Friday 4 October, 2019

Friday morning and when I awoke this morning I had a thought. We have been a week today on this cruise! The feeling of time on this trip seems quite conflicted. There is an old saying that time flies when you're having fun, and conversely, I guess it drags when you're not. On this trip we have had both. The first 50+ hours seems like they would never end, but then, after we arrived in Massachusetts they have just flown by.

I have had a second thought. So far we have been focused on getting to Annapolis in time for the boat show but the shifting weather patterns have made that an increasingly stressful and most likely impossible goal. As of today we are six days from the opening and even if we get away tomorrow we will be held up in Block Island for a couple more days. We could still make it - just, or arrive for the last day or so, but then we will be faced with the challenge of finding a place to moor or anchor. Barb and I have discussed this and we have decided that our priorities should be safety, comfort and then followed by schedule in that order. Perhaps by the time we get to that latitude we will elect to simply continue south. Indeed, if the weather remains contrary we may do the ICW from mile marker 0 to Beaufort NC at least just to be making some headway. I hate thinking like that since that was our frame of mind on past cruises but we would like to get going.

This morning dawned a beautiful sunny day almost enough to make us want to head out today rather than tomorrow but that would again mean an extra day in Great Pond, Block Island. So a day here or a day there. One at the dock and the other on anchor. Plus we have a few more little jobs to do that would be easier done alongside in case I need some parts. Barb is also going to make her famous African Peanut Soup which will be better done alongside so it can be puréed. Plus I just noticed that she is making an apple crisp. Spoiled, I am, am I not?

As if to prove us right in our decision to stay here, around lunchtime the wind piped up as forecast and we were rockin' at the dock so much that I thought we had been waked by a passing boat. Good decision to stay here. Buzzards Bay is another one of those bodies of water where tide, current and multiple inlets to the open ocean lead to a very confused sea. Not huge enough to be all that dangerous but rough, uncomfortable and not fun. I remember the very first time I came though here. There was almost no wind so the sea was like glass and the sails of my old schooner hung like so much laundry. What a difference!

The photo is a shot from the village wharf in town back towards PIYC and Nelleke.

I got started doing the last head faucet and decided after skinning my knuckles a half dozen times, that my temperament wasn't in the game this morning and that I would wait for some time that we were staying somewhere for a while again and when I would feel like dragging a larger tool box with some more specialized tools out of the tool crib.

I have also been trying to trace the NMEA wire from the deck chart plotter to see if there was something foolish that I had done that has interrupted the ability of the chart-plotter to send location data to the radio and for the radio to send AIS information to the plotter.

It seems that I am down to jobs that are fiddly and not easy to accomplish so I did one more that I am hoping to get some success with. There is still a minor leak in the deck just under the mizzen mast which I have attacked with silicon to see if I will have found the leak. Funny to be hoping for rain to test a job. At 14h00 I got my wish. It began to rain so now we wait and see if the paper towel we put underneath will get wet.

Barb did by far the most work today. She cooked, she cleaned, she caught up with the laundry, she helped me bend on another jib.... So, by way of thank you I took us both out to a waterfront bar and grill called Stonebridge. Nice place with a clientele of young and old locals. I wonder what the place would be like in the summer.

Tonight, after dinner I will fill up our on board water tanks again in readiness for an early departure tomorrow.

It is starting to look, if you have any remnants of faith in the weather witches, like Tuesday might be a good day to jump for Delaware or Virginia from Block Island. A downhill run pretty much all the way and less than two days underway. Please, please, please, weather witches, have mercy on we poor Canadian sailors and give us fair winds onward.

Oh. One more small thing. This is the first cruise that we packed slippers for us to wear in the cabin when stopped. How civilized. How comfortable. How warm. Barb reminded me that on our first cruise she made me a pair of knit felted slippers that I wore until they wore out, then she resoled them and the wore out again. Maybe I can convince her to make me another pair.