Watch Hill over Labor Day

If you have a boat in Southern New England, you have probably been to Watch Hill, Rhode Island. For those of us in eastern Connecticut it isn't far (28 miles from our marina) and pretty easy to find.

Napatree is the spit of land that extends out from Watch Hill and forms a big, mostly-protected, harbor of relatively shallow water that lots of people visit with their boats.  From there, you can use a small boat, like an inflatable, to visit Watch Hill, a summer community that has a big beach on the ocean side and a row of the usual beach-oriented stores that sell overpriced stuff and just-okay food.

A couple of folks at our dock go to Watch Hill every Labor Day and we, along with some others, decided to join them. It would be a seven boat flotilla and we were the last to leave.

When we arrived the first half of our contingent was already in place with a nice secure anchor courtesy of John T. in Miss Nicky.

We rafted up just behind them, attaching ourselves to our friends Frank and Barbara's 35 ft. Silverton. We were the last to arrive and it certainly was a good place to spend the weekend.

Soon after arrival, some of the ladies took off to check out Watch Hill. They didn't come back and we soon got a call that their outboard had quit.  Frank, our closest neighbor, headed out to rescue them in a really reliable outboard and brought them back.

They had valuable purchases and needed some help getting back to the stability of a real boat.

 We were among guys who can fix anything and before long, the failed outboard was being inspected. After a partial disassembly, the cause was found to be a clogged fuel filter.

On Sunday, we tried to head out in our inflatable, but as usual, our 2 HP Honda engine didn't want to start. We got good advice from our buddies, Frank and John, and once we let the piece of crap sit for a while, it started immediately. Frances and I jumped in. Who knows if we'd ever get back?  Off we went to the Asbury Park of Rhode Island. If we didn't have a boat in the harbor, it wouldn't have been worth the visit.

Nice boats to see as we went in, though.

These beautiful sailboats have sails marked "WH," which we assume stands for Watch Hill. This area has a very long tradition of sailing and we have to assume that these boats are a design unique to this area.

On Saturday night, Frances made an great dinner on her new favorite boating appliance, a Butane-fired stove that works perfectly. She wanted us to show a picture of this $20 must-have device.

Electricity is also a problem on a modern boat at anchor and we had planned to use our Yamaha generator on this trip. It wouldn't run so we bought an Ryobi generator at Home Depot for $549 and it worked fine. It was a little loud, but it powered what we needed, provided we turned things on selectively. Next time, we'll put it on the swim platform to keep it quiet.

Monday (Labor Day) dawned damp and foggy. Perhaps a little too foggy to go back home right then.

We waited until the fog lifted a little and then broke up the rafts. Ron and Sue were the first to leave.

 And then Salute headed off into the rain.

We followed soon thereafter and all seemed fine as we went through the narrow channel to Fischer's  Island Sound. As we turned at the park in Stonington, the skies opened up with a serious rain storm.

The rain beat down on us, he radar showed only rain clutter and we were completely drenched.

New London harbor was completely fogged in but we has a good GPS track and we know this area pretty well so we didn't have any trouble finding the channel and heading up towards the Gold Star bridge, which we couldn't see until we were within 300 yards of it.

Once up river past the bridge, the skies cleared and it became very hot and humid.  The skies behind us were as black as we have ever seen them.

Frances took the helm for a photo op. We should get her to run the boat more often.

The cruise the rest of the way up the river was uneventful and we docked without incident.  The chairs were out on the dock and we all compared experiences, some very funny and some a little scary.