fetchinketch

Yesterday, we had a delightful social day.  We meet with Nate Hathaway for lunch, a former associate of mine from when I was teaching sailing on the west coast.  He is now working on a W-class raceboat (http://www.w-class.com) that is having work done here before she heads down to the Caribbean for the winter. Another chance for us to wander around Newport Shipyard and see the most amazing superyachts on the planet.

While we were waiting for Nate, we watched while a crane pulled the mast out of Topaz, the newest of the huge and beautiful J-Class boats. http://www.hoekdesign.com/yacht/j8-topaz

This is a picture of me standing nest to the mast step of an aluminum stick that is every bit of 200 feet tall. No, you can’t see the other end of it in this picture, it goes on forever!

Karen also go a picture of Nate and I in the cockpit of Wild Horses, the truly beautiful traditional racing boat that Nate works on these days.  That laminated wood steering wheel is just a work of art unto itself.

In the later afternoon we took our dinghy over to Harbor House and met Miles and Carol for drinks.  They also own an Amel Super Maramu just like Harmonie, but a little newer.  Delightful people, and drinks with the most awesome view of Narragansett Bay possible.

We stopped in downtown Newport for dinner where we shared a huge bucket of steamer clams and a lobster pizza.  It was really tasty and quite an attractive meal.

Just one problem…  sometime in the middle of the night Karen got out of bed and spent the next few hours with all the ugliest symptoms of food poisoning.  Which is totally strange, because I was fine, and all day we had eaten exactly the same things!  I think it was that third clam from the left.  He looked a  little dicey…. Fortunately, by the morning she was better.

While she recovered from her sleep deprived night, I walked to  he hardware store and got a tool I needed to fix the watermaker.  Since that repair was successful, today counts as a slow, but productive day.

After a leisurely afternoon sail down Narragansett Bay, and we are now set up on a mooring in Newport Harbor.  Sitting on Mooring Number 1, with a front row seat for the superyachts.  It’s a fun place to be.

Suddenly our social calendar is filling up! We have drinks at the New York Yacht Club tomorrow afternoon with a fellow Amel owner, having someone over to visit who is in the process of buying a new-to-them Amel, and hoping to connect with a west coast sailing friend who is here locally working on a yacht.

All that and get a shopping trip and laundry run fit in too!

Right not it looks like we have run out of time for traveling further north, so we will be heading south to the Chesapeake Bay once we finish up here.

Windy, but not too bad.  Not too much rain–yet–either.

Winds this afternoon have been 25 gusting to the low 30’s.  If we were back in San Francisco Bay, it would be just a good windy afternoon for sailing.  We’ll likely be settled in here for a few days waiting for this to, errrr, “blow over.”  Wednesday afternoon, or Thursday morning will have us underway again.

One of the few things to have frustrated me about Harmonie’s set up has been the dodger.  The canvas hood that screens the cockpit from wind and spray.  That it does very well, and we are thankful for it.  The problem is that is also completely screens the sails from view of the person sitting at the helm.  I am enough of an old-fashioned sailor that I really feel I need to be able to see my sails to do a good job of sailing the boat.

So one of the projects on our project board for a while has been “adding a window to the dodger”.  Today we got it started–and finished. I keep a sewing machine on the boat for just such projects, and this one went off without a hitch.  In nicer weather, we might have spread out on deck for this project, but that wasn’t an option today so the main saloon was our workspace.  There is one seam I wish was straighter, but except for that, it is a job I’d have been happy paying for.

It came out awesomely, if I say so myself!  Now I can trim sails from the comfort of the helm seat without stretching my neck, or needing help.

A breezy day, but one that we would categorize as a great sailing day rather than anything scary.  Monday morning is supposed to be when our roughest weather starts.  Local forecasts are for steady winds of 20 to 28 knots, with gusts possibly as high as 45.  Actually, not all that bad–assuming the forecast is close to accurate.

Tuesday looks rainy and windy again, but for now the forecast is for things to clear out on Wednesday.  When hopefully we can get back underway!

The day before yesterday we were the only boat anchored here Kickamuit River.  That let me pick the spot I liked best and get well settled in.  Over the last two days about a dozen other boats have trickled in to this protected bay picking their own spots.  It’s not crowded, everybody is well spaced out. I watch each boat coming in and evaluate their anchoring gear and technique.  So far, nobody has me really worried.

We just finished clearing the decks putting as many things below and out of the wind’s reach as much possible.  One of the great things about an Amel, is the cavernous storage spaces.  Even our liferaft has a dedicated below deck space.  The dinghy and its engine happily go into the locker at the stern. The only thing we have left on deck is one jerry can of gasoline for the outboard. Looking at some of the other cruising boats here in the bay I am shocked by the amount of “stuff” they carry on deck.

