It must seem odd to you that we spend all our time on the boat and haven’t done that much sailing recently, in fact not since we sailed into New York in late April. Living on the boat is like living at home, you do stuff, you shop, you clean, you get fuel, water and few more bits for the galley, try and get American parts to fit European boats, put up shelves and pictures, sort out emails, phone calls, paperwork, pay bills, fix things – just like home – well cos our yacht is our home.

 

Anyway we left Mystic River and as often had no wind, but I was going to sail, so in 6kts of wind we went out through The Race leaving Long Island Sound and heading out into the North Atlantic once more towards Nantucket. The main went up beautifully, so much easier with the sail bag and additional mast steps, then we hoisted Old Blue, which had been repaired by UK Sailmakers in Minneford and we sailed away from the chasing fleet towards Block Island for our overnight anchorage.

 

It was a crowded anchorage and with weed on the bottom we had to reset the anchor, while others tried numerous times, we commented that if the wind blew it would be carnage. In the end it didn’t blow, but even so a French Ovni collided with a small local boat – Oops ! Pity we couldn’t have stayed as we wanted to check the bottom of the boat for fouling, as we feel we are slower, and we have now been in the water for 1 year so we could see how good the ultrasonic system is working. This would be a great place to dive, warmer water and no current with reasonable visibility, so we will stop on the way back and do the island properly.

 

We left at first light heading towards Nantucket as we have booked in for July 4 to celebrate the Yanks kicking the Limeys out of this place, but with so little wind we only made in to Martha’s Vineyard. A really nice slow relaxing sail, sometimes with the motor on, but we did catch the most beautiful fish, which was duly filleted and will be served various ways.

 

So now on to Nantucket to try and retake America back as I think we could run the place much better, they really seemed to have screwed up theirs and everyone else's economy