Sunday, May 22, 2016

Underway again...

At 10:30 AM on Friday, May 20, we started the engines and headed out for another season at our summer marina in Norwich, Connecticut. We chose to leave on Friday because it promised the best weather after a week of wind and cold and Small Craft Warnings in Long Island Sound.

We have a lot of experience and faith in our boat, but Long Island Sound isn't to be trifled with. Just 362 days ago, on the same trip, we trashed the inside of the boat over about 3 miles of the Sound. But not this year. The sea conditions were great.

The trip down the river (33 miles) was uneventful and even relaxing. There was little or no boat traffic on the upper river and only about several dozen boats out on the lower part. The engines ran perfectly as did everything else. Frances put things away down below and visited the bridge every once in a while to check out the scenery.


In about 2.5 hours, we were at Old Saybrook Light, where we entered the Sound. The sun came out and the visibility was about 10 miles. We could see the water tower on Plum Island across the Sound. We powered up to about 17 mph and turned east. What a wonderful ride. This is what boating is all about!

The 14.6 miles to New London seemed to pass quickly and that was because we were going faster than conditions normally permit for a boat like ours with older engines.

Once we were on the final leg into New London harbor, we noticed the Orient Point ferry also entering on our starboard side. Not a big deal; we see these ferries all the time. But this time, there was also a large number of small sailboats practicing just west of the channel entrance. We needed to pass that sailboat class, leaving it our port side and get into the harbor channel.

The ferry isn't small. It's a 300 ft. car carrier moving at about the same speed we were. We considered calling the ferry on VHF and then decided, WTF, let's just get in there! Anything is better than slowing way down and letting the ferry and it's wake bounce us around.

We pushed the throttles up and watched our speed increase. At about 3400 rpm we were flying (for us, at least) and we have to admit that the old boat really got up and went. Frances was sitting up on the bridge and the smile on her face was wonderful as she watched to speed increase on the GPS screen .

It wasn't a big deal. The ferry captain saw that we intended to pass the sailboats and enter the channel before him and he slowed down.


We ran up the Thames and soon were backing into our slip at the Marina at American Wharf in Norwich.  Let's hope that this summer, every time we back into a slip, it goes as well as this one did.


We spent the first night of our summer season on the boat with its sparkling clean and refurbished interior. The outside of the boat, however, really needs cleaning and we'll do that next weekend.

The next morning, a couple of other boats arrived and, instead of working, we spent some time sitting on someone's dock box for a chat.


Some things never change, luckily for us.

The guys did want to see our new Sirius Electronic Flare, a device that eliminates the need for pyrotechnic flares (the ones that always seem to be expired when you check them in the spring).


The four-legged dock mate in the picture is Bailey. She is friendly, playful and doesn't give a damn about electronic flares.


No comments:

Post a Comment