Stirling Basin near Greenport, NY N41° 06.493' W72° 21.475'
18 August 2009 | 41 06.493N
Randy
Yesterday was a good, if not another very early day. Weighed anchor at 0530 and arrived here at 1300. Most of the morning was pretty foggy, particularly in the vicinity of Block Island, which was pea soup thick and visibility was about the end of the bow pulpit. Lots
of chatter on the radio between all the boats trying to keep track of each other. It can be a bit chaotic at times, but with radar, it seems to work. I heard several calls to the USCG yesterday of people in real trouble. One guy had a heart attack and fell overboard, but his mates got him back on board and it sounded like they did CPR and got him back and were racing back to port. Another was of 5 kids in an 18' speed boat, which they flipped when they were screwing around. Again, they were lucky and survived. It's all about relative luck sometimes ...
I was able to figure out what was wrong with the windlass, so that is fixed. That will make anchoring single-handed a lot easier, as it should be. Met Jeff for dinner last night - his treat; thanks again Jeff! He was showing me the marina he manages when we saw a sailboat tied to a peer with the foresail flailing wildly half furled. We went over to help and it was 5 women sailing a chartered 27' Catalina sailboat, which is awfully small for that any people. I know, because that is what I sailed on Lake Champlain for two years. One seemed to know quite a bit about sailing and the others were along for the ride. Susan, ask me about the one who is teaching at Temple U who by the way, had more hair in her armpits than I do. Anyway, we helped them get things corrected and enjoyed visiting with them. Jeff and I enjoyed catching up on things and I got back to the boat in the dark around 2030, raised the dinghy to the davits and went to bed very tired.
On to Port Jefferson, NY today, following the northern shore of Long Island; if all goes as planned, I should be in the Hudson River passing Manhattan Friday. The timing is good as the recent hurricane activity coming up the east coast it going to make things pretty crappy by the weekend - assuming the weather forecasts are close to correct.
Finally, it would appear I left my camera in VT, so no more pics for this trip.