Safe and Sound
07 September 2008

Hannah blew by in the night pretty much as forecast. We, of course, were tucked up safe and sound ashore so did not really notice anything as it went by. Looking at the archived wind data from the New London Buoy, which is close to us, the wind gusted up to 40 knots there. There was some heavy rain during the evening but by the time we were back at the boat this morning it was dry and the sun was coming out. In fact it turned into a beautiful day with all the humidity gone and clear blue skies - what a difference a day makes! I'm pleased to report that we found Osprey just as we left her - what a relief. Once we got back aboard we spent a couple of hours getting the sails back on, remounting the solar panels and reassembling the dodger and bimini. Even now we are not sure whether all our efforts were really necessary but we agreed we would do it all again in the same circumstances. Better to be safe than sorry is our philosophy. Also, having done it all once we now know what it entails and it is not that much effort to make sure every is safe. We learned today that it is a rule in the Harbor that all foresails have to be taken off if there is a tropical storm warning - which there was. This explains why so many boats had taken their sails off. However, we were told by the marina staff that despite notification, quite a few boat owners just don't bother to turn up and do the right thing. This means that the marina staff then have to go out to the boats and do it for the owners (for a charge of course). If it wasn't for the local staff it would be a question of many boats being jepardised by the neglect of a few lazy people who cannot be bothered to abide by the rules.
Once we got Osprey all put back together we decided that we would just relax for the rest of the afternoon with the Sunday paper. We will head back down the river tomorrow and find a new anchorage for the night.