Plum Gut

Plum Gut   …   Sunday 30th September 2012

For those of you expecting my secret recipe for "Christmas Pudding" I'm afraid you may be disappointed. "Plum Gut" is not a dessert, but rather the channel that runs between Plum Island and Orient Point, and it's one of the tidal races that separates the western part of Long Island Sound from Block Island sound. It's critical to pass through these gaps at the right time as the current can run at 5 knots - either with you or against you! Spending last night in Coecles harbor set us up perfectly to get to "Plum Gut" early in the morning to make the most of the favorable current. We got up at about 5.45am and prepared to leave as soon as there was reasonable light (~6.30pm). The exit from Coecles Harbor was nerve wracking as the entrance is narrow, shallow and subject to strong currents. But we made it through fine and motored into a north east wind and put up our main sail just before we arrived at "Plum Gut" around 7:45am. The passage was exhilarating! We rode a swirling mass of meringue shaped chop at speeds of up to 10.2 knots. One of us made himself quite unpopular by having to go and fetch his camera just as things were about to get exciting. Shooting one-handed with a heavy 70-200mm lens, whilst steering with the other isn't easy … and sadly the photos don't really capture the atmosphere. The experience brought back memories of a trip we made many years ago in our 16 ft daysailer around Anglesey in North Wales. We passed a similar tidal race just off North Stack and I vividly remember entering the standing waves with Gloria at the helm, one hand on the tiller, one hand to hold on to the boat and the mainsheet in her teeth. At least I had the good sense not to go for my camera at that particular moment - otherwise I would probably be doing this trip alone! Anyway, back to today. After the gut we sailed southwest on a beam reach for a few hours, initially making good speed with the help of the tide. However, both the wind and current diminished and by noon we were barely moving. As we still had a long way to go so we resorted to motoring, but it was easy going and the weather, which had started out grey and dreary, turned to sun in the afternoon and we struggled to stay alert. We arrived at Port Jefferson shortly after 3pm, having covered the 50 miles in under 9 hours. The harbor is extensive and quite scenic, with a number of different areas you could anchor. We first tried a secluded cove to the east but this was too full of moorings and so we crossed to the west side and dropped the anchor just as a thunderstorm passed close by. We are too tired to go into town now, but hope to explore it in the morning.

As a quick sidebar we'd like to note that yesterday was our 50th "log-able" day of sailing since we launched Cotinga. That's to say we have done 50 days with 4 hours or more of sailing / motoring during the day. To get a "100 ton license" you need to have logged 365 days. Including previous experience we now have close to 180 days total. We aren't sure yet whether days living aboard the boat where you aren't actually sailing can be counted.

Mike

Choppy waters in Plum Gut

After a couple of grey gloomy days the sun starts to break through

Thunderstorm over Port Jefferson - shot taken 2 minutes after we anchored!

Port Jefferson at dusk

Shelter Island

Shelter Island   ....   Saturday 29^th September, 2012

At six o’clock it was still dark this morning.  We ate breakfast before getting underway.  So keen were we to sail that we put up the mainsail while still in the Great Salt Pond.  We motored out to find modest waves with a northerly breeze. Out came the genoa and we roared off at a spanking 3.5 knots?  Consulting the GPS/chart plotter we were actually making more like six knots.  This discrepancy was a bit perplexing as Mike has pulled the knot meter and cleaned it before we left East Greenwich.  This was one of the last jobs we did on Thursday.  Ah, the mysteries of the sailing vessel.

In contrast to yesterday, the seas were not really bad--some swell with a bit of chop on top (sounds more like food than waves).  Even the swell decreased as we got further past Montauk.  Then little by little the wind got lighter until we found ourselves near the marker for Cerebus Shoal and doing all of about 2.0 kts (or if you are reading the boat knot meter 0.3 kts).  On went the iron wind and we continued on our way toward Shelter Island.  After a bit we could see Gardiners Island.  Somewhat later I, for one, could see almost nothing.  It was drizzling just enough to cut the visibility, put lots of raindrops on my glasses and generally dampen spirits all round. Eventually we arrived at Coecles Harbor on Shelter Island, got anchored and had some lunch.

Lunch was followed by chores.  These included (but were not limited to) pulling the knot meter (again) and probing the innards of the rear holding tank.  The carefully installed tank monitor seems to be reading ‘full’ perpetually…. We are happy to report that the rear holding tank is virtually empty as we thought it must be.  Less happily, there was not much to be seen on the knot meter so that problem may persist.

A walk on shore (where else?), phone calls from Tasha and Mike’s brother Martin, followed by a fine dinner of left-overs and spirits are on the rise again.

Gloria

 A grey morning west of Block Island

Off with the sunglasses and sun hats and on with the woolies and foul weather gear 

