Tuesday 8th October
Naushon Island, this Island is part of a group of privately owned islands, they are owned by the Forbes family of Forbes Magazine fame, it is such a pretty sheltered spot that apparently the family got sick of people anchoring there and blocking the thoroughfare (there is a private ferry that the islanders use ) that Mr Forbes provides free mooring balls for anyone to use. |
| There were huge mansions around us |
 |
| But they all seemed unoccupied - the top of the private ferry boat |
It was so wild we didn't even venture up top or even consider dropping the dingy. The forecast was for winds 30 - 40 knots with gusts up to 60 - and we sure did get those speeds, the bullets moved Adriana quite forcibly.. it was relentless the wind did not stop howling for days. We swung around a lot but it was not too unbearable I think we just got used to the noise and the movement plus there was nothing we could do about it.
There was so much condensation inside that we didn't want to go out, get wet and bring more moisture in. On the second morning Craig went to check on everything outside, "We have a problem" he announced, he had found that the anchor was rubbing against the mooring ball rope and even though the rope was incredibly thick it had started to be cut by our anchor he spent a bit of time trying to secure the anchor up higher than the mooring ball rope so it wouldn't make contact but in the end the only solution was to drop the anchor.
Craig told me as we were heading out on the Saturday morning that he had lost sleep worrying that the boat might have swung around and our anchor would be all entwined with the mooring ball, but luckily the wind was consistently from the North East and we had not ever swung around full circle once so we managed to extract ourselves quite easily thank goodness. I actually don't know how you would get out of that predicament but it must happen.
We also tied a rope over the solar panels to hold them in place a bit more securely, the wind was hitting one particular corner constantly.
The time actually went quite quickly and we were comfortably cocooned inside Adriana, I don't know how we passed the time, we made bread and humus, cooked some nice meals, we read and played solitaire on the iPad. One exciting time occupier was to plot the next part of our journey.
By the Saturday morning we were relieved that the wind had abated enough for us to venture out of our hidey hole, I had been worried that the sand might have shifted and covered the narrow entrance and we would run aground on the way out but no we made it back out easy enough.
The exit/entrance to the ocean was incredibly bumpy with wind against tide and 2 bodies of water colliding, waves were breaking over our bow as we dipped and rose in the big seas.
The seas calmed once we were away from land, and once we were heading in the right direction there was a nice steady wind and we sailed on towards Newport Rhode Island - Home of The Americas Cup.
We had been warned that Newport was a busy harbour and to our thinking the summer season is over and how busy can it be... well there were cruise ships and their tenders running back and forth, ferries, water taxis, hundreds of motor boats zooming around,
yachts sailing in and out plus all the little runarounds, there were boats everywhere. It was hard to find a clear spot to drop the anchor and allow enough room for us to swing around with the tides.
We ended up anchoring out the front of the Ida Lewis YC it was late in the day so we didn't bother going ashore even though we had been boat bound for 6 days !!!
Our position in the harbour was quite a long dingy ride to shore, but it was great because we were able to have a close up look at all the beautiful boats .
 |
| We were quite taken by this timber sloop |
Our first stop was the Maritime Centre this facility is housed in an ancient building owned by the local shire and it is specifically for boaters, they provide public toilets and showers, laundry facilities and the best thing, a lounge area with good free WIFI.
 |
| There was a fair bit of Americas Cup memorabilia |
 |
| Built mid 1700's it could have been a windmill but some say it has links to the Knights Templar !! |
We spent a few hours walking exploring the town, Its very pretty and historical but you can see its a destination for the extremely wealthy. With lots of top end designer shops, we found Americas Cup Avenue and shared a Ruben sandwich for lunch, later in the day we found a cute Aussie café but we had eaten already so we stopped and had a cup of tea,
and of course we visited the supermarket.
 |
| We stumbled across this Aussie Themed cafe |
We deposited our shopping back on board and loaded our washing and rubbish in the dingy and spent the rest of the afternoon washing and I did a page on the blog.
I must say once all the water traffic stopped for the evening I was surprised at how extremely still it was. It was St Columbus Day and we were treated to a huge fireworks display, we had front row seats the fireworks were almost on top of us !!
Monday 14th October 2019
Today our destination is Fishers Island an island inhabited by American billionaires, retired politicians and maybe even a retired president?
