Block Island

Block Island, Rhode Island

This is where we are right this minute. We are  anchored in Salt Pond, the large bay area at the 'bone of the lamb chop,' as the land suggests.  In one of the last weekends of the season, boaters have come from all over to explore this amazing place.  We discovered a lovely old hotel, the Surf Inn, where we had mussels and clam strips overlooking east entrance to the island. This is such an amazing discovery we're staying an extra night (or more!).

First thing in the morning, a yell comes through the Block Island  anchorage: "Andiamo!" This means a boat with fresh baked goods, fruit and coffee is wending it's way through the mooring field. Very pricey,  but so is everything on an island

The Andiamo boat

Classic old hotel on the walk to town

Boat Names

Boat names are fun to observe.  Sailboats often have lyrical, soft, names like 'Windsong' 'Halcyon' 'Adagio' 'Anthem' 'Hymn' while power boats, especially the phallic designed monsters are named 'Bow Thruster,' 'Throbbin' Robbin,' 'Purely Pleasure', and my all-time least favorite, 'Wet Dream' ... then there are those for the white liars who can honestly say "I'm at 'The Office' or on a 'In a Meeting' when that's just what their boat is named. 

Here you see 'License to Chill.' 

Boat Name: License To  Chill

Boat Name: Private Reserve

Boat Name: Nauti Girl

Many more sunsets, please

View of the Atlantic from the porch of the Surf Inn 

This is the ocean side of Block Island (we are moored in the 'New Harbor' on the other side)

T-shirt culture on Block Island

Sadness in Paradise

Block Island, 8-23-2012

One electronic message can sure change a day.

Just 24-hours ago Richard and I were having breakfast in a small cafe on Main St. in downtown Mystic, Ct.

I was looking at Facebook on my iPhone and saw a note from Natasha Newcomb, whom I had met at Barbara Mack's house about four years ago at a woman's potluck in Des Moines. She wrote how sorry she was to learn of Barbara's death. 

'What?!!!" I responded. More Facebook updates confirmed the news. 

Richard and I both had histories with Barbara Mack. Mine tangential, Richard's directly when she was corporate counsel to The Register and Tribune Company at the time he was president. When the company properties were sold off and Gannett bought The Register, Barbara joined the faculty at Iowa State University.

Barbara Mack was two years younger than I am. Our first jobs at The Des Moines Register were as 'copy kids'.  As I drifted through my 20s and 30s, Barbara was focussed and driven in ways I better understand now that I read a feature story a former student wrote about her when she began working in the office of the president of Iowa State. An alcoholic and abusive father tried to thwart her college education, and as Barbara was quoted: "…Gave me the only broken bones I've ever had."

Phone calls started coming in from former Register staffers who knew Barbara. There's a primal need to connect when a member of 'the tribe' dies.  As the day unfolded, Barbara Mack's Facebook page was flooded with tributes from her former students, mostly, talking about how she had changed or shaped their lives. I learned more about Barbara Mack via this strange new medium than any obituary or sermon could ever capture. 

An unexpected and untimely death draws one inward and being on a seemingly limitless body of water, as we were traveling from Mystic to an island off of Rhode Island,  both of us were in a reflective, quiet mood. 

What kind of legacy are we leaving? What's left to do? Barbara apparently thought about her legacy a good deal. Without children of her own, she adopted those she taught and yesterday many of them wrote to say she was the best professor they ever had.  It's clear she had a direct impact on the betterment of these young lives. 

 This loss also underscores decisions such as buying and cruising Bel Sito. 

None of us know what tomorrow will bring let alone if there will be one. Apparently, there were shootings moments ago near the Empire State Building in downtown NY, not far from where we were just a few short days ago. News alerts are just starting to stream in. A Facebook post from a NY'er just says: It's mayhem in Mid-town.

Each day on this journey we marvel at the sunset and say to one another:

Many more sunsets. 

Mystic, Ct to Block Island, RI

Can't get a wireless signal for the computer so am just loading photos from our trek across the Long Island Sound today from my iPhone.

Block Island is one of the loveliest spots we have seen so far. Islands have a very special feel.

