Block Island Cruise - 2016

 We left for Block Island on Thursday, July 21 (after waiting out one of those pesky "Small Craft Advisories") and came back a week later. It was a short week for us, since once we faded into BI vacation mode, the days simply slid by. We met lot of nice people, many friendly dogs and as always, had an experience that makes owning a boat really worthwhile. Should we add that we love Payne's Dock?

It was warm on the island while we were there but with a nice wind from the west, we never once used the air conditioning on the boat. Our fly bridge became our new living room, where we could watch the many boats come and go.  Frances insisted on cooking and we had many memorable meals, including a few breakfasts powered by Payne's famous killer donuts.

On Friday, we walked across the island to Old Harbor, where the ferries come in. One of the many ferries had just unloaded, and we were literally pushed off the sidewalk by the crowds. We retreated without exploring any of the Old Harbor shops but did some food shopping at the Block Island Market.

It's too bad that Block Island's tourism efforts have been so successful that the big ferries that arrive every couple of hours each disgorge 1,000 or so anxious people looking for the beach or food or a Moped to rent. Needless to say, Old Harbor is nice once the last ferry leaves in the evening.

We treated ourselves to lunch at Dead Eye Dick's one weekday and found it very nice. Earlier we had tried to get into The Oar at Block Island Boat Basin but were told (slightly after 1 pm) that there was a 90 minute wait for a table. No restaurent, in our view, is worth a 90 minute wait.

On another day, between ferry arrivals, we went to lunch at the old Surf Hotel. We've walked by this place at the corner of Dodge and Water Street for years and it was always closed and shuttered. Now it's not only open but has a very nice dining porch looking right over the beach. The food was good and the prices reasonable, so much so that we invited our boating friends Lou and Jane to join us there for dinner several days later.

From our vantage point at Payne's we were able to watch an amazing variety of boats come and go. Many of them were high-dollar cruisers but others were just people like us who were happy to chat, (and we all know how much Frances likes to chat, don't we?). A coastal cruise ship docked one day and its guests took a tour of the island on a waiting school bus.

No blog entry would be complete without mention of Pooka, our boat cat. He made the 45 mile cruise with only two pukes but once at Payne's, was in his element.

He gets a better view by climbing up the steps to the bridge and is happy to get a good snooze up there. But once we're sitting in the cockpit, he simply has to come out a join the party. He lets us know when he wants to come down and, of course, we always help him.

One afternoon, we took a walk though a nature path just off Beach Avenue. Frances spotted birds and we marveled at how beautiful the undeveloped parts of the island are.

On our way back, we shot pictures of some of the mansions that look out over New Harbor. This area can be really cold and windy during the winter but it certainly is beautiful in the middle of the summer.

We also visited the Block Island Marine Institute where a docent showed the kids live sea creatures that they could actually hold, albeit gently. The kid on the right is Frances.

Particularly around Payne's, it's obvious that others love Block Island as much as we do.

How can you not like this place when Payne's has this unique sign to identify where the men's room is?

 All in all, a great cruise and one that we'll remember as fondly as all the other times we have been here.

We put together some video, which we'll really enjoy watching again next winter after operating our snowblower.

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.

Pooka spends a night on the fly bridge

 A blog post from Frances...

 Wednesday, July 6

I awoke a little later than usual because Pooka was not howling in my ear for some grub.  I jumped out of the V berth and went looking for him.  He was not in the usual places. 

The first place I checked was his man cave (under our Klobo-IKEA couch) but no Pooka.  Next, I searched all the cabinets because he is sneaky when it comes to hiding from his humans. But still, no Pooka.  My next step was to get off the boat to check for a floater…what could I do? Did our Pooka take an accidental swim? Time to find out.

Just as I was getting off the boat, I heard a faint meow and I looked up on the bridge (the ladder up there is 5 steps), and I spotted a bedraggled, wet triangular head of a blondie cat peering out from the bottom of the canvas. Pooka!

That cat was sure was glad to see me, and I him.  I climbed up and unzipped the canvas. It had rained the night before, so I dried the steps to prevent slippage.  After several friendly head butts, he was ready to descend.  However, it wasn’t to be his usual procedure.

First he tried the railing and I told him “no.” I did protect myself from potential claw damage with the towel.  He decided, without consultation, to use my head as a springboard.  Apparently my “familiar” scent comforted him.  It worked and I was able to carry him down to the deck.   

