Our intention this weekend was to head to Newport on Friday night and then head on to Cuttyhunk on Saturday, returning on Sunday...

Bad day at work can sometimes mess with the schedule and Laurie's day was particularly poor. We therefore decided to stay on the dock at NEB and drown her sorrows instead! I decided to have a go at equalizing the batteries again - so set them to it as we went to bed. Laurie started reading her new book...

Laurie didn't sleep well - I wasn't aware of why at the time - b I didn't sleep well either. I was up at 3:00am and decided to check the batteries and seeing that the voltage was only 14V (instead of 15+V), decided to abandon the equalization. Something's amiss. Even though I went back to sleep, I was up again shortly after 5:00 - Laurie was awake too - so we decided to have an early start to the day...

With little wind forecast until the afternoon, we pottered around the boat for a while - or I should say, I did - which I was quite happy to do. I managed to get the bad dingy gas dumped and replaced it with new. I fiddle-farted with all sorts of stuff - while Laurie read her book.

At 9:15 we finally left the dock and headed down the bay to Newport. Laurie read her book.

Knowing there was going to be light wind from behind, we'd decided to keep the main under it's cover with a plan to sail the spinnaker once the wind developed. Out past Newport, after sailing through the start of a regatta, the wind finally kicked up to 7 or 8 knots, so I managed to pry Laurie's nose out of her book in order to launch said spinnaker.

We then had a great sail towards Cutty (sort-of), making about 6kts. Since Laurie's head was buried elsewhere, I decided to set up a fishing rod...

Wouldn't you know it, I managed to hook a fish - only my third in about 1,000 miles of trawling the bloody thing! It was going to be big judging by the effort I was having reeling it in. Meanwhile, all hell broke loose as I barked orders at Laurie - get the camera! No not that lens! Why can't you learn how to change a lens! Get the net! Chaos! Eventually I reeled in a whopper (my biggest catch anyway) and landed it on the side deck, with Laurie clicking away merrily.

I couldn't get the hook out. Despite her pleas to have me cut the lure I insisted I'd get it - "bring me some rum so I can quiet this bloody thing!" She brought out a bottle which unfortunately turned out to be Black Grouse Scotch (a favorite tipple of mine) - which I didn't notice until I'd poured a cupful into the hapless fish's gills. I thought I was going to be calming the fish down so I could extract the hook and release it - but no, I killed it! What a way to go!

We then had to call Laurie's brother Neal to find out what we'd caught - and after sending a photo, found we had a Blue. Edible but notoriously oily. However, having killed the beast, we were duty bound to consume it, so another call to Neal gave me perfect instructions for a -nearly- bloodless filleting method. I managed to get about 2lbs of meat off this thing - no doubt leaving much more on the carcass than I should have - but this would be enough for appetizers with the crews of Elixir and Jamin that would be waiting for us in Cutty.

All this was going on while we were still under spinnaker! Still doing 5 - 6 kts in almost the right direction.

Laurie went back to her book - I went back to tweaking the sail...

Once we got to the Buzzards Bay tower we had to change course - too deep to fly the kite, so we furled and motored towards Cutty. Just before we got to Middle Ground, the wind picked up, so we flew the Code Zero for the final couple of miles... arriving in Cutty at around 5:00pm and anchored in the inner harbor in 12 ft on 65ft of chain.

A glass of wine was in order! Laurie read her book.

Jamin called to coordinate dinner plans - and we discussed the cooking of the beast. We headed over to Jamin shortly after 6 and met up with Peter and Diane of Elixir, Jane and Mike of Jamin and enjoyed libations in the cockpit.

Finally I get to find out that The Book is a particularly erotic novel involving all sorts of interesting hardware(?) - and quickly a line sets up for whose going to read it next!

A festive evening follows with some participating a little more than they should (as tends to happen when one reads too much and sleeps too little). The morning would be painful!