Next stop: Block Island

Wednesday or Thursday morning,  we'll pick up some gas, cruise down the Thames River to New London harbor and then follow the upper course on the chart above. That takes us east through Fisher's Island Sound and then out into the ocean at Watch Hill Passage. Then, it's just 16 miles to Block. It's a cruise that we've done many times and have always found it pretty easy except for Watch Hill, where you have to be mineful of the exposed rocks. The channel markers are your friend there.

The lower course on the chart is one that we haven't used in some time because it is three miles longer. It has only two headings once we leave New London. But, we're cheap New Englanders so the shorter route is the one we take.

All trips to Block Island require some respect for the weather. It's normally fairly calm at this time of the year but why go when it's raining? We'll check the weather and cast off when it looks good.

This weekend it was as hot as hell in Norwich. We took that time to check our engines and found everything okay. We did waste some time fooling with the ignition timing on our starboard engine and managed to screw up the ignition timing. However, the Frances' help, we managed to get that engine running again and we think, better than before.

We got through the weekend with the boat's AC chugging along, and it did a great job of keeping the cabin temp at a nice 74 degrees when it was 95 outside. But, once the sun went down, we moved our cocktail hour outside and sat in our deck chairs and admired the sky, the birds and our old boat.

Good summer, so far.