All is good with a happy ending. Never a dull moment with Pooka, the First Cat Mate.   

A tinkle in the engine room

We're heading to Block Island in a few weeks and Saturday seemed like a good time to check out the engines, fluids etc.

Almost everyone on our dock was at Napatree for the long weekend and we were enjoying the beautiful weather here in Norwich. It's nice to just take it easy for a day or so.

For those of you who don't know our area, here's where Napatree is:

It's kind of a cool place where New York, Rhode Island and Connecticut intersect. Good holding ground and lots of boats raft up there.

Anyhow, back in Norwich on Saturday morning, we were poking around our engines and we heard a drip. Not the water slapping against the hull but a true drip.  We felt around under the deck over our starboard v-drive and yes, there was water but from where? It seemed to be dripping around from above but there was noting "above" that could emit any water. We groped around the many hoses and finally found the culprit: our Jabsco accumulator tank, which was squirting two tiny streams of water straight up against the bottom of the deck above it. The top of this thing was cracked and as such, needed to be replaced.

What's an accumulator tank? Its just another item of boat crap that the recreational boating industry has put there to substitute for good engineering. In effect, it's just there to take some pressure off the fresh water pump, which we only use underway or at anchor. But it's in the water circuit so even when were were using city water at the dock, it leaked.

So, we took a quick drive to Defender Marine in Waterford and bought a new one for $81.00. To be fair, this is one the last things left over on the boat from the previous owner, so I guess we were due. We installed the new accumulator and the tinkle stopped.

Now we know why Frances had mentioned that she heard the bilge pump come on from time to time.

On Saturday night, after really enjoying an hour or so of cocktail time in the setting sun, Frances produced her great shrimp dinner. Shrimp, garlic and whole bunch of other stuff, served with spinach. God, was that good!

Seems to us, this is what boating is all about

Nothing very profound here. Just Frances and Bill taking a cruise to Long Island. We've made this trip dozens of times, sometimes in poor weather, but we have always had fun and appreciated the fact that we had a boat that would get us there, and back, and keep us reasonably dry along the way.

We left on Thursday, June 16, only about an hour late. The weather was more than good, it was what every boater wishes for: cool as we went down the Thames and then the wind on our stern once we turned west into the Sound. It was one of the few times we could remember that we could let go of the wheel and just make minor course corrections.

Our little Acer laptop laid out our course and we simply followed that across the Sound to Plum Gut, where we would enter Gardiners Bay. Sure, we also had a compass heading and a plan just in case the computer died but we always know where we are. Even in fog we can always turn on the radar if needed..

The software on out little computer is by Polar Navy for about $50. Download the charts at no cost, plan your cruise and cast off. We have power adapter that allows the Acer computer to get power directly from the boat's batteries so we're never out of juice.

Thirty-eight miles later we were at Greenport. We called them on Channel 11 and they confirmed our reservation. Note to any others like us: arrive mid-week. It is so much easier docking when everyone else isn't coming in or going out.

In a couple of hours, we were in what we call "vacation mode." That means forget the shore side stuff, relax and enjoy the surroundings. The marina was mostly empty this early in the year and that was fine with us.

We took a very short walk to the IGA (the most air conditioned market on the planet), bought some stuff, checked out the Farmer's Market across the street where Frances chatted with Eddie, who has been with the farm for years, and then strolled back to the boat.

Our other crew member, Pooka, was happy to catch some shut-eye with his favorite new toy.

Frances really likes to cook on the boat and she produced a great dinner. Then it was off to bed after a long day.

For the next couple of days, we did as little as possible, as we were firmly in the grasp of Vacation Mode. We treated ourselves to breakfast a couple of times at the Sterlington Deli. (Note to those who are new to Greenport: breakfast or lunch, this is the best place in town.) When we were introduced to this deli years ago, the locals called it "the German girl's place." That German girl is now probably a grandmother and the deli is run by her son, Fred Schutz.

On Saturday evening, we met our friends Ellen and Dave for cocktails on the boat and then dinner at a restaurant about 750 feet away on Front Street. Nice evening with good conversation and very acceptable food.

