Block Island, RI

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Mon 25 Jun 2012 01:42

41:11.44N 71:34.65W

 

 

Saturday & Sunday – 23rd and 24th June

 

Friday afternoon turned grey, then the rain started, heralding about 8 hours of on and off thunderstorms.   We felt very grateful to the Coastguard for providing 2 huge aerials in the vicinity as potential targets, rather than us.   And also very sorry for the family with 2 teenage daughters who had gone ashore in their dinghy but made no appearance back at their boat before all this started up!

 

As we were both awake rather too early courtesy of slapping wakes on the stern from departing fishermen, we opted to get up at 0430 and set off on the 210 miles trip to Block Island knowing that we probably had a 35 hour motoring trip ahead.

 

And exceptionally boring it was too: nothing to see, except to count the many helium foil balloons that drift around out at sea here causing initial panic as you think it is an unexpected fish pot buoy.

 

And as the day warmed up, you get to practice your favourite fly-swatting shot - we were inundated with black flies with very serious stings that could even penetrate jeans, so the cockpit was quickly back to resembling a battlefield again.   When the sun was setting the flies became frenetic and I got to desperation point, resorting to covering the cockpit in a liberal coating of fly spray.

 

Quiet night as well with quite a few fishing boats executing their usual random manoeuvres just in front of you and the very bright lights of New York illuminating the skyline 50 miles to our northwest.

 

As we neared our destination at midday having made good time, I was pleased to find that tidally we had arrived at the right moment.   There are very interesting tidal streams around Long Island, its sound and Block Island Sound (and then northwards around Cape Cod and Nantucket).  Luckily David on Moonbeam had pointed me in the direction of Eldridge's Annual Tide and Pilot book (in its 138th year, it is a US coastal stalwart and still in its original format which is fun) - this sort of vital info isn't detailed in ‘Doziers’ and is hard to represent on chart plotters.  It wasn't too prescient on a day of little wind, but the whirlpools (yes real ones!) we passed indicated you would really want to give it all due consideration on even a slightly more windy day.

 

We entered Great Salt Pond, Block Island via the channel which was cut through to the pond in 1895, after various previous attempts had failed.   At one point we motored past a fisherman up to his knees in the sea and we were less than a boat length away - presumably lack of dredging had an influence on the failures!   About 4 years ago the town council started laying buoys in huge mooring fields to accommodate the large numbers of boaters who arrive here (particularly at weekends and for July 4th) more efficiently, so the proper anchorage area is farther away from the marinas but we found a good spot and Rob has managed to find free wifi yet again and catch up with the rugby results.

 

We had a quick dinghy trip into the marina which also caters for boats at anchor, to suss out bike hire for the day tomorrow, but on our return to the boat we found that  the weather forecast is now for 2 solid days of rain so we will wait and see how we feel on Wednesday or whether we will want to moving on by then.