More to come.

The Un-Varnished Truth About Varnish

Bel Sito's varnish by craftswoman Melissa Meyers

Nothing on this wood

A boat with  Cetol covering wood trim

Be sure to click in the post to see the entire entry. 

Study these three pictures. Notice a difference? Of course you do!

What you see here is what we in our household believe is a significant differentiator when it comes to wood on a boat. 

Boat owners fall into three camps. There's the traditionalist who adhere to lots of wood, covered with varnish, which they call 'brightwork'. Then there's the Cetol camp, which cover wood with a fast-application varnish substitute called 'Cetol'. And then, there are those in the naturalist camp who subscribe to nothing at all generally because they just don't want to do any work. Or, they like the unfinished look. 

There's a fourth camp, which holds to the doctrine that no wood on a boat is best of all.

I grew up an Episcopalian where order of worship came in three forms:

High Church, complete with chanting and incense, Low Church, which was almost impossible to tell from any other Christian church and Middle Church, which drew on some of the rituals of a High Church service, but without most of the pomp.

We refer to low, middle and high church practices as lazy, hazy or crazy.

I have subsequently learned there is a fourth kind of Episcopalian who rarely sets foot in church at all.

Using that analogy in The Great Varnish Debate,  I would say that the varnish devotees are like High Church goers (crazy), the Cetol proponents are like Middle Church (hazy) and none-at-all, are of course, in the Low Church or 'lazy' camp.

Those pure fiberglass worshipers are sometimes looked upon as at least agnostic, as far as this tale goes. 

Richard falls squarely in the High Church/Crazy camp and worships a good varnish job with the same ardor that a High Church Episcopalian (which by the way he was) enjoys a great ecclesiastical chant. 

Seriously, there is true artistry to good varnish work and Melissa Meyers is a master at her craft. After stripping old varnish completely off with a heat gun, she sands the surface and gracefully applies a total of eight coats of high-gloss marine varnish. Sure it would be quicker and less costly to protect the wood with Cetol, but it wouldn't be true brightwork and as you can see from the contrasting photos above, there's a world of difference. No varnish or Cetol at all on teakwood will turn grey, which has it's own kind of beauty.

We've had close to 4,000 page views on the blog so far, so I expect this post might offend one of you. Although among our friends, the intended audience, there's probably more chance of offending the Cetol camp than any church-goers.  If so, sorry.  It's a 'lay' day here in Mystic and it's the best I can come up with when all we've done is do laundry, eat great food and generally kicked into full cruise mode.

The Mystic Downtown Marina is most pleasant, by the way. Jack and June couldn't be nicer. They've offered to drive us places and invited us to pick herbs planted outside their office window.  The herbs, as you note in the photo, are in dirt, which is part of land.  Land is good.  So good we may stay here another day.  

From Port Jeff to Mystic, Across Long Island Sound

We traveled from Port Jeff, NY in the lower left hand column of this map, to Mystic River, CT across Long Island Sound today. Charting this path, as Skipper G does while I blog or keep myself otherwise occupied, always seems trickier than it turns out being. If we stay out of the shipping channel, and stay between the red and green markers, our only other challenge - and this really is a big one - is keeping our eyes peeled for lobster pots. They are potentially treacherous and it's so easy to get lulled into thinking they're not around until you're almost right on top of one.

The float is attached to a lobster trap 100' or more below the surface by a length of rope. If we got one of those ropes around our propeller shaft it could cause serious damage.

Imagine this is your view for hours on end

See the lobster pot float in the upper right?

In about two hours from this very minute I will have marked my 62nd birthday. As family lore has it, I didn't arrive until after 8 p.m. and it took months to get my days and nights in alignment with the rest of the world. This was my first, but certainly not the last, problem I gave my mother. 

I have now stepped into the twilight zone of life and can tell you younger folks 'they' were absolutely right about the need to wear sunscreen and save for retirement. The day actually does come when you will be either glad you did or regret you didn't.

There couldn't possibly be a better way to spend the milestone of becoming eligible for senior citizen discounts than what we are now doing. 

