We’ve spent the last two weeks in and around the Narragansett Bay (Newport R.I.) which has some 400 miles of coastline.  Much of our time has been spent in Newport and with good reason.  The charm and vibrancy of this amazing sailing mecca hits you between the eyes.  It’s a delight to wander the orderly streets of well-preserved, coloured clapboard houses and to soak up the genteel living of a previous age, yet at the same time the waterfront is tightly packed with docks and wharfs, all busy providing facilities for the vast array of boats and lively with throngs of people enjoying the restaurants, artisan shops and boutiques.  Anchored out in the harbour, just off the New York and Ida Lewis Yacht Clubs, we have a continuous spectacle of yachts and dinghies sailing past. 

We have yet to experience the opulence of some of the mansions of Newport, but the colonial Trinity Church (1725) is impressive with its original features and we greatly enjoyed seeing the work of Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish at the National Museum of American Illustration at Vernon Court, the name of which leads me to an aside as to when the Brits started calling the colonialists ‘American’, rather than applying it to the native Indians, which they had been doing as early as 1578.

Back in the early 1600s religious refugees emigrating from England to Virginia was a route to an early death for the majority. According to Bill Bryson, between December 1606 and February 1625, Virginia received 7,289 immigrants and buried 6,040 of them.  Of the 3,500 who arrived in the three years 1619-21, 3,000 were dead at the end of the period.  But 100 years later life on the east coast was much improved and drew large numbers of Germans, French, Scots, Irish and black Africans.  So although no longer just an English domain, it was still nonetheless under British rule and they were happy to show their might. In 1739, the Spanish, fed up with the exploits of British privateers, cut off the ear of an English smuggler named Edward Jenkins.  The Brits retaliated, thereby starting the War of Jenkins’ Ear – I bet you didn’t study that war at school. (The commander of the fleet in the war was Edward Vernon, whose nickname for some reason was Old Grog and it was he who introduced the navy’s daily ration of rum and water – hence the name of the drink – grog.) Although a relatively small affair, it was during this war that the Brits started to refer to the provincials or colonials as Americans, seeing them perhaps as an entity in their own right.

A couple of American friends joined us last weekend to sail the fifteen miles to the rural island of Cuttyhunk.  What a contrast between the summer warmth outbound and creeping through the thick fog on our way back to Newport!  With temperatures so far as high as 38 degrees C, at least the fog provides some natural air-conditioning.

We also seem to have been busy cleaning and ‘messing about in boats’, which is probably just as well.  Having explored the delightful town of Bristol, as it was a nice moonlit night we thought we would seek the prime anchorage for the Rhode Island Air Show the following day, which would also allow us to have a lie-in.  Intent on avoiding the many lobster pots, we didn’t notice the Coast Guard pilot vessel coming up behind us until almost the moment they were alongside with their flashing light asking when we had last been boarded. Their mission was nominally to check our safety equipment, but it seemed to be important to check our bilges and one of the engine compartments. How fortunate that I had cleaned both for the first time that morning. The two coastguards who came aboard, like all the Americans we have had the pleasure to come in to contact with, showed us the utmost courtesy.  The automatic response to ‘Thank you’ is ‘You’re welcome’ – which I think is lovely.