Nephew Clive - and Aileen - visited from Colorado for a long weekend of sailing and we headed to Block Island - and we left the cat at home!

We left on Friday morning and managed to sail a little on the way there - but with light headwinds, headway was tough and we ended up motor-sailing a large portion of the trip. It did at least allow us to catch up on all the family news! We took a mooring and Laurie initiated a classy culinary weekend with a pork tenderloin!

The weekend at Block was nice - with beautiful weather. We rode the tandem around the island on Saturday and then came back to the boat for a cooling swim while Clive and Aileen wandered to the beach to swim and various bars to cool off! Back on the boat, Laurie cooked up a wonderful clam bake.

Sunday was so relaxing - we headed to the beach at the entrance to New Harbor with beach chairs, umbrella, books, wine and cheese in hand and sat at the water's edge. What a treat! In the afternoon we were treated to the arrival of NY Yacht Club's 155th annual cruise - involving about 100 sailboats of all shapes and sizes along with a few power launches. The entrance to Block was suddenly reminiscent of a marine Piccadilly Circus! When we decided to head back to the boat, the anchorage was absolutely crowded with boats - I've no clue how they all fit!
Clive and Aileen decided on a more active day - enjoying a bike ride, pub, kayak, pub, etc...

In the morning, the mooring field was being trawled by various boats unable to find mooring or a place in the anchorage - we felt pity and allowed John and his family in their Sabre 34 to raft up while we completed a leisurely morning breakfast...

We dropped our mooring at 10:10am - and found ourselves in a traffic jam! We crawled out of the harbor at 2 kts and as we came out, the fog came in! Radar and AIS was good to have as we had bogeys all over the place - clearly hanging around for the start of their cruise leg to Menemsha.

Fortunately, the fog cleared as we approached the bell at the north end of the island and we were able to raise sails and turn off the engine. Wind was light and behind us - so we decided on the spinnaker and were making about 5 kts - though unfortunately, the current was limiting progress to a mere 2.5kts! Ouch! Fortunately as we made some distance from the bell, the current slowly eased and the wind picked up a little.

It was good having Clive along to tune the spinnaker - as a dingy racer he was used to playing with chutes and insisted on keeping it beautifully tuned at all times! We found ourselves on the same course as the NYYC event - so engaged the fleet! A fifty footer went screaming past us as we raised our main - but once we had it up, we set to rectifying the embarrassment and being past and left in their dust! While we couldn't actually catch them, we did give it a good try and at least prevented further loss (as best we could tell) making over 8 kts.

Finally the wind picked up to such an extent that we took the spinnaker down and replaced it with the Code Zero. Unfortunately the sail change took painfully long (half an hour!) and the fifty footer was long gone! The CZ and 15+kts kept us going nicely and when it came time to jibe across and head for the Sakonnet we were enjoying a nice broad reach and making nearly 10 kts!

As seems normal, the wind dropped as we went up the Sakonnet, but we kept on sailing as sustained gusts kept our interest up. We arrived back at about 5pm and quickly packed up and headed home and air-conditioning - it was far too hot to stick around on the boat.

The evening concluded with a nice meal at Chardonnays in Seekonk - compliments of Clive and Aileen. Thanks guys!

Another great weekend...