On Saturday Jay and I explored the Herreshoff Marine Museum in Bristol. The museum is well worth visiting, you have the opportunity to see a bunch of classic yachts and board three of them to see how it might have been to sail in the early 1900’s. In addition, the museum houses the America’s Cup Hall of Fame, and enough models of racing boats to make your head swim, not to mention the 1992 America’s Cup contender “Defiant” outside the museum.

Known as “The Wizard of Bristol,” Captain Nathanael Green Herreshoff designed and built five victorious defenders of the America’s Cup from 1893 to 1914. A mock-up of his studio is amazing, with over 500 half hulls in every shape and size hanging on the walls. In addition, Captain Nat’s first design, (built when he was 11-1/2) is on display in the museum.  “Sprite” was restored by Henry Ford in the 30’s and was on display in the Henry Ford museum until it returned to Rhode Island in the late 90’s. In addition, Herreshoff is credited with a multitude of advancements to yacht design and construction, and some of his inventions are on display in the museum.

We walked into town and enjoyed a lunch of local whole clam bellies at Quito’s Restaurant. After lunch, Sabrina and Tanya joined us and we finished our tour of Bristol and headed back to the boats. After a fun sail in shifting conditions we arrived at the Kickamuit River and rafted up with “Liberty” and “Pura Vida,” friends from Minx’s marina in Barrington. A wonderful evening ensued, making new friends and enjoying the beautiful setting.

On Sunday the Kickamuit River got a little rough as the weekend boaters overwhelmed the area pulling tubers and skiers. We bid farewell to Liberty and Pura Vida, and later JV and Minx anchored separately to avoid the numerous wakes. We hope we’ll get a chance to meet up with our new friends sometime in the future, maybe in the BVI or later in the season as we head back south.

Today we’re lazily making our way to Newport while we wait for wind to fill in later this week for a jump to Maine. Rhode Island is a beautiful place, and we decided to enjoy some more time here as we wait for the weather to shift.

Anyone closely following our Spot path yesterday probably thought we were lost. We weren’t lost, we were just searching for freshwater to fill our tanks, and apparently the best way to do that around here is to sail around until you see a water hose on a dock…. Rhode Island has plenty of free pumpout stations to help reduce pollution, major harbors even have a free pump-out boat that will pull up to your dock, but unfortunately, they don’t have water hoses at some of those docks.

We thought we could fill up with water in Dutch Island Harbor, there was a free town supported pump-out, but the water was on another dock and only for guests on the marina’s moorings.  (Cost for a mooring? $50. Yeah, we looked elsewhere.) In Bristol they have a town dock, but no water hose, so eventually we ended up heading to New England Boatworks in Melville, RI. The interesting thing about the Narragansett is that most boats ride on moorings for the short season. Marina slips are pretty rare, and therefore pretty pricey. So when we pulled into NEB I saw what I expected – huge, very expensive yachts.

Large boats wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that the fuel/water/pumpout dock is at the very south end of the marina. Here’s a photo of where we headed via our Spot track:

This aerial photo is a little deceiving because it was taken in the winter. Each one of those T-heads had a huge 60′-75′ sailboat on them. The fairway to the fuel dock was very constricted, with no place to turn around. To make it worse we followed in a 60′ trawler that was also heading to the fuel dock, and I had no clue if there would still be room for us. Luckily we made it in without incident, and we were able to get a pump-out and fill our freshwater tanks.

The dock girl was very friendly and helpful and NEB is obviously a very nice marina, but as I narrowly passed multi-million dollar yachts I started to wonder about the liability limits on our insurance…. A long hot fresh water shower later that evening helped me forget about the stress of the day.

Today we’re gong to explore Bristol, RI and the Herreshoff Marine Musuem which is currently hosting the Herreshoff Classic Regatta.

We’ve been busy over the last couple of days exploring Rhode Island which is nicknamed “The Ocean State.” We sailed over from Block Island to the mainland on Tuesday.  We passed numerous fishermen, but only boated one bluefish that I wasn’t so sad to see flop back overboard. (It might be a local delicacy, but I’m not looking forward to trying to eat one of these oily fish.)

