Halfway to Port Jeff
27 September 2008
• Duck Island Road
by Mike
We were awoken early this morning, and if you know us you know that normal out-of-bed is 0600 so when I say early, it's early! The Royal Princess was farting her way back into the harbour in dense fog, so they had their fog horn honkin' every three minutes and then when they came abreast of some fort on the western shore a gun battery over there lit up with some kind of 5 gun salute. All of which was guaranteed to ensure that everyone in town is awake. from barb - EVEN EARLIER IN THE AM - we received news form Kayte that her friend Taryn finally (after 40+ hours) gave bith to Lily - congrats to Lily, Taryn and Jason - we were just back to sleep when the other princess made here arrival known with the honking and canon salute that Mike mentioned above.
I got to work and finally did a proper job of tightening down the engine mounts. I was surprised to discover that three of them were easily two full threads too loose, or maybe I really wasn't since the slightest cavitation resulted in the engine vibrating for a couple of seconds. Now, hopefully, that will stop.
I was finally able to meet the owner of the marina, a Mr. John Syragakis, a local businessman and entrepreneur. Seems like a nice gent and I am only too happy to recommend this place as a spot to stop on the north shore of Buzzard's/Long Island Sound.
Still raining and the visibility isn't so great in the haze and fog, but we will start off anyway as the wind and sea state is about as benign as it can possibly be. Who knows I might even catch some fish.
We have put the dingy on the roof of the cabin in anticipation of rough seas. I think that we'll leave it there for this part of the trip just as an experiment. Given its light weight and ease of handling, I think that will be our SOP if we are making any sort of offshore passage that will take longer than a couple of days. That way we won't have to worry about being pooped or it filling up with rain water. Then, once we are coastal cruising or staying at one spot for any length of time, we can put her back in the water and begin to use the davits again.
And so, we bid a fond farewell to Groton, Conn and our new friend Jim. One of the happy and simultaneously sad parts of cruising is that you have the wonderful experience of meeting some great people, but then sooner or later you weigh anchor and set off on the next leg of your journey. In some cases, such as Mary Lou, Jay and now with Jim is they are all in some stage of pursuing the same dream as us, and Jim has a job as delivery skipper that will give him interim salt water fixes before he can cast off for himself. Hopefully we'll see them all somewhere further along our rhomb line.
Our trip today started in absolutely pouring rain so I am really glad we put the dink on the deck. There was practically no wind and for the first 3 hours we were pushing a pretty hefty current so it was another day of motoring. Yawn! I have got to figure out and include in my leg planning whatever the time difference is for the Captn and the tidal current predictions that it comes up with. It always seems to be an hour late so I think it is on standard time and we are on savings or vice versa.
We scooted up the coast for 4 hours and arrived at a spot that I selected as half way to Port Jefferson - Duck Island at Duck Island Road. The island has two breakwaters built to the north and west shaped like a huge V. Although over the years the area between the V has become sanded up there is still about 8-10' just inside the ends of the breakwater. The wind generator is above so it is keeping the batteries charged, and as I write this we are waiting to ensure that the anchor has dug in well. A short distance away there seems to be a small sandy beach to which we can row Peri into for his morning constitutional and even if the anchor drags a little, there is only more sand for it to dig into.
Tomorrow we will depart for Port Jefferson where our friends John and Cyndi have pointed us at a mooring that we can tie up to and hopefully meet them again. When we last heard from them they were holed up at Martha's Vinyard awaiting a break in the weather as we were in New London. They didn't think that they were going to get to Port Jeff until Monday or Tues so if we get there tomorrow and they are able to get there the day after perhaps we could have another movie night.
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