We had managed to sail out of Newport and the wind lasted most of the day, this is important to us not just to say we sailed out of Newport along with all the other yachts but it makes our travelling free.... It was only as we rounded the channel between fishers Island and the mainland when we had the tide running against us that we had to turn on the engine.
 |
| We encounter so many fishing boat, this one had the most birds around it we have ever seen |
Ha Ha we were moved on, of course they don't want transient gypsies trespassing on their exclusive waters, we had motored into a pretty bay and dropped the anchor, we were all set to make ourselves at home when a young man in a motor boat came alongside and informed us we were "not allowed to anchor here" ! He said "the sea grasses were important habitat of the endangered striped bass" (fish) "we were welcome to take a mooring ball for the day but defiantly no one gets to stay overnight".
He actually admitted he could not make us move but hinted there were some well connected people on the harbour committee. We weighed up our options and decided it didn't feel right if we were not welcome so we pulled up the anchor and motored on our way.
We kept on going for another hour or so and anchored in Niantic Bay just outside the Yacht Club, it was a bit rollie so much so we were tripping over ourselves as we were getting ready for bed. But the wind changed direction around midnight and we had a very comfortable still night.
I rugged up in my overalls and layers the next morning for our trip to Port Jefferson Harbour NYC, but by 9.30 am I had dropped a couple of layers I feel we have turned a corner and its defiantly a bit milder although the overnight low was 7c last night and 6c tonight.
We had the most beautiful sail straight out of our anchorage, the sea was calm, the tides were with us and we scooted down Long Island Sound, listening to a boppy radio station, not only that but the wind kept up it was forecast to drop but it worked for us most of the day.
We changed radio stations after a while and found a great public station that had a evangelical pastor being interviewed and we were like wow imagine if we could find a Pentecostal church service with gospel singers, we will keep a look out for one.
We did have to motor into Port Jefferson Harbour eventually but that's ok it gives us hot water. We dropped the anchor in a very pretty spot away from the busy harbour and yay had a lovely calm night, but the forecast is due to change .....
Our next stop along the way is Port Washington which is only a short train ride to NYC.
It was a short easy sail down the Long Island Sound.
There was very little wind and at one stage we put up the big red kite to see if we could catch a breeze, there wasn't much but enough to break the line that was holding the bottom of the kite down - poof the kite blew up and soared up into the sky we ran to grab the lines that still held it tied to the boat, plus it was still connected up top so we were not in danger or loosing the kite but it could have been damaged as it was flying wild.
The line was 10mm thick and really we should have been using a much thicker stronger line, when you think about it the kite or the sails are pulling along so many tonnes of boat, no wonder things break under that stress.
 |
| Sunshine |
 |
| Big Red |
 |
| Ooops |
And it was, they no longer give the 2 free nights or maybe they do but not at this time of year, the taxi operator advised us to take a white/blue mooring ball, they are all the same price $25pn including the free taxi.
There is a storm coming through tonight and tomorrow the forecast is for 30-40 knot winds with gusts up to 60 knots.
These storms are called Sou'westers and are the normal weather pattern for this time of year. We still feel we are running so late getting down south but there are a few yachts behind us we can see them on AIS.
As we approached Port Washington we could see NYC skyscrapers on the horizon yay we were so excited to see it at last, just like Land Ahoy it was New York ahoy. But first we had to weather another storm.
 |
| A very hazy NYC |
We then took everything inside and decided to take off the back part of the dodger as this had rubbed against the solar panels during the last storm at Naushon Island and had worn 4 holes at the points of contact. We took down our Aussie flag we cant loose a second one. Once the decks were cleared we went below to cook some bacon and eggs and hunker down from the storm.
And as forecast around 4pm the wind picked up we managed to tune the TV and find a news station, the storm was on the news it was a big deal for NYC with wind gusts and flooding predicted.
The wind started howling and we swung back and forth with the bow facing into the wind so as the wind direction changes we swing around, some gusts hit us sideways and pushed into us but not too violently, we were never in danger of tipping over but it sometimes felt like it. The fetch of the waves increased and at one stage when it was really bad we were also rocking back and forward like a hobby horse.
You can never trust a mooring ball so the anchor alarm was on and we watched it like it was the TV..
We had our beers and popcorn around 4.30pm then dinner about 6.30pm we had so many leftovers we just heated them up, The only programs we could tune the tv into were old American cop shows like Cagney and Lacey, Cold Case and CSI the reception was not great so it was tedious to watch.
We were ready for bed by 8.30pm the sun had disappeared at 7pm At one stage something woke us up and we were so disappointed to find it was only 11pm..
It was so rocky Craig got up to lay on the couch he feels he can hear the whole boat from there rather than being in our bed at the bow of the boat, he also opened the hatch so he could hear if there were any changes to the incessant howling, bumping and clanging.
Around midnight for some reason, he doesn't know why, he went up top to check on things outside, as he turned on the engine to take the pressure off the mooring ball line he had to rub his eyes to make sure he was not seeing things, there was a concrete floating dock heading straight for us.