Seeing Ellen and Dave is always fun and a wonderful chance to catch up on what's happening on the North Fork. For instance, we learned that Claudios hasn't been sold, contrary to rumor. Someone made an offer of $13+ million but then couldn't raise all the money so the Claudio family re-opened for another season. If the number of people and boats we saw packed in there on Saturday night is any indication, they are doing OK.

One afternoon, we took a walk to the beach at Pipe's Cove. It's another village park that few boating visitors ever get to enjoy. We knew we were in luck when we spotted a Osprey nest, one of Frances' favorite birds.

We were carrying our trusty old still camera, which we call "clamshell." Frances took this nice still-life of two bikes in the park. She has a good eye for composition.

We left on Tuesday morning and found ourselves with now a west wind, perfect for our ride back across the sound. And it was just fine, as was our little Greenport vacation.

We've attached some video, which we would classify as a little rough. We used three cameras, one of which is a little Go-Pro-like action cam that doesn't produce the best pictures. We came back with literally hundreds of video clips and still photos and, because of work responsibilities, it took us longer than expected to edit and organize them all into something that our friends would enjoy watching.

First cruise of the year, coming this week!

Our plan is to untie the old boat and head out to Greenport, Long Island on Wednesday. We do this every year to see our friends Ellen and Dave who live very near Greenport.  We have a long history with Ellen but that's a long story that we'll leave for another time.

But a cruise means that we need to do some preventative maintenance, not that there seems to be anything wrong with the boat. It's just that we're old fashioned when it comes to checking everything out before we cast off.

With that in mind, we began Sunday morning (after The New York Times) by looking at the the float switch on the midships bilge pump. The pump comes on from time to time, mainly from condensate from the air conditioner, but lately, it hasn't been shutting off. We played around with the Rule bilge pump float switch for a while and found that it had failed. Par for the course for a Rule switch, at least in our experience. We've had three of these float switches fail in our shower sump so we're familiar with how they mount and how often they fail.

A quick trip to Defender Marine in Waterford and we had a new switch that we hope will last for the summer. Next winter, we'll replace that switch with something more substantial.

While all of this was going on, Frances headed to her house to pick up Pooka, the boat cat, and that was a good thing since we had to open hatches, spread out tools and generally get in the way for several hours.

We checked all the fluids on the engines and transmissions and then adjusted the choke on the port engine, which has never opened soon enough. That done, we adjusted the idle jets on both carbs so that warm, they would run at exactly the same speed in gear while docking. Again, only the port engine required any adjustment.

Then we got out lines for docking at Greenport and then adjusted the sliding screen door to our cabin. Isn't this exciting?

Just when we were running out of things to do, Frances arrived with Pooka. It's fun to see the old guy again. He immediately walked around and we like to think recognized his summer home from last year. Bill got the equivalent of a fist-bump from him right away. That's where he runs his face along your leg.

Sounds to us like a good beginning to the summer.

Time to clean the outside of the boat

This probably isn't very interesting. Cleaning rarely is. But, our boat has been in a shed all winter and we did have Stanley Steemer come in and make the interior clean and fresh, so now it was time for us to make it look almost as good on the outside.

It's Memorial Day weekend and on Saturday, we brought down our pressure washer and began by blasting the grime off the foredeck. The pressure washer did a good job but we also used one of those scruffy pads to get into all the little spots.

Then it was down to the cockpit to do the real hands-and-knees cleaning. Not fun, but it was satisfying to see all the winter dirt disappear down the deck scuppers.

That took just about all day and as cocktail hour got underway, we decided to try our marina's new restaurant for dinner.

This is third operator of the restaurant in five years and to be fair, we don't think they knew what to expect on their first days of being open. When we got there, the place was mobbed and very loud. The staff wasn't trained and the food was a few steps below "okay," and that's being generous.

On Sunday morning (isn't it great to sleep, once again, on your boat?), Frances made to strongest coffee in the Western Hemisphere, which really hit the spot. We read The New York Times and then started the first big event of the season: get a pump-out. Once the waste tank was empty, we calibrated the tank gauge so that Frances will always know just how we're doing in that department.

We also, cleaned all 13 of the windows on the bridge and then tackled the upholstery, gauges and all the little spots that seem to trap dirt. We finished off the afternoon by cleaning the cabin windows.

We made a silly video of Sunday's activities just because we could. It's only about 2-1/2 minutes long but it was fun to put together.