“Mystic in a week if I have good luck with the weather”, is what I said shortly before starting out. I can’t say I’ve had good weather luck but I’ve kept the schedule, or could have. I left Richmond Island, an outlying anchorage of Portland a week ago this morning. I’m now in Stonington where I arrived about noon but could easily have made Mystic today. However, my marina reservation doesn’t start till Monday when I’ll start working for a week with the company that bought my business. A pending proposal and other arrangements have had more to do with my pushing along hard on this portion of the trip than my usual “Gethereitis”.
My anchorage in the old canal cut on Wednesday was a perfect place to wait out winds that were strong enough not to make me feel guilty about delaying to have dinner with three friends. I left before dawn the next morning hoping to get up into the lee of the other side of the bay before the wind came up. It came on hard about ten minutes after the sun and I got into Mattapoisett just before it would have become quite wet and unpleasant.
A few minutes chatting up the harbormaster got me permission to stay on the town dock until after lunch so I walked around town a bit and then invited occasional poster “Sailingdog” over for lunch. Conditions had eased enough by the time we had eaten and spend some time visiting on the boat that I was able to continue on to South Dartmouth with spray in the face for only a couple of miles. It was one of those perfect cruising evenings there . I just sat and looked at the light and congratulated myself for being there.
Another pre-dawn departure took me around the corner. The wind came up with beautiful strength and direction off Saconnet and I was able to set sails, other then just a bit of jib for steadying, for the first time since leaving Portland. It was a beautiful run on a close reach across the mouth of Naragansett Bay to Point Judith. What I lack in quantity of sail time, I make up for with quality. It was about as good as it gets.
I motored up to the head of Point Judith Pond, a place I never knew existed, a beautiful area unlike almost anything I’ve experienced in my cruising days. A quiet night on a borrowed mooring in this area seemed just as exotic as far Nova Scotia to this Mainer.
I shut off the cabin heater and stowed the smoke head this morning in anticipation of possibly beating up to Watch Hill since the schedule pressure is now off. It was blowing hard early enough when I came out of the harbor that I figured I’d better get along in case it turned into an exhausting slog. It was a wet bucking to windward that brought me to Stonington for lunch and a nap.
It is a gorgeous holiday weekend here. Everyone is out for a last good sail but the wind is a bit more sporty and I’m feeling lazy for some reason so I’ve just been sitting here watching boats go by and catching up on things like this. Perhaps I’ll take a short sail if the wind goes down but I’ll probably come right back here afterwards.
Tomorrow, I’ll daysail and explore in cruising fashion and then go into Mystic Monday morning to rejoin the working world for a few days. That will feel quite novel in my current circumstances.
My anchorage in the old canal cut on Wednesday was a perfect place to wait out winds that were strong enough not to make me feel guilty about delaying to have dinner with three friends. I left before dawn the next morning hoping to get up into the lee of the other side of the bay before the wind came up. It came on hard about ten minutes after the sun and I got into Mattapoisett just before it would have become quite wet and unpleasant.
A few minutes chatting up the harbormaster got me permission to stay on the town dock until after lunch so I walked around town a bit and then invited occasional poster “Sailingdog” over for lunch. Conditions had eased enough by the time we had eaten and spend some time visiting on the boat that I was able to continue on to South Dartmouth with spray in the face for only a couple of miles. It was one of those perfect cruising evenings there . I just sat and looked at the light and congratulated myself for being there.
Another pre-dawn departure took me around the corner. The wind came up with beautiful strength and direction off Saconnet and I was able to set sails, other then just a bit of jib for steadying, for the first time since leaving Portland. It was a beautiful run on a close reach across the mouth of Naragansett Bay to Point Judith. What I lack in quantity of sail time, I make up for with quality. It was about as good as it gets.
I motored up to the head of Point Judith Pond, a place I never knew existed, a beautiful area unlike almost anything I’ve experienced in my cruising days. A quiet night on a borrowed mooring in this area seemed just as exotic as far Nova Scotia to this Mainer.
I shut off the cabin heater and stowed the smoke head this morning in anticipation of possibly beating up to Watch Hill since the schedule pressure is now off. It was blowing hard early enough when I came out of the harbor that I figured I’d better get along in case it turned into an exhausting slog. It was a wet bucking to windward that brought me to Stonington for lunch and a nap.
It is a gorgeous holiday weekend here. Everyone is out for a last good sail but the wind is a bit more sporty and I’m feeling lazy for some reason so I’ve just been sitting here watching boats go by and catching up on things like this. Perhaps I’ll take a short sail if the wind goes down but I’ll probably come right back here afterwards.
Tomorrow, I’ll daysail and explore in cruising fashion and then go into Mystic Monday morning to rejoin the working world for a few days. That will feel quite novel in my current circumstances.
