tomorrow’s and get home in one day? Less than 40 miles and we recently did 57. Yes, but I do not want to get home so soon; I want to continue to enjoy every day of this cruise, and that included tomorrow. And Lene, bless her soul, is being patient with me. We passed close by this pretty lighthouse at Stratford Point.

Then came the idea: Lloyds Harbor, the western lobe off Huntington Bay, across the Sound on Long Island. Why not! Many moorings and an anchorage area. With less than ideal weather, some will undoubtedly be available. We have been to Zeiglers many times; Lloyds only once. It is a longer passage first and a shorter final leg. So we changed course, but only about fifteen degrees to port and motored on.

But then came the problem — and it looked much blacker and denser than Lene’s photo, below; every part of the sky looked blacker than the darkest parts in the picture. The storm covered the Sound completely, from north to south — no escape. The Coast Guard broadcast a hazard warning about wind but mostly about problems that don’t concern us: flash floods and downed trees.  I secured the mainsail, and zipped it up. We took everything that should stay dry below and I donned full foulies. Lene has a weather radar app on her phone which showed it coming. I turned on the radar display of our Chart plotter, which showed us in it. And then it came — from 11 to 12:30. It was wholly inconsistent. A few minutes of 35 knot wind, another band of 25 knots , and later at 20, bury each from a different direction. And there were periods of calm or light and variable wind in between. The rain came in bands,  torrentially, but mixed with moderate, light and no rain areas. The strong winds were sometimes with the rain snd other times without.

Needless to say I got drenched but the Yanmar pulled us through it, speeded up to 2000 rpms, and the autopilot, at heightened alertness steered us straight. 

In Lloyds Harbor, by my count, there are about 225 moorings, all of them empty: to the south, west and north of us.

We took one that appeared well maintained. I stripped, dried off,  put on dry clothing,  had a lunch which included hot soup in addition to the salad, and took a nap and read. Lene watched TV. She could not watch the US Open the other day due to a feud between media companies, but was glued to internet reports on the matches, point by point, followed by highlights films and  post match press interviews. She is very enamored with Coco Gauff, and was elated by her win.

More rain during the night and the morning forecast was for thunderstorms again, though it was sunny in the morning. Lene suggested a lay day. I loved it — a bonus day for  the cruise!  We have no appointments that need be adjourned and sufficient provisions. In fact, eating them up to avoid the need to carry them home is adding to my weight.

A non sailing friend put me onto a 45 minute documentary - One Warm Line - about the mostly sea songs of the late Canadian folksinger Stan Rogers, focused on Nova Scotia. I’d never heard of him but enjoyed it.

Our extra day might not have been needed. No rain arrived here at least, until about 4:30.

Here is a satellite view of the harbor, the western part of Huntington Bay to the right, and a bit of  Long Island Sound at the top.

Sept 9 — Day 62 — Old Saybrook to Charles Island Anchorage, Milford — 34 NM

I forgot to raise the dinghy last night and when it was time to go this morning the ebbing tide insisted on an early departure.  So I quickly raised it out of the water, just hanging there, and we came out of North Cove and into the river before I raised it the rest of the way and secured it snugly. There were no waves or wind. The current in the river helped us, but most of the rest of the journey until the last hour we had a adverse tide. Towards the beginning, there was a bit of wind from the south, so I put up full sails and got our speed increased by half a knot. But later in the day the wind turned to directly behind us at the speed we were going. This meant zero apparent wind.  Yanmar did all the work. And it was hot as blazes. We wetted towels and hats and put them on to cool off.

There is a sandbar, the faint white line in the satellite photo, running from Charles Island to the mainland to the west, which creates a shelter behind the island. Milford is at the end of the inlet. It is a well restauranted and “happening” town, but the local Milford Landing Municipal Marina (which the Harlem Cruise visited several times in the past)  has joined the trend to exorbitant pricing. And with a forecast of the same “light and variable” wind that we had by day, we anchored in 13 feet of water at low with 60 feet of snubbed chain. 

There was one sailboat several hundred yards north of us (still there in the morning visible against the row of beachfront houses on the left) and three small powerboats near the island. The powerboats left at 4:30.

With our early arrival, Chef Lene (assisted by her private vegetable chopper/dishwasher) knocked herself out. I’ve avoided making this a food blog, but an exception must be made for our exceptional three pot dinner.

During the night, at about two A.M., we had a brief string wind storm. A front may have passed, dropping no rain. I got up and looked at the chart plotter in the cockpit: we had not dragged. A beautiful sunrise.

Sept 8 — Day 61 — Fishers Island to Old Saybrook CT — 19 NM

Here is a picture from yesterday’s passage of ILENE  heading west into the late afternoon sun.

