Well it just goes to show you. You never can tell… Yesterday when we left Newport it was a gorgeous day, nice sunny overhead, seemingly an easy wind. In fact going out of the harbor proper we ran across a girl’s school doing laser sailboat races. The picture included shows the boat race with the Newport bridge, and just for kicks a large cruise ship that happened to be visiting in port (no the cruise ships not underway, the girls school race isn’t in danger of being run down) in the background. The cruise ship is contentedly anchored waiting for the return of all its ugly little ferryboats.
Anyway back to my story… The weather called for 60 degrees and the sea conditions sounded idyllic. Five to ten knots coming from the south (they had the direction right at least), waves 1-2 ft. Once out of the channel it was clear to see that the weatherman either had a great sense of humor or he’d never been on a boat. The wind was quite brisk going to at least 15 knots; head on, and the waves didn’t seem to have a clue. They were confused if they were coming or going choppy and due to the direction we had to go and the way the wind was blowing we were taking them over the bow at least some of the time. We had planned to get all the way to Old Saybrook but the captain had mercy on us and decided it should be a short day.
We pulled in at Point Judith and anchored for the night in a small, protected cove. We went all the way up into Point Judith Pond, which turned out to be at the end of a very narrow, very shallow albeit well marked channel. With no one in sight we decided to try our hand at anchoring, something we haven’t done on this boat before. Boyd had to completely rebuild the anchor windlass (the thing that winds the anchor onto and off of the boat) this important piece of machinery makes it possible to get hundreds of pounds of chain to perform in the desired way at the desired time, but we hadn’t yet used it. With parts that had to be ordered from New Zealand (months ago) I was really hoping nothing would break. Nothing did. It went like clockwork and since we were well inside a breakwater and far up into the cove there was relatively low wind and no waves.
The only splash of cold water on our wildly successful anchoring event was when we took a “real” sounding (done with a real piece of line with a lead weight tied onto the end) and found that our beautiful anchorage really was only 7 ft deep, keep in mind, we draw 5′.5″. Well that’s what the chart said it was so I’m not sure why we’d be surprised. I was right in the middle of a bonifide rant letting Boyd know that I thought it might be irresponsible to anchor in the middle of a tide (between high and low) when we only had 1.5 ft below the keel. I was worried that we’d be aground before the tide was all the way out and that we might loll to the side and/or damage something. About that time this beautiful sailboat another 10′ -at least- longer than ours came in to the cove and dropped anchor. End of discussion.
Nicole was thrilled to see that the “neighbor” sailboat was a “kids boat” and before the night was out we were having drinks, “Chunky-Monkey” ice cream and lots of great conversation with s/v Sea Schelles owners, who, to our good fortune had two adorable little girls for Nicole to play with. They also generously shared drinks and an evening with us. Turns out this was their first time anchoring their new-to-them boat too so it really was a case that neither of us knew we were depending on the “local” knowledge of people who had none. Oh well, it all turned out fine… I think we may actually have gotten stuck in the mud somewhere in the middle of the night but other than getting mud on the keel I can’t see as it did any harm. We had planned to leave around 10am and therefore to wait for the tide to be back where it was when we cam in, so we’d be sure to have enough water to get out of the cove, we did leave a bit later just due to the delay that the washer caused as we were trying it out.
Oh, back to my story so what’s do you think the weather was for today? Right sunny, 60 degrees, light wind from the South and waves 1-2 ft or less. I guess perhaps it’s all in the nuances because today the weather is just exactly that. It couldn’t be more gorgeous! There are no waves, just enough wind to keep it from being hot under the dodger and flat as a pancake. Considering what I’ve heard about Long Island Sound and the fact that we’re almost into the double digits of November (tomorrow) we have a lot to be grateful for. Hopefully we’ll run into the s/v Sea Schell again soon, for tonight we are headed (again) for Old Saybrook. But today I think there’s a good chance we’ll make it.