10/11/2010

We had a quiet night on the mooring and then started our day early. We were up and had dropped the mooring by 0730 and headed out into Buzzard's Bay to start our trip to Mystic, Connecticut. The winds were only about 15 mph on the nose and the seas were 0-1 feet. Good traveling weather if all you want to do is motor. Of course, we would like to sail.

After we turned and headed west the winds stayed steady but were such that we could close reach down the north shore. Initially, we had the main and jib out and were using the motor as well. That lasted about an hour and then oh, the thrill of it, we cut the engine. We were sailing along at 7 knots with fair seas and sunny skies. This is what it is all about. And the glorious quiet with the engine off. It was marvelous.

But it only lasted an hour! The winds died some and we couldn't maintain the speed we needed to make it to Mystic before dark and it came around more on our nose. This having only 12 hours of daylight really is a pain both from the sailing point and relative to the distances we can cover. We aren't at all interested in doing over-nighters in Long Island Sound so were are limited to what we can do during the daylight. We will have the over-nighters when we get off shore and head further south.

And so it was back to motoring. We did get to watch lots of others out enjoying their sailboats on this holiday. It was very obvious which boats were out for the fun of it and which ones like us were needing to cover distances. I can understand why this area has so many marinas. It is a lovely place for sailboats, power boats, fishing boats - anything that goes on the water. Although we didn't see any kayaks or canoes and the currents and tides might be a bit much for them but we saw all kinds of other boats.

We wandered up the well buoyed Mystic River to the Mystic River Marina. We arrived at the fuel dock at 1530. Dave, the very nice and helpful dock master, decided that we could just walk Eos back a little and he would leave us here in front of a mini-mega yacht. There is still plenty of room for other boats to come in and we have had fun watching all of the locals coming back to their home port after a lovely day on the water.

After a wonderful long hot shower I started the laundry chore. These mundane things still have to happen and one needs to take advantage of the close availability of washers and driers whenever they are available. No putting it off until tomorrow.

We talked to Changing Lanes and the Canadians are heading down the East River and through Hell's Gate tomorrow. One of the key things about the Hell's Gate passage as well as the river is the timing of the tides and currents. We are at a bad time of the year with high tide occurring in the middle of the day which shortens the time we will have to get down the river and across to Atlantic Highlands on Sandy Hook. It will be interesting to find out how it goes for them and what kind of boost they get as well as whether they can get to Sandy Hook before sunset. We will have to see how it goes for them and then decide what to do - end up with an arrival in the dark or just tough it out through Hell's Gate. It will be a couple of days before we have to decide though since we are making sure we can see the daughter of one of Bill's old friends as we get near Norwalk, CT.