We dropped our anchor in Dutch Island Harbor on the West Passage of Narragansett Bay. The harbor is surrounded by Conanicut Island but gets its name from small Dutch Island which lies in the middle of the harbor.  Wednesday we dropped in the dinghy and immediately we pulled our bikes out of storage, because Conanicut Island is huge. Conanicut Island is home to Jamestown which has been joined to Newport across the East Passage of the Narragansett via ferry for over 300 years. Now the island is connected to both sides of the mainland by two picturesque bridges.

Our first destination on Conanicut would take us down Beaver Neck to the Beavertail Light. Beavertail Light is the 3rd oldest lighthouse in the United States – it actually even predates the United States. (Subsequently we’ve added the oldest two lighthouses in the U.S. to our destination list, they’re at Boston Harbor and Nantucket.) Beavertail Light was first constructed in 1749, but the wooden structure didn’t last too long, it burnt to the ground four years later.  The current granite structure was constructed in 1856. Check out the Beavertail Light website for more information on the timeline. The light has been lit by many different technologies over the years and the 4th order Fresnel lens that was previously used is on display in the museum. Fresnel lenses are still in use in many lighthouses, and we’ve seen 1st order lenses in service at lighthouses in Hopetown, Bahamas, and Absecon Lighthouse in Atlantic City.

The bicycle ride out to Beavertail State Park rode up and down many hills with beautiful vistas in all directions. While it was tiring, it was a great way to see the countryside, with panoramic views of both sides of the island. At the lighthouse many people sit on the high rocks to listen to the surf and watch the boats sail in and out of Newport. From the park we headed back through downtown Jamestown, checking out the shops and the restaurants.

Rhode Island has a State Park App for smart phones, and after I downloaded it I noticed there was a scuba area at Fort Wetherill State Park. I wanted to see what that involved, so yesterday we biked to that point of the island. The scuba area was in a little cove and we talked to some divers that we’re packing up their gear after their dive. They said it was a cool place to dive, but the visibility was pretty poor and the water was a chilly 68 degrees… so we crossed that off the itinerary.

Fort Wetherill was a WWII armament and you can see the large mounts for the artillery that was housed there. Unfortunately, the fort is in ruins and graffiti covers most of the surfaces, but the views from the top of the fort are still breathtaking and offer a closer vantage point of Newport harbor than Beavertail.

Yesterday afternoon we headed back to the boat and sailed north up the Narragansett Bay to Potter Cove on the north end of Prudence Island.  We were scheduled to meet up with Minx and we had a great sail in the brisk sea breeze that was sweeping up the Bay.

Before we left Dutch Island Harbor, Sabrina stopped at the Jamestown grocery to purchase lobsters ($4.99 a pound!) and clams for our dinner last night with Minx. I steamed the lobsters for lobster rolls or sushi, and then we steamed the clams in none other than Narragansett beer.

Eating Narragansett clams that were steamed in Narragansett beer while being rafted up on the Narragansett Bay after a nice sail up the Narragansett just seemed like the right thing to do.

[We’re rafted up to Minx with internet, so I’ve edited this post for clarity and added the pictures.]

We departed Bohemia Bay on Thursday morning to a light breeze, cool temperatures, and sun. It was a gorgeous day to motor through the C&D Canal and into the Delaware Bay. Our AIS was working great on the Delaware Bay, and we headed south near the main shipping lane. As we passed the nuclear plant the tide was pushing us along at 8 knots, a little later we were doing 9, and we held 9 knots for close to 2 hours! The wind was light and from behind us, so the apparent wind was zero and it got very warm in the afternoon. It was about that time that the biting flies showed up and we proceeded to fight with them for several hours. As we approached Cape May
the tide switched quickly and we were suddenly only making 3.5 knots out the mouth of the Delaware Bay. Once we cleared Cape May we quickly turned out to sea to avoid the flies and the current and luckily around nightfall most of the flies were exterminated.

We searched for wind most of the day Friday, adjusting our course so we were sailing dead downwind wing and wing to harness as much of the light breeze as we could. Thankfully the wind built later in the day and we were able to resume our proper course until the wind died again and we had to start the engine around midnight. A small thunderstorm passed over around 3 am bringing sheets of rain, thunder and lightning, but little additional wind. As we approached Long Island that wind started to swing around to the north
and build so I fell off the wind so we could sail, but to enter Block Island we had to drop the sails again and motor straight into the breeze.