The boring part?  Other than waiting, it is the upcoming weather forecast:

At first I thought this meant they didn’t know for sure when the storm was going to get here.  But, nooooo… it’s expected to linger in the area for days. Since we are ready for the worst that can be expected, we are hoping to be pleasantly surprised at getting less than that. But if we have to spend four days in strong winds, we are ready for that too.

Right now the weather is overcast, with north winds at 8 knots or so.  Nice to get here early and spend the last daylight hours relaxing with a beer, watching other people scramble to get ready.

We are not in any significant danger from any of the forecast variations of what was (for a few hours at least) hurricane Hermine.  But that doesn’t mean we are quite completely off the hook either.

Every tiny little wiggle in the forecast track makes a huge difference this far out, so every update presents us with a slightly different scenario.  Right now my smart money is that sometime Monday we will see heavy rain and winds of between 30 and 45 knots.  Much, much less of an issue for us than a “real” hurricane.  In our little pond here, there will be no real waves, and the wind itself really can’t hurt the boat.

I am very happy with our spot right now, we’ll be doing everything we can to make sure that the anchor is well and deeply set.  If winds of 50 knots are forecast, we’ll be stripping the deck of the boat, to reduce windage as much as we can.  Things like taking the roller furling jib down, taking down extra lines, putting the dinghy and its engine in the locker: basically giving the wind as little to grab hold of as possible.  We do this not to keep things from blowing away but to keep the load on the anchor as low as possible.

Our 88 pound anchor is one of the best, and is actually oversized for our boat. So connected with 3/8″ high test chain, other than enduring a noisy and wet night, we’ll be settled in safe and snug.

This afternoon we’ll be taking the dinghy in and hitting the grocery store and a chandlery for some last minute supplies, then relaxing.  It will be interesting seeing how many boats come up here to hunker down.  Yesterday we were the only boat anchored here.  Last night two more came in.  I am hoping it doesn’t get too crowded.  Other than the weather itself, the one thing I can not control is the skill and equipment other boats anchor with.

While reviewing the weather forecast last night I saw a little addition to the forecast that hadn’t been there before.  It looked like this:

Not my idea of fun!  The forecast concerns the track of tropical storm Hermine, just now taking aim at Northern Florida.  What this forecast actually means is that winds of between 39 and 74 knots could happen.  I am not too concerned about winds of 40 or 45 knots.  But when we start talking about 60 knots and above, I want to be someplace very safe.  The harbor in Block Island has good all directions protection, but it is deep, the bottom is not the best for anchoring, and it is crowded with other boats whose anchors I do not trust.  Not only that, Block Island is out closer to the projected path of the storm.

So I went looking for an alternative, and found the Kickamuit River deep inside Narragansett Bay.  A spot well regarded locally as a “Hurricane Hole”.  When I reviewed the forecast this morning, it hadn’t changed, so  we weighed anchor and spent today sailing in from Block Island and just as the sun set we dropped anchor in the Kickamuit.

It is perfect place to wait out the weather for a few days.  Deep enough to hold us without problems, it is shallow enough we can get a good bite with the anchor.  The harbor itself is about a quarter mile across, and completely enclosed so no room for big waves to build up. And to top it off it is a very pretty spot, with good fishing.  We’ll be staying here and exploring locally until the storm passes by, or the forecast changes.

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…)

The Lynx announced her arrival into the Great Salt Pond with a salute from her cannon.

A beautiful setting for a home.

“Downtown” Block Island is dominated by the National Hotel.

“Petersburg”, the former Navy tug that is our closest neighbor here in the anchorage.

The lighthouse on the Northern end of Block Island.

The “Lynx” crossing the bow of “The Tree of Life”

The brick lighthouse on the southern tip of Block Island.

Sunset on Great Salt Pond.

Not huge as fish go, but a sea bass is a very tasty dinner, and this is the biggest one I have ever caught.

An old Navy tug anchored here in Great Salt Pond that serves as a summer home.

One thing Block Island has is beautiful scenery.

Harmonie from the shore launch.

We had a delightful sail over to Block Island today.  Steady wind, we sailed almost the whole way.  The only issue was that Block Island is southwest of Dutch Harbor.  So which way was the wind blowing from?  If you are a sailor, you already know the answer, from the southwest of course!  The weather was so perfect, we really didn’t mind the extra tacking it took to get here. We had a few other sailboats go by who were in more of a rush than we were, and just pointed straight into the wind and motored. We felt very much more sailorly, using our sails to get to where we wanted to go!

When we got here, and came in the channel to Great Salt Pond, we were greeted by a LOT of boats already in the anchorage.  And I mean a LOT!  It is a deep harbor, so finding a place to drop our anchor in water shallow enough to give us confidence in our holding and still being a bit away from other boats was a challenge.  We took a couple laps around, and found “our” spot, dropped the anchor and settled in. We got here late enough that we haven’t had a chance to explore at all yet.  That will come tomorrow.

While hanging out on deck after dark we were very glad that we arrived during daylight.  Watching people drive around, trying to find a place to anchor in the dark makes me very glad I am not them!