Weekend almost alone on the dock.
07 November 2009
• Newport, RI
by Mike
I am really beginning to rue the day that I decided to hang around in Halifax to arrive in Newport in time for the NARC. The event, if everything went well, which we hope did for all the other participants, certainly leaves you in a pretty pickle if you were like us and had to return to the start for repairs. I am really beginning to feel that we are beginning to be chased by winter. The temperature is very much like we would expect it to be in the fall at home but here it is definitely what they see as the prelude to the snowy season. The electric heaters are running more or less constantly when we are plugged into shore power and the propane ones when we are not. I guess we can only take solace in the fact that there has already been snow at home as reported by our daughter in Saint John and friends in Halifax. Our son in Drumheller, near Calgary, has been shovelling for a couple of weeks.
We are starting to look at the calendar and making plans to get down the coast as quickly as possible. Clearly that means that if the weather permits we will have to be making some day and a half to two day hops but we don't want to get caught in the same sort of thing that we did on the Southwest Harbour to Charleston leg last year with a really crappy sea and blustery winds. I have a course laid in for Newport to Cape May, bypassing NYC in total. If we get a weather ,dy Hook or Cape May, and if we wait longer we'll be here until Saturday at least due to a storm front coming though on Wednesday and hanging on until at least the end of Thursday. Then, even if the weather is good, as Barb says we will not be leaving on Friday the 13th! Unless there is a dramatic change in the weather it looks as though we'll be here until the weekend. Drat! Oh well, at least that'll give Screech a chance to catch up with us.
The boat seems very empty with Ron's departure and Barb and I have both been struck with the fact that for us, part of the cruising fun is interaction with fellow cruisers, whether they be aboard Nelleke or aboard their own boats sailing company with us. It is now pretty lonely at the Newport Yachting Centre with everyone other than the professional crews of two larger boats gone or up on the hard and one boat from Finland who will be gone tomorrow. We are certainly looking forward to a reunion, albeit brief, with Mary Lou and Jay aboard Screech for the trip from here to Cape May, at least. Perhaps it will have become warm enough there to compensate for the fact that we'll be cruising solo again at the rear of the snowbird flock heading south. I envy our friends that are already down there and have promised ourselves to never wait this long again. We could leave much earlier and spend some quality time gunkholing our way south rather than racing the Frost Belt. As far as being the lone boat, I guess I would never make a solo circumnavigator. My hat is off to those hearty souls that do that.
The Newport Yachting Centre has been very gracious about letting us stay here even though they are anxious to get the docks out and are, in fact, dismantling the electricity and water around us as we lie here. They have us all right up tight against the head of the docks so we can continue to get power and water even though the rest of the docks are a shell. They don't have to do this and I regard it as quite a kindness but I expect that even this will end at least by Tuesday so we have taken the precaution of making sure that we have another place to go to if we have to move. The Newport Yacht Club (vice the Newport Yachting Centre) has agreed to let us stay there for a couple of nights so we do have a fall back. I sure hope that RNSYS has reciprocal privileges with them so we can get their members dockside price, otherwise it will be a lot more than we are paying here.
We have been watching the blogs for our friends on Moonlight Maid, anxious to see that they made it there safely but as of 20h00 last night they had not posted anything. Since they had delayed their crossing of the stream, there might be a later arrival time such as late last night and if so they are likely too bagged to have found a wifi site to post their news. In turn, I hope they have been told our situation so that they won't worry about us.
Projects for today include: splicing the Amstel lead into the heavy weather headsail, fixing the wiring for the port running light, splicing the mainsheet into the one part of the block system that I already have (this thing is a lot more robust that the previous one and has a working load of a ton and a breaking load of two and a half), and a walk up to the hardware store to get some additional barrel bolts and install them on some cupboard doors and such that kept springing open in the seas over the last couple of days. I made an extended walking trip to West Marine, a consignment store and one of the nearby hardware stores to get the required bits and pieces, including a nice piece of ash that had been a dingy tiller at one point but which I will use to reinforce the fuel tank station board that I installed before the start of the NARC and which has partially cracked.
Barb has been busy cleaning up the boat while she access to 110V for the vacuum and has been re-gluing down the picturesque hemp rope boarder to the floor boards.
AS it is and given that it is obvious that we'll be here for several more days yet, we decided to put off 'till tomorrow this afternoon's job list and take the walking tour about town. We like to do this in most of the places that we stop. Some of them are conducted and some are self paced. Today's was of the self paced variety. This is an amazing and historical city. Apparently at the time of the industrial revolution they made a conscious decision to forgo the pleasures of factories and smoke stacks and became one of the first communities that focused on tourism as their revenue source. Given their proximity to Boston and New York, they were extremely successful as is evidenced by the number of mansions.
Aw, CRAP! We are now hearing about Hurricane Ida coming up the Florida Coast. That might be what is going to cause the bad weather the middle of next week. Let's fervently hope that it really and truely dies out before it gets here. Let's also hope that our friends that are further south don't have any problems with it.
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