The rest of the weekend
2002-09-03

Well, the next day we were supposed to leave the dock at 6:00 for the long slog to Block Island. We didn't get up until 6:30. Oh well, we were on vacation. We should have put the cruising sail back on the furler but didn't. This didn't seem like much at the time, but later...

Any way, it was rainy and we put on our fould weather gear. The wind kept building and building and the tide was flushing us out. It wasn't that bad of a ride. The waves outside the bay were huge and confused. We took several waves right off the beam and it was ugly. M.E. as usual got sick so I was mostly on my own. It is really hard to keep the boat attached to the water when the seas are like that. I know that sounds funny, but lots of times on the back side of a wave, there is just a hole. No good can come from sailing off a wave and into a hole. The crash is tremendous and the boat just stops. Not cool. I was doing a pretty good job driving and we made great time, all under power. We rounded the can off the northern tip of the Block and sailed int Salt Pond in record time. Just under 4 1/2 hours. The wind was now blowing 30+ and there were two foot waves inside the harbor. We looked for an open mooring and M.E. snagged it on the first try. We got things settled down and had lunch, chili and chips. The harbor was mostly empty. I got the inflatable blown up and put the engine on. I put up the canopies over the cockpit and set up the gas grill. I heard a splash. The gas pipe did a nose dive into the white capped water. So much for grilling.

We decided to just hang out for the rest of the day and so we did. My back was feeling a little better and I slept like a rock that night with the wind howling in the rigging.

Friday we took the launch into town. it was still blowing too much to take the dink and not get soaked. We ran into some frinends who invited us to drinks later. We accepted. We walked to old harbor, hit the ATM and had drinks on the deck of the old National Hotel that over looks the ferry dock. We took a cab back to New harbor and had one more drink at the OAR. Then a trip back to the boat and more reading and a nap before dinner. Just as we were finishing up, M & C came up in thier P-28. There were no open moorings so we tied them along side of us. The wind made me a little leery, but it needed to be done, so...

While they were eating, we stopped over to the boat that invited us over for drinks... Evil 42. hey congratulated us on our win and asked if we gave racing lessons. A bit much, but it was appreciated. Two more bots that we knew came in and one tied up to Evil 42. We killed most of a bottle of Merlot and took the dink back home. I slept like a rock again.

Saturday we stayed aboard all day. It was wet and windy and wild. I finished two more books. C&M came over for dinner Saturday night and we pigged out.

More grapes and another early night.

We had planned on leaving Sunday but the weather on Sunday looked so bad that we decided to stay till Monday. M.E. I C&M walked to town hitting all the popular spots on the way. The OAR, The National, Ballards, Dead Eye Dicks, The Narragansett. The waves at Ballards were so high that they were wiping out the beach. Most of the sand was gone. With three days of nor'easters the seas were huge and we were glad we waited. Well at least then we were glad.

The ladies were a little looped, by the time we got back. We had a feast of left overs and chowder. Nice. They left at 7:00 with C not feeling well. Oops. I read for a while and hit it early too. Tomorrow would be a VERY busy and trying day.

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