As we approached Block Island around dawn the local fishing fleet was out in full force. I should have expected it as I realized it was Saturday morning and there was a favorable tide running. We were able to dodge the boats without incident as we motored through rain with the radar running.

As the rain continued Saturday morning we made it to Block Island and pulled into Great Salt Pond. The guide book said that on most days you could find 1,200 boats in here, and on the 4th of July there could be 2,000! There certainly were plenty of boats, but we were able to find a spot to anchor pretty easily because the harbor is huge. The depths range from 20 to 50 feet with the shallower spots to anchor going first, but we found good holding in 25 feet.

We ate a hot lunch of chicken gumbo (gumbo in August? Yeah it’s colder here,) then we took naps before our friends Jay and Tanya arrived on S/V Minx. Minx anchored next to us and we had dinner aboard JV while we were treated to a beautiful sunset as the rain cleared out. Sunday morning while aboard Minx eating blueberry pancakes, we heard a small boat running around the harbor shouting/singing “An-di-a-mo! Andiamo!” The boat is run by Aldo’s bakery and has been delivering fresh baked goods to the boaters for 43 years. His selection of danishes, Portuguese sweet bread, hot sandwiches, coffee, and assorted pastries were mouthwatering. Tanya selected a few items and we watched afterwards as he pulled up to almost every other boat in our area.

Later Sunday we explored Block Island, taking the 2 mile walk from New Harbor (Great Salt Pond) to Old Harbor. Old Harbor is where the ferries dock and it reminded me of a cruise ship port – touristy and over-run with people. The town and surrounding area is picturesque, and maybe we’ll stop here later in the season on the way back south when the crowds have lessened. On the way to Old Harbor we passed a tiny bait shack, and I stopped in to see what a fishing license would cost. (After seeing all the
fishing boats, I decided it might be a good investment.) I was shocked to learn that a non-resident Rhode Island license would cost me $10 – and it also covered me for Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Maine! I thought I wouldn’t be able to do much fishing along the coast, but that all changed as I handed over my $10 bill. I spent Monday morning downloading all the various fishing regulations for those states, and figuring out how to fish for cod. We’ll see if I have any luck.

Sunday in Old Harbor we stopped at a pub to have a few Narragansett beers – the beer that Captain Quint famously drank in Jaws. It was very tasty, and I’ll be happy to follow in Quint’s footsteps and enjoy this local beer while we’re in the area. Sabrina and Tanya walked farther around town and found a petting zoo, handmade yarn shop and organic garden where Sabrina picked up some fresh kale. You can see some of their adventures on Minx’s blog.

Today we’re headed to mainland Rhode Island to check out some places while Minx returns to her marina for a few days before we continue cruising around this area later this week. We have plenty of pictures, but I couldn’t them to load on the slow internet here, we should have better luck on the mainland.

As of 8:10 this morning, we will finally leave Bohemia Bay. The boat is ready and the wind, waves, and tide finally aligned to present a favorable forecast. Hopefully we’ll have calm weather for the trip down the Delaware Bay today. After that we’re hoping some wind will build on Friday so we can continue north under sail.

Don’t forget that you can follow along on our Spot feed. If the boat makes some erratic turns, it means we’re fishing.

We’ve never been through the C & D Canal, and we aren’t really familiar with New England, so we’ll be reading a lot of cruising guides on our way north. I also turned to Billy Joel for advice on where to get fuel, and where to find big fish in the canyons:

We’re going to meet up with Jay and Tanya on Minx somewhere between Block Island Sound and Martha’s Vineyard. After a couple of days hanging out with Minx we’ll be heading north through the Cape Cod canal.

Last I posted, we were readying for a Saturday morning departure. The weather then pushed that to a Sunday morning departure.  But this most recent delay has been brought to us by the letters A, I, and S.

For those that may not be familiar, AIS stands for Automatic Information System, and is an invaluable system for cruising sailors. It provides information regarding ships in the area directly to your chartplotter. If you would like to see what kind of information is available, go to the Marine Traffic website and check out any area on the East Coast.

