There seems to be some kind of jinx in. The weather pattern that we were trying to avoid delayed, delayed and delayed again until just last night when the skies finally opened and the rain came down and the wind came up, although the little harbour that we are in here in Groton is extremely sheltered and although there is more wind and loads of rain, there is absolutely no sea.

We are doing our calculations as far as time and distance to our next stop at Port Jefferson and realize that in order to catch the tidal currents going in a favourable direction; we will need to leave the dock in the middle of the night or at best very early in the morning. One good thing about the delays is that with every day's delay, our departure from the dock can also be set back an hour due to the tide "migration". So if we were to leave Saturday, which is looking more and more unlikely, we would have to leave at 0300, whereas if we were to leave on Sunday, we could leave at 0400, Monday at 0500, and so on. Looks like Sunday is going to be more likely at this point. We are really not too interested in traveling down the Sound with conflicting wind and current. The water is quite shallow by Halifax standards (mostly less than 100') so the waves will get quite steep and square.

As I write this there is a small storm surge and for the first time we will be stepping down to the dock instead of up. The docks here are fixed on pylons driven into the river bed and are quite old. Our pal Jim's mission with the owner here is to get him to fix the place up. It has tons of potential and would be a great place to attract cruising transients. The only real "funny" about this place is that since there are a fair number of Defence contractors nearby, they won't let you put a mooring in the river. So, any stopover would have to be alongside.

Last night I had a quick theoretical lesson in trolling for bluefish and striped bass and one of the fellows at the dock even gave me a lure to try. Apparently these species are so numerous there isn't even a size limit on them although in the same breath they tell me that I won't have to worry about size. They're all fairly large by our standards. The one other thing that they were quick to caution me about is to not take the hook out of the mouth of a bluefish with my fingers. They are capable of biting off your fingers if you're not careful. Gaff 'em and use pliers are the common wisdom. Everyone seem the think that if I start to troll after I clear the dock I should be catching fish before I get to the harbour mouth. Since we will be leaving in the dark and I'll have my hands full with conning the boat, I don't think that I'll try that. I'll start after the sun comes up and I can see what I'm doing.

We got a response from the Glass Slipper this AM. They are holed up at Martha's Vineyard waiting out the same weather picture as we are. They won't likely get to Port Jefferson until Monday or Tuesday so I have asked them which mooring they will be staying on and we'll try to get one close or at least anchor nearby, to which they responded that we should hang on the mooring that they will be using. If we are still there when they arrive, we can raft up. Their friends that own the mooring are not expected until the second week in October and from a quick map recce it looks like it should be close to a really nice beach that I am sure that Peri would love.

Barb has to do "official" stuff for her parent's estate today - get her signature notarized, fax the document off to the lawyers, etc. We found a lawyer who was kind enough to do all the official stuff at no charge. And, this afternoon, if the rain abates, I will do a little more work on the dingy. I still haven't completely solved the problem of securely fastening the lifting points for the davits. Almost there, but not quite. We have pulled the dingy up onto the roof of the cabin to get her up where I could work on her but also to get her out of the way of other traffic. As well, after last night's rain there was 6" of water in her that I needed to bail out.

For breakfast I did one of the famous Turney Quiche projects and I think that I have finally come up with the solution for soggy crusts. Barb had bought me some of the pastry stones to hold the crust down during the initial stages of baking so that it won't "bubble" up in the heat. The answer is that after baking the crust with the stones into its desired shape, you remove the stones and bake it a little longer until the crust begins to get golden. Then, and only then, do you add the filling. Ahhhh. Success!

It poured intermittently with the water just streaming down the streets and off the boat in torrents. Although this part of Groton is pretty laid back at the best of times, today it was almost comatose. Barb and I did some reading and laundry and we are planning the next couple of stages of our trip, but still, that makes for a really lazy day aboard waiting for the weather window. We have heard about Kyle coming up the coast offshore, going to hit the coast of the USA somewhere around Bangor or Bar Harbor and we are thinking about the folks that we met there on our way down, particularly Mary Lou and Jay. Sure hope they have everything tied down!

Cruising under these circumstances make it very tempting to brighten up the day by taking advantage of the facilities ashore. For example today we went ashore to Paul's Pasta and bought some bread and salads for dinner. As a treat Barb picked out a piece of chocolate cake which if it wasn't the best chocolate cake I have ever tasted I can't remember a better one. It was so good, in fact that when I looked up from my half a piece I was in time to see that Barb had actually licked the plate!