At first he thought it was a wave, then he realised what it was, in a panic, he started to yell for me (what was I going to do) but he then threw Adriana's stern around, just in time, the thing missed us only by inches. the pontoon floated on past missing the boat behind us but we could not see after that. We imagined it was just like a bowling ball hitting skittles (we found out the next day it had come from a yacht club across the bay and it actually did not hit anything as it moved through the mooring field)
After that adrenalin rush it was hard to settle back down, we were experiencing winds of 30 -35 knots as normal and getting gusts of up to 60 It was too uncomfortable in bed up the front but eventually I got cold and climbed in with my ipad and played solitaire until I
fell asleep, Craig climbed into bed around 6am he had gotten cold on the couch even with our big fluffy blanket over him.
Daylight emerged through the clouds and we managed to sleep until about 8am around 9.30am the taxi owner called past to check on us, we told him about the near miss with the floating dock and he asked us to check that our anchor wasn't chaffing the rope holding us to the mooring ball.
 |
| After the storm there were a number of boats with torn sails and covers !! |
Thursday 17th October 2019
We had a very lazy day, the winds were not forecast to drop back until 6pm and in fact around midday 34 knots was average and at one stage while I was watching and we had gusts of 40 and 41.8, remember we like to sail at speeds of 8 knots with winds around20 knots being ideal.
It was grey and overcast with no sun so there was no solar, so no power which meant no TV so not even old American tv shows to watch. The wind was still blowing strong at 6.15pm.
To keep busy I washed the bathroom walls and one of the corners in our bedroom with vinegar and then diluted clove oil: some mold was appearing and needed to be stopped before it spread, but apart from that we read and watched the world bob and spin out through the window.
Friday 18th October 2019
Finally a nice sunny day, the clouds cleared and the wind dropped allowing us to catch the free water taxi into shore for a day in Port Washington, Our first stop was West Marine the one that wouldn't order in our part, then on to the supermarket.
 |
| Eventually we emerged and got to walk on land |
We took advantage of the free taxi and went back to Adriana for lunch and to put away our shopping then headed out again to explore. Its a lovely town set on a steep hill we walked up to the old part of town with its strip shops so different from the usual Malls.
We checked out the railway station and picked up a timetable ready for NYC. The original pub on the wharf had a good happy hour so we had an early dinner a beer and a burger, there seems to be a pattern to our first day on land after a few days on the boat.
We were planning to head into NYC on the Saturday and Sunday, but a good thing happened that changed our plans by one day.
One of our nagging concerns with Adrianna has been a slight oil leak from the engine, Craig could not find the source of the leak he had been over the engine with a fine tooth comb and even used a mirror to look underneath and over some of the hard to see places but he could not see anything.
We asked Matt the water taxi owner if he could recommend a mechanic, he did and we called and Guido was available the next morning to come to the boat and have a look.
We had to change our NYC plans, that was ok I would have the Saturday to myself while Craig worked with the mechanic.
I had spotted a sign for the local library promoting a book swap, so the next morning I picked up the books we were finished with and headed to the library and wow you could take as many books as you wanted or in my case as many as I could carry all for free !! The hard part was lugging those books around for the rest of the day but it was worth it, I visited the op shop and generally enjoyed having a walk around the town.
Sourcing things that we need is not a problem but having them delivered to us is proving to be difficult. We organised for the part for the windlass to sent from Binnacle in Halifax - 10 days later we had not heard from Binnacle?
We rang them to discover that they had been unable to process our credit card and so the part had not even been ordered. Then when we were in Gloucester we ordered the part from Amazon along with 2 Australian flags (so we had a spare) and a pump for our tap water (so we have a spare) Amazon advised that these things would be shipped overnight, we gave the harbourmasters address - a street address with big numbers out the front. The UPS guy did not deliver it said it was an unknown address !! We cancelled that order and received a refund. We had tried to ask West Marine to order in the part for us but they were doing inventory and could not place any orders ?? When we were in Port Washington we gave the home address of the Water Taxi , well somewhere along the line the address was written down wrong I think it was the postcode that was wrong so we had to cancel that order too.
Guido was great and sourced the leak it was a fixed line that went under the back seal of the engine, Craig had been worried that it was the seal and that it would be a huge job to fix. So finding it was an easy fix was a huge relief. Guido ordered the part and we would have to wait for it to come in.
 |
| Craig had looked over the engine but could not source the leak |
 |
| It turned out to be underneath and bent around so really well hidden |
We are ready for our day out in New York City. When we flew from Florida to Toronto we flew directly over NYC and I was so excited never dreaming that I would get to actually visit it....
No comments:
Post a Comment