So why did our AIS keep us here? After 6 months of constant use, (culminating in tracking down S/V Minx via their AIS signal when we arrived in the Bohemia,) it wasn’t working on Saturday when I tested the electronics. After 2 days of troubleshooting, which involved me ripping apart the boat and testing every connection, soldering joint, cable, the internal workings of the AIS unit, the VHF cables, the C-80 multi-function display, etc., we broke down and purchased a new unit from Defender that arrived yesterday.

It should have been an easy installation, but of course the VHF cable terminated in a PL-259 connection, and the AIS unit needs a BNC connection. No problem, they have it at Radio Shack for $5. But of course we don’t have a car because we’ve already dropped ours off for service. Argh. Luckily, a quick phone call to our former neighbor Harvey on B-dock and he was able to pick the connector up for us on his way down to Chesapeake City! Thanks again, Harvey!

With the new VHF connector in place our new AIS unit was working like a champ. All I can assume is that the old unit was built so cheaply that it couldn’t hold up to constant use on a cruising sailboat, or some minor electrical current from these recent strong thunderstorms had fried it through the VHF cable.

Now, we know that AIS is not a necessity, just like GPS or radar is not a necessity, but we’ll be traveling bysome very busy shipping ports, sometimes at night. Take a look at Marine Traffic again and type “NY” into the upper right corner where it says “Go to area…” Now consider running through that at night, when your top speed is 7 knots, and the other boat’s top speed is 20 knots.

We’ll take all the information we can get!

The other day I emptied the 2GB card in our Canon D-10 in preparation for our trip north. What I discovered as I transferred the photos to the computer were a bunch of cool photos that never made it to the blog. Since our last couple of posts have been boring technical, I figured some photos for Friday would be fun.

Our last mahi as we sailed from Florida to North Carolina.

A familiar sight along the Intracoastal Waterway.

Nermal tried to stay cool by laying in the shade at my feet on our way up the ICW.

Then some dragonflies arrived and he went crazy attacking (and eating) them.

Luckily Nermal didn’t see this guy. We found this snake by our backstay one morning after we anchored on the ICW.

Our AIS shows the length of ships over 1,000 ft. long in nautical miles. This ship  showed up as 0.18 nm as he passed us outside of Norfolk.

Back in the Bay we caught a couple of rockfish. They were delicious.

Now that we have a new bimini, we have to try to break Nermal of his habit of hanging out on the bimini under the solar panels.

Yesterday we crossed the remainder of the urgent items off of our “To-Do” list, preparing for a 3:00 am Friday departure. Before bed last night we made one last check on the weather, thunderstorms, and offshore forecast. It was at that point that we turned off our alarms and decided to catch up on some sleep. With our early morning departure we would have ran headlong into thunderstorms, strong gusts, and building waves at Cape May.

The thunderstorms are just about ready to hit here, and we’re glad we postponed. The line stretches along most of the East Coast, and would have made for a miserable day. While we’re anxious to depart, we can’t ignore the weather, so we’ll sit here for at least another 24 hours.

On the bright side, I woke up this morning and planned out some things that I actually wanted to do, and not that I needed to do. Hopefully I get a chance to finish those things today during the rain.

Plus, everyone knows it’s bad luck to set sail on a Friday. 🙂

Before we departed last fall, our friend Glen suggested that we rivet together our bimini frame, so that the set screws wouldn’t separate in high winds. I listen to Glen’s advice, but because we didn’t have the new bimini installed, I didn’t want to permanently install the frame. (Plus we simply ran out of time to get it done.)

Fast forward to our crossing from Green Turtle Cay to Fernandina Beach, Fl – as the remnants of TS Beryl crossed well to the north of us, it brought 30 knot winds on our beam as we sailed to the Gulf Stream. With the boat heeled 20 degrees, I watched the bimini frame start to separate as the wind was hitting the bottom of the bimini and lifting it up.

Not good.

I hurriedly lashed the bimini frame to the toe rail and we sailed to Florida. When we arrived, rivets went back onto the To-Do list.

Now that we have a new bimini it was time to finally install the rivets. Yesterday we worked through the heat to remove each brace and install rivets through the stainless steel tubing into the end fittings. The result is a rock solid bimini frame that we’ll never have to worry about again in heavy weather, but it looks exactly like it did before we started.

Riveting.