Today we departed at 1:15 PM to catch favorable tide the whole way. The wind was more than yesterday, and not as accurately predicted: ten to fifteen from the south. That would have given us pretty much a beam reach. But the wind was from the south west for a close reach. When we put up sails, we had fifteen knots of wind and hence used the small jib with the main, not the Genoa.We were going along great at more than seven knots, but then the wind stopped. Yesterday, it diminished from giving us six knots, to giving us three. Today it stopped completely. We drifted. After ten minutes without steerage I turned the engine on. I lack the patience of Columbus and of racers, for whom using the engine means quitting the race. Yes, it is not about speed; “the joy is in the journey”. But drifting for any length of time when we have a destination is no fun either. After another ten minutes, the wind came back and we sailed again. On the way to North Cove we stopped at the marina’s fuel dock and filled both tanks. I have not yet calculated the latest hours per gallon ratios for the two tanks. We have certainly used the engine more on this cruise than prior ones with day long motoring passages. Here is me, wearing sun screen and trying to keep off the sun; do you recognize me?

North Cove is an old favorite for its convenience and the fact that the town maintains two moorings for free use by transients, first come first served, for up to 72 hours. We nave never used one for more than one night. The moorings in question are closest to the town dinghy/crabbing dock. I wonder why the crabs don’t learn to stay anywhere in the basin except within five feet of the dock. It makes for a very short dinghy ride, maybe 100 feet. This time, the convenience factor was magnified by Coast Guard broadcasts of trouble with the railroad bridge, a wee bit upstream. When it cannot be raised between trains, boats at upstream locations are locked in for the duration. The dock:

One time a few years ago we got stuck in the mud here and had to wait a few hours for the tide to come up to get out. They dredged a few years ago we we are leery on the way in. Lene called for local knowledge and was told to avoid coming and going at low tide. We did so, at two hours before and after high, on our way in and out. The way is between the two rows of keel boats in the center.

 Power boats with shorter drafts are moored in parallel rows further from the center. The narrow slot of water in the center of the aisle is the Connecticut River. We elected Aspen, a nice restaurant on Main Street, for dinner, our first meal off the boat after several days aboard. On the way home we saw the effect of very distant lightning: flickers of light against the clouds from bolts beyond our horizon. A strange phenomenon.

September 7— Day 60 — Cuddyhunk to Lewis Rock in West Harbor, Fishers Island — 57 NM

 Today was a great sailing day — the type we do not get enough of. Sunny, good visibility of three miles, and very moderate waves. We got underway at 9:25 and once out of the bay on the east side of Cuddyhunk where we had anchored, we sailed under full main and Genoa almost the whole way to near Lewis Rock in West Harbor on the north side of Fishers Island, where we dropped anchor at deep dusk at 7:30 pm after 10 1/4 hours underway. During those hours we ran the engine at the beginning, in the end end and for half an hour in the middle —  a total of 1.8 engine hours. This left almost 8 1/2 hours of pure sailing. Almost the whole voyage was close hauled, but we made good speed The forecast was for ten to fifteen knots from the Southwest, turning more southerly in the afternoon. That forecast ruled out Block Island which was rather due SW. so we considered two spots on Jamestown Island, next to Newport. One of them had room to anchor, but was still a bit north, which would have required southing the next day. Then there were several options in Point Judith — the Harbor of Refuge and the upstream anchorage. We headed west but our course over ground was a bit north of that, which would have resulted in a hard contact with the State of Rhode Island just east of Sakonnet. So we tacked to a southerly course — for almost an hour, going perpendicularly vis a vis our destination. The trick was to guess how far south to go. My guess initially looked wrong after we tacked back onto the Westerly course — we were not going to clear Point Judith. But I had considered the forecast of more southerly wind, and, as the wind gradually came south and allowed us to do so, one degree at a time, we changed course more to port and cleared Point Judith  and its outcropping Harbor of Refuge, handsomely. But at 3 pm, after about 24 miles of joy and three miles before Point Judith, with 24 miles to go, the wind got tired and slowed down; we were making only three knots instead of the six. We had been making.  So the engine had to be turned on and brought us back to six knots. 24/3= eight hours or an eleven pm arrival. But divided by six knots it is four hours or a seven pm. arrival. An hour later the wind turned itself back on. And we had hit Mr Eldridge’s “X” spot

fairly well, only two hours late,  and had good or neutral tide mostly the whole way. We flew into Fishers Island Sound through Watch Hill Passage at 7.5 knots.  We anchored is 18 feet of water with 70 feet of snubbed chain, secure in the lee of the Island against the predicted southerlies. 

We are the blue dot. The island is over nine miles long, giving you a sense of its nearness to Connecticut, to the north, but it is part on New York State. The ugly menacing rocks in this next picture are east of us.

