Having had a wonderful ride to Block Island we are now paying for it. We thought we had a narrow weather window to leave today and sail overnight for Sandy Hook, NY. Sadly the forecast North winds did not materialise and instead we awoke to find the wind honking out of the West - no good at all. We don't feel too bad because both Jarrod and Sy, fellow cruisers from Norton's Marina who are anchored right beside us here, have been waiting for the right window for the last 10 days! Right now it looks as though we have a possible opening on Monday, so we have at least one more day here. But that is OK, because the anchorage is fairly smooth, although not protected from the wind and we seem to be hooked solidly. We haven't put the dinghy in the water so we haven't even been ashore yet - which is very good for the budget - two zero dollar days so far!

We have been quite happy pottering about Osprey and relaxing, something we have not done for months. We have both read one book each and fortunately have plenty more aboard. The Scrabble board came out this afternoon and I was the victor after getting a triple, triple word score with "requests" Photo taken before that happened so Tom is still smiling.

It's fun to see the banter between our blog readers - all I ask is for everyone to play nice! Please keep good thoughts for North winds for Monday (or at least anything but West).

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Wow! What a day. We left the dock at 9.30 this morning and motored out of Greenwich Cove into the Bay. We had good NW winds, rolled out a double reefed jib and never looked back. We sailed the whole way to Block Island enjoying brisk temperatures and plentiful sunshine. As we passed Wickford Harbor we were joined by Jarrod on Eirene (remember he left last Thursday) and it was nice to be sailing in company. Once we got into Block Island Sound the winds were more off the beam so it was up with the double reefed main. Even under shortened sail we were sailing over 6 knots for most of the day - our fastest speed was 8.9 knots - when we must have surfed down a wave. We even sailed right into the harbor and only started the engine when it was time to anchor. Mr. Smart Pilot proved himself to be a very able crew member and we are very pleased with the new addition. Plus he doesn't require feeding or need to take potty breaks! It is wonderful to be here at anchor, it is so quiet and peaceful. We have just eaten supper - pork chops with apples and roots done in the pressure cooker and all is well aboard Osprey.

To make the day complete we answered a phone call this evening from Ron and Pam from Legacy, our great cruising friends from the Bahamas 2 years ago - it was so good to hear them. They have just got back aboard Legacy and we are planning to meet up a bit further south.

We will be staying here tomorrow waiting for the next suitable weather window to head down the coast.

Just for Tim : Our co-ords are: 41 11.40'N 071 34.60'W
Distance travelled: 35.6 nm

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Quite the gale has been blowing through today, accompanied this morning by torrential downpours. I'm pleased to report that so far we appear to have stemmed the numerous leaks that revealed themselves over the course of the very wet and soggy summer. We were able to commandeer a vehicle from Bill, one of the yard guys and now have clean laundry and a restocked larder. We also seem to have even more beer aboard than when we departed last week - I suppose that is a good thing!

So we are hoping it will be all systems go for departure tomorrow morning. We don't really have a definite float plan at this point, we are going to review the weather forecasts again in the morning and see which way the wind is blowing!

The photos show Tom's final projects of the summer - a very handy i-pod holder and a snazzy stand for his shaving brush to dry on. Apparently it's is bad for the bristles to lay it down!


Here's hoping tomorrow's post is from somewhere different.

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We now have a new crew member aboard. The "brains" of our new Smart Pilot autopilot system arrived via FedEx this morning and we immediately set too to get the various parts installed. Thankfully everything went very smoothly and before we knew it, all was in place. The moment of truth was switching the thing on - but no crackles or pops occurred! After doing the dockside set-up we headed out onto the still waters of the cove for the calibration steps. It was a perfect evening to do this - very calm and still. We both held our breath for the thirty minutes it took to calibrate everything and amazingly enough it all worked flawlessly.

So now we really are ready to go. We have a gale warning for tomorrow so we will be laying low and hopefully getting some laundry done if we can find a car to borrow. All being well we are going to sneak out of here on Thursday.

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