We left Port Jeff around 8:30 a.m. and arrived in Mystic around 4 p.m. Pretty uneventful day as you can see by the pix below. Naps were not taken simultaneously, of course.

Snoozing

The stops are getting better and better. We picked up a mooring ball in Port Jeff and a slip here at the Mystic Downtown Marina. 

I insisted on bringing the boat in myself today.  It's hard for my captain to let go of the helm in tight situations, but if I'm going to be equally competent - a necessity for a myriad of reasons - then I need to be confident and competent at docking. Of course, talk is cheap, and tempting as it was to chicken out when it was clear the current was running hard and we had some wind come up, I acted like I wasn't one bit scared and brought her in.

Easing a boat into a slip is a bit of physics and luck.  

Jack and June, the couple who run the Mystic Downtown Marina, bestowed upon me a docking award of 9.2 on a 10-point scale. They rate folks, mostly among themselves, on their docking prowess. After we were safely tied up I proudly reported this was my first non home-port docking job and they were duly impressed. 

"I'd give you a ten if you'd done it with one engine," said Jack.  Bel Sito has two engines so you steer  the boat from neutral by moving the port or starboard engines forward, neutral or reverse to guide the boat. It's not hard once you've done it a few times. I don't know how anyone could do it with one engine. 

Now, I must say, Capt. G and I had our headsets on and he was coaching me a bit, but I think I would've nailed it if he hadn't. The headsets, by the way, are the best investment a cruising couple can make. They are aptly called 'marriage savers' - well-named because it cuts down on the yelling back and forth when it comes to docking. 

This seaport town of Mystic is incredibly appealing. I regularly try on a town's livability when traveling through...what would it be like to live there? In that house? Mystic is one of those places I can picture doing so. 

Quaint. Great water flowing into the sound and sea, yet protected. With an Amtrak stop, a local independent book store and a restaurant called The Oyster Club that had the very best oysters (I had 30) we've ever had in our lives, Mystic ranks right up there in livability. 

A great day and a great finale. 

We'll stay here at least one more night. 

Mystic mystique

Love

Now we're through the intensity of our urban stops along this journey to Nantucket and the real 'cruise' part of cruising begins. To quote a 6-year-old I know: That's what I'm talking about. 

The overnight in Oyster Bay, kayaking around the next morning, and the easy pace to our next stop, Port Jefferson, NY was about as idyllic as it gets.  

So, I've been thinking about love. 

First, comes the actual physical attraction; then the getting-to-know-you phase. Not all attractions turn into love. Some are deeply forbidden, out-of-reach, or merely surface. And it can take awhile before love settles in but when it does, it feels right even if a little high maintenance. When the relationship fully blossoms, resources are re-allocated and our priorities shift dramatically.

Lest you think I'm talking about love between two people, I'm talking about boats. 

Now, it's taken me awhile to get the fact that people really can love their boats. I witnessed it long before experiencing same. After all, I can love kayaking without loving the kayak. 

But it happened for me last Saturday night when we came back from a long day in Manhattan and approached our awaiting Bel Sito.

Bel Sito with the Manhattan skyline in the background

Pow. I fell in love. Just like that. Richard and I had the exact same feeling that night. We had crossed the threshold of really liking to loving our boat. Every nook and cranny now feels like we're home. 

Gosh, this must sound so goofy to those of you who don't know what the heck I'm talking about, but the rest of you boaters probably do. 

We have friends who are boatless but searching the maritime equivalent of Match.Com otherwise known as Yachtworld.com. It's the site where dreams begin...the hopeful search by size, weight, coloring, age and engine hours. Photos help.

By the way, Richard calls yachtworld.com "Annapolis porn". 

Men especially really love their boats. Some advice for women: don't think for one minute that you can pretend to like boating then once your married say, 'uh, I was just kidding.' Any boating priest would declare an immediate annulment.  And do not make your man chose between you and the boat, unless you want out of the relationship. 

There is a reason why 'My Mistress' is a popular boat name. 

I better stop the analogies here...certainly don't want to debate the merits of renting versus owning.