This big catamaran, lighted up overly well at night, was anchored a good safe distance north of us.

The east side of the Harbor is where the Yacht Club is:

September 6 — Day 59 — Vineyard Haven to Cuddyhunk Hunk— 19 NM

 This was the first of the last few days of the cruise, the main idea is to get home. Another windless day but at least we timed it to avoid adverse tide. We made another batch of fresh water and tasted it. It was NOT salty.

We passed this interesting tow, a fishing boat, instead of a tug was pulling a barge with a crane.

This fishing boat took up a lot of room on the water with its booms out to the sides, though he was not pulling nets.

Once through Quick’s Hole, the easiest hole to get from Vinyard Sound back north into Buzzards Bay, there was a bit of wind and we sailed for about a mile and half under spinnaker on a broad reach. But we were making only 1.5 knots, and when this slowed to half a knot we gave up and motored the last couple of miles. We anchored in the same spot that we occupied on our last visit here with niece Yael a few years ago. I lowered the dink for a swim, but we did not go ashore. This is a very sleepy place, more so after Labor Day. 

September 5 — Day 58 — Hyannisport to Vineyard Haven — 19 NM

 Another windless day, though we put up the small jib, sheeted in overly tightly,  to give us a few extra tenths of a knot. We needed those tenths against the very strong three knot adverse tide off East Chop, Vineyard Haven, especially because in the light wind we towed, rather than raised the dinghy. 

One thing that impressed me the last few days and today, like never before, was the number, variety and frequency of ferries traversing the waters of Woods Hole, Hyannis, Vineyard Haven and other ports on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.  It is almost like the waters of NYC — except that to M’s Vineyard and Nantucket there are no bridges, tunnels or other ways to get there (except by air or private boat). 

We ran east through Nantucket Sound in still water. There are long shoals running east-west in Nantucket Sound and Vineyard Sound. On the chart plotter, I “drew” a straight line from the exit from Hyannis to the entrance to Vineyard Haven but it crossed the shoals in shallow spots - less then ten feet or even six. So twice I put in a waypoint, off the direct line but near both that line and a deeper portion of the shoal. Reaching that waypoint we did a zig across the shoal in at least eleven feet of water and then a zag to the next such waypoint. The deeper spots for crossing are not marked by buoys, so without the chart plotter I would not have dared dead reckoning through such “gaps”. 

During the passage, with numerous emails back and forth between Lene and Bryan, of HeadSync, our plumber, we fixed (we hope) the water maker. Here is a  messages on its control panel after making water, suggesting it is fixed and will flush itself in five days.

We put five gallons of desalinated water into the port freshwater tank. The taste test will be during the repeat experiment tomorrow. If the water tastes good, the machine is fixed; if fixed, this will cut Newport RI from our itinerary on the way home and save big bucks because the mechanics want to work on ILENE when she is at a dock — which costs $360 per night.

In Vineyard Haven’s inverted “V” shaped harbor (analogous to the shape of Hempstead Harbor in ILENE’s home waters of Long Island Sound) we saw “Escape”. Well who could miss her 236 foot and 33 foot beam.

The helicopter on her huge foredeck was gone later in the day.

Our visit here was with Mark and Kyle, who moved here a few years ago. They brought lunch and we had a 2.5 hour day sail with them. Well “float” would be a more accurate description than sail, due to the very light wind. Last time we did this with them it was breezy and we went across Vineyard Sound and back, twice, but this time we maxed out briefly at 2.4 knots and mostly were making half a knot. And it was the hottest day of the cruise, so far, giving the impetus to a cooling dip in the sea; I never did a swim call before except with sails down.

After returning our friends to shore we wandered the shops of the village for a while. Lene got groceries but we decided to not eat in a restaurant, dinked back and had a late dinner aboard.

And here are the early and late stages of the sunset.

September 4 — Day 57 — Falmouth to Hyannisport — 18 NM

Very light wind this morning so we motored all the way.  Our course was eastbound, away from home — our last such of this cruise. Our purpose was to visit Lee, of my book group, his wife Pattty and their son Aaron. Patty grew up summering in what was her parent’s home in Hyannisport. It was great to see friends from home. The Hyannis YC was where President Kennedy was a member. It is a rather posh club (to the left) with large docks, a beach and mooring field in a well sheltered bay.

We used the dink because we planned to get back after launch service ended. We showered, and unless the clubhouse was rebuilt sinse then, I showered in the stall where President Kennedy did.

We had lunch, we’re taken to Whole Foods to provision and then enjoyed the afternoon in conversation with our gracious hosts in their home followed by a great vegan dinner cooked up by Aaron. They had offered the beach, which is in walking distance from the house. We beached the last time we cruised here but today, rest was called for and enjoyed.