Almost any new place we go to we arrive with some idea of what it is going to be like. Since I had never been to Block Island before, but knew of it most of my life, I came here with a pretty good idea of what I’d find. Much of what I expected I found, but other things surprised me.
We are anchored in the Great Salt Pond, a marvelous harbor with complete protection in all directions. The anchorage is deep, and crowded. There are a good number of boats that spend all summer here, but since it is only a 16 mile trip from the mainland many boats come for the weekend. Watching the “weekend warriors” anchor has taught me many new ways to anchor boats–all of them bad!
There is a launch service here that you hail on the radio, and for $4 they take you into shore. We went in on Saturday morning and had our first walk-about. This introduced me to a face of Block Island that I hadn’t known about. Walking the marina docks at one in the afternoon, they were crowded with mostly small boats full of twenty- and thirty- somethings who were already working very hard to get very drunk. The “party-hardy” side of Block Island wasn’t one I expected.
Here in the harbor, there are a huge variety of boats. Several from Canada starting their annual migration to the south. Some boats obviously serious cruisers, and a lot of boats that are just kind of not really very much into the technical details. Take a look at the pictures for some highlights.
Yesterday we sailed around the island, stopping to fish in a promising looking spot. For dinner we had the largest black sea bass I ever landed (see pictures again…)
fetchinketch 