Entrance to Port Jefferson, NY

See below for pix that represent why we do what we do:

Bridgeport Ferry to Port Jeff

The Steam Room, Port Jeff

Oyster Bay

Our path from Oyster Bay to Port Jefferson (sorry it's so fuzzy)

Pix Up The East River, plus Oyster Bay

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Location:Brooklyn Bridge, United Nations, Oyster Bay

Yes, Hellgate is Hellish

Bel Sito slurped 80 gallons of diesel fuel at the Liberty Landing Marina before we freed the lines at 8:45 a.m. and headed out of town. She used that much fuel on our run from Atlantic City to New York Harbor, so approximately 1.5 miles to the gallon.

It was nice and quiet at that hour on a Sunday morning so we had the Hudson and East River to ourselves, relatively speaking.  I don’t think I’ve seen NY from the East River vantage point, other than in postcards, so yet another thrill of a lifetime to see those enormous buildings wedged in together as we chugged upstream. There we were in little Bel Sito inching our way past the United Nations and Empire State Building and those grand, old apartment complexes mixed in with  newer towering structures. 

All the while we are anxiously awaiting the place on our route where our good buddy Alix Pelletier Paul says is a favored place to 'dump bodies': Hellgate.

Bel Sito's Route today

Richard had studied the tide tables and conferred with local boaters about the best time to take this stretch of our trip because currents in Hellgate can be - well -  hellish.  Imagine the Raccoon River at springflood-stage, fellow Iowans. Brown, swirling, frothy stuff you do NOT want to find yourself in.

Ada and Jon (fellow boaters we met up with Friday night) said all that stuff you hear about Hellgate is over-hyped.  They regularly take their 1941 40’ wooden Chris Craft Cruiser, originally owned by owners of Kimberly Clark, through Hellgate and don’t even pay attention to the tides.

Skipper G winces when he hears them say that.

Well, I’m not sure Hellgate stories are over-hyped. I shot some video of it going through although it was taken after the worst of the churn had passed so you don’t get the FULL effect  (I was hanging on with both hands).

Hellgate - Click to watch video

When we hit the brunt of the current it picked up little BelSito and pushed her forward an extra 7 knots., so we were doing about 17 knots going through there, twice our normal cruising speed.  This is why we wanted it behind us. If we’d tried to plunge into the current her engines would be groaning to  pushagainst the force of the water head-on.

A loyal blog reader and forever sailing buddy, Jim Shaffer, writes:

“Looks like Knapps Narrows on steroids.” [This is a tight spot on the Chesapeake]

“RWG, what's the trick?  "Keep your eye on the middle of the bridge,

keep pushing the bow to that point while countering sideways stern movement

(yaw) so it doesn't come around on you? That's the trained and instinctive

thing to do, but does it work there?"  

“It does not look easy!  Give me another lesson.”

To which Captain Gilbert responds:

“I just put the hammer down, kept it between the rocks, and aimed the pointy end toward Long Island Sound.”

From then on it was easy-peasy to Oyster Bay, off of Long Island Sound. 

This is the kind of spot where folks with the means to build private residences larger than hotel complexes, come to summer.

Oyster Bay

Oyster Bay is also the spot where tragedy beyond imagining hit this past Fourth of July. We remember reading about the 1984 34’ Silverton overloaded with 10 children and 17 adults that tipped and sank drowning three children trapped in the main cabin. The details of the accident remain murky, but anyone who has been in a swarm of boats dispersing after a fireworks display knows there are too many boats, in too small a space, with too many people, many of whom have had too much to drink and all of whom are trying to move at the same time.  An inconsiderate captain in a big power boat can rock a smaller boat that ISN'T top heavy, let alone a 34' with 27 souls aboard.

 My heart goes out to that father/uncle who will have to live with this mistake the rest of his life.  We learn a lot of lessons about boating the hard way. This man sure did.

I sometimes chafe at RWG's life-jacket-at-night obsession but he works very hard at not having to learn too many more lessons the hard way.

Happiness is an outboard that starts!

Bel Sito, Oyster Bay, NY