Newport yet again
Catacaos
Graham Shaw
Thu 24 Sep 2009 22:51
We decided to venture further east, to Cuttyhunk. Beautiful spot, very
idyllic, and we visted at the right time. In the height of Summer it must
be overrun with
boats. We took a hike around the island to see the sights.
The following day we proceeded to Martha's Vinyard, flying the spinnaker,
again
a lovely place, again would be overrun with boats in high season. See the
photo of the ferry making the short crossing to Chappaquidick There was no
space
for anchoring inside the harbour at Edgartown, so we stopped outside for two
nights.
Mooring buoys were available, but at 40 dollars a night we considered this
too
expensive, well I did anyway. New York was only 30 dollars a night and you
are
right in the city, all relative I suppose?? The town was very beautiful,
again we wish we had more time to venture further north. The only one
concern
about this island is half of it is a "dry" - yes 21st century and you
still get this. We did not venture to the dry side. Not that we are
alchies, of course.
We were going to carry on to Nantucket, but the forecast was giving high
winds
for the following few days and also in the wrong direction for us, so we
decided to return to Newport. Lovely sail back the wind was pretty strong,
reef in and genoa slightly rolled, we were still going 9 knots. We are
still getting the hang of the boat and the best way to sail her, as she is
very sensitive, a slight adjustement could change your speed by a knot or
more.
Another reason to return to Newport was the Newport boat show. Graham could
not contain his excitement, in fact we went press day as he could not wait
another day. For all those who do not know press day is open to the public,
but it is usually twice the entry fee than the normal opening days. The
plus of press day is it is not as busy and you can spend a lot more time
grilling stands for info on what you are buying. Anyway always money is
spent at these events, which is sometimes good, sometimes bad. I think this
time we
have enhanced the boat with our purchases. We managed to buy a freezer
unit, yes a freezer, I am a little excited about this one as it makes my
life much easier for cooking for the meat eating male population on the
boat. Gray even more execited as he can buy ice cream. As some of you may
know at 160 litres our fridge is a little too big on our boat, in fact you
could fit a person
in it, so we decided to split it and make a new box in the front section for
the freezer. This also can work out better for electicty consumption as the
freezer runs on 12 volt while the fridge has to be run with the engines on.
Only time will tell especially in the Caribbean how effective this is when
the weather
starts to warm up.
Gray has just remined me the purchase of our five mile WIFI. A must for
cruisers. This piece of equipment increases you capability to pick up WIFI
signals, which has been a problem all through our voyage. It does make a
lot
of difference, and of course make life much easier as we do not have to take
the computer ashore. We purchased the new wifi antenna on the internet, but
we had a problem
with our British card on the american payment system, but luckily enough Joe
and
Christy (and their two daughters) who own the company just happen to be
sailing to
Newport the next day, on their Switch 51 catamaran. Now most of the time I
am very
happy with our boat, especially when comparing to other boats, but a sad day
was had when we visited Joe and Christy on their boat, what space. Sorry
boys bigger is better. She is 13ft larger than us so huge difference, but
it was also the layout. At the boat show we visited a Eleuthera which is a
60ft version of our boat which I feel the space was not utilised to its best
ability, so it
was just not the size. Ah I can dream, just think of the time I save on
cleaning on our little boat??? Sorry off at a tangent, WIFI, what a
difference, before we were lucky to get a signal to send email, now we can
surf the internet all day. A must buy for cruisers.
We also purchased a purmedic mattress, which is a memory foam mattress,
which
was great fun to fit, but worth it once slept on. The following day we had
to go back to the boat show to buy all the bits and pieces Gray managed to
forget the day before, boat tat I call it. One thing we did find was a
fishing rod holder, all we need is to catch some fish now.
When we returned to Newport there was a very familiar looking boat called
Rusée de
Jersey. Now just to prompt those interested, this boat belonged to the
Jersey
Cruising School for many years, with the name Rusé. Also in his younger
years Gray sailed on this
boat a number of times to France with his school. Surprising enough
even I had been on the boat as well, also on a trip to France. She is a
Kelt 39.
These boats have a distinctive layout, we have never come across another
boat
like it, that is why you would remember it so well. They are very spacious
below deck, the seating area is set up as an aft saloon, below the cockpit,
and could seat at
least ten, which is normally not possible on a monohull of that size. You
could sleep six or more on it comfortably, below deck also has a panoramic
view, which
gives a airey feel to the boat. They were flying a Canadian flag. Being
nosy people we dinghied over for a chat. Yves and Dominique are Canadian,
and they bought the boat back in 2004 from Jersey and sailed her back
to Quebec. Several nights we joined up for drinks and food, lovely people
and lovely company.. They are off to Bermuda, which I tried to persuade
Gray
to go to, but it's not to be. They will be heading to the Caribbean after,
so I am
sure we will catch up with them again there. These boats stopped being made
in
the mid nineties, the rights were bought by another French boat company, it
is a shame that these boats were not continued being made as the design was
very ahead of itself for its time.
This morning we have decided to start to head back south, so goodbye to New
England, Maine not to be reached.
