Calm before the Storm
04 September 2008

Location: Coecles Harbor, Shelter Island, NY
Co-ords: 41 04.00 N, 072 17.59 W
We have had another beautiful day weatherwise - all in all it has been a fantastic week. You would never know that there is trouble brewing out there. We went back ashore at Sag Harbor this morning, we figured we should get our money's worth and leave the mooring a little later than we normally would. We tried to imagine who owns all the multi-million dollar, mega-motor yachts tied up in the harbor. We assume they must belong to a bunch of extremely wealthy people who presumably have homes in the Hamptons, so this is a convenient place for their boats. Well, we didn't see anyone famous that's for sure.
After studying the weather forecast this morning, we had a plan. We decided to get to Greenport to hide from Hannah. We know that is a very secure harbor and they used to have town moorings for rent. However, it has taken us 2 days to get hold of the Harbor Master, only to be told, this morning, that they no longer rent moorings - Phooey! So, on to Plan B. We sailed over to check out Coecles Harbor after leaving Sag Harbor. We dropped anchor for tonight and decided that the inner harbor is probably protected enough to ride out the storm. But, when we called the marina here, we were told in no uncertain terms that they were not providing moorings for "transients" because of the storm!!!! Double Phooey! In fact the marina is moving boats off their docks onto the moorings so there is no room for us. Actually, this is the only place we have seen any sort of preparation for what looks to be a fairly major weather event. So now we are on to Plan C. We will sail over to Stonington, CT, tomorrow. We have a mooring reserved there and hopefully they will put us in the inner harbor - I asked very nicely if they would do that. Once we get there we will get Osprey prepped for a lot of wind. We will probably take off the fore-sails, take off the solar panels and take down the dodger and bimini. All this is to reduce windage and lessen the chance of damage. We are expecting Hannah to arrive on Saturday evening but are monitoring the updates frequently. Keep all fingers and toes crossed!