 A private dock in Coecles Harbor, Shelter Island, NY

Fir Cone 

You've got to be flexible

You've got to be flexible … Friday 28th Sept 2012

A couple of days ago we met a lovely couple called Scott and Lynn who are living aboard their boat Shine and have travelled extensively up and down the east coast. They had lots of good suggestions to share with us, one of which is to have three possible destinations in mind so that you have options to chose from as the day progresses. With this in mind we thought about Fishers Island, Stonington and Watch Hill as three possible anchorage choices, all of them about 20 miles west of Point Judith, close to the border of Rhode Island and Connecticut. As events unfolded we ended up switching to our fourth option and we are now moored at Block island! This morning the alarm went off at 6am and we were up and ready to leave before 7am. It was a very grey morning with the wind blowing out of the east and a small craft advisory in place for Buzzards Bay and Block Island Sound. From the outset we had our foul weather gear on and that turned out to be a good call. We drank our coffee and ate breakfast of jam and toast as we motored out of Greenwich bay and then raised our sails and headed south under the Jamestown bridge and out to the Bay entrance. As we passed Beavertail the combination of wind and building seas prompted us to reef the main and partly furl the genoa. The execution of this went fine - but we weren't able to specifically tie down the clew of the reefed main and the sail shape looked pretty miserable. (It doesn't seem easy to put good downward tension on the leach using the single line reefing system we have in place - if you can strap down the clew that's fine, but very difficult to do whilst underway. We need to give this more thought). Nonetheless, we were very happy to have reefed because conditions outside of the Bay were pretty lively and we took some "blue" water over the bow and a couple of good spray drenches in the cockpit. As we rounded Point Judith, nature and two large cups of coffee took their course and Gloria had to go in to use the head. It's no quick job getting all the waterproofs off and back on, and by the time Gloria reappeared up top she was feeling (and looking) decidedly sickly. The more downwind direction of our westerly course did not seem to have made the motion any easier and we reasoned that it would be shorter, quicker and more comfortable to head directly to Block Island on a beam reach. I was also a bit concerned that if we continued as planned we would be trying to enter Fishers Island Sound at a time when the current would be flowing at it's strongest and the combination of wind and waves from the east over tide from the west could make it even nastier in that spot. The remaining journey to Block Island went well and we continued to make more than 7 knots even with the reefed sails. By the time we arrived (about 12.30 pm) it was really blowing with winds of 17-25 knots and we were happy to be in the Great Salt Pond and pick up a mooring. For dinner we ate chicken cooked with a cumin, paprika and turmeric rub, along with roasted sweet potatoes and onions, and fresh mango to ward off the scurvy. As rain fell and the night closed in we brightened up the evening by chatting to Tash on the phone. When we told her about our day she rightly pointed out  "You've got to be flexible"

Mike

Grey skies over Narragansett Bay - the Jamestown Bridge floats on the horizon

A gloomy dusk descends over Block Island

Chicken sauté with paprika, cumin + turmeric, served with oven roasted sweet potatoes, onions and fresh mango and pita bread

Good to Go

Good to Go ….   Thursday 27 Sept 2012

It's 9.30 pm and all is quiet. We just said goodbye to Rod + Sue, Paul + Fran (Gloria's brothers and their wives) and I think we completed pretty much all of the jobs we set out to do during our time in East Greenwich. I want to say a big thank you to the four of them - they have been a great help in getting us ready. Now it's time to get going on the second part of our big adventure. It's probably true to say that we are both excited and apprehensive, but at this stage I don't think there is a lot more that we can do to prepare. 

Today we went into the dock to fill our tanks and some additional jerry cans with diesel, water and gasoline (for the outboard). We cleaned the dinghy and finished varnishing the "eyebrow" rail. Most importantly, we took our last full blown shower for a while. This evening RSP+F came over for dinner. Gloria made Muhammara as an appetizer which was delicious and then we ate shrimp scampi along with salad and freshly baked bread that Rod had made earlier this afternoon. We topped off the meal with some excellent white chocolate and cherry biscotti (from "Dave's) and a glass of port. It was too late to catch the last launch so Mike rowed the dinghy to the dock. Happy to report that no one went in the drink! 

Tomorrow we plan to set out southwards. Our broad plan is to sail down Long Island Sound, through New York and over to New Jersey, and from there along the coast to Atlantic City and Cape May. At this point we aren't yet sure whether we will head up the Delaware river and into the Chesapeake Bay or go offshore directly to Norfolk Virginia, that depends on the weather and how much time we feel we have. From Norfolk we will continue south primarily through the Intra Coastal Waterway to Florida and then over to the Bahamas. We wil try and keep you updated with our blog and would love to hear from you all. Here's to fair winds and fine sailing!

Mike

Farewells are not so fun

Farewells are not so fun   ....    Monday September 24, 2012

Sunday morning we did laundry. Then we set up the inner forestay and attached the running back stays.  My sister-in-law Sue and brother Rod dropped by to take some measurements for the new hatchboard holder. (I feel badly because I think I guilted  Rod into doing this. I’m know he has lots of other projects to be working on… ) He gave us the benefit of his experience and knowledge around the use of running back stays. So now we think we have some idea how we would go about flying the staysail.  This would be used in so called ‘heavy weather’—big winds and seas.  There’s a delightful prospect.  I’m hoping that sail stays in the bag!

We spent a great evening with our friends Laura, Steve and Daniel.  The plan was to enjoy dinner and then the Patriots game vs. Baltimore.  Dinner was great and I guess you could say the game was exciting but the outcome…. Oddly, every time we have watched a game with Laura and Steve, the Pats have lost.  I’m predicting that the season will turn around for them this weekend.

Yes, this does mean that the departure date draws near.  Weather permitting we will be leaving on Friday morning. The jobs list is dwindling rapidly.  From two pages of entries in the notebook we are now down to a handful of things to complete.  There is a big provisioning trip to come.  The shopping part will be straightforward.  The stowing part is bound to be more challenging.

Most likely the toughest task will be all the goodbyes.  We already said farewell to quite a number of friends. With luck I’ll get though this without a total melt down.  People keep asking me what I’m looking forward to most.  Right now it seems like there are just lots of things to worry about.  What were we thinking when we decided to do this?

Gloria

Rusty Fortress anchor - East Greenwich

Painted Lock - East Greenwich

"Jasper" an 8 month old our Husky belonging to Capt. Dan Murphy, one of the EGYC launch drivers

Husky eyes

The "Ruggedly Handsome" Goblin

The "Ruggedly Handsome" Goblin     ...      Sat 22nd September 2012

We spent the morning getting tidied up on the boat and then went in to the dock to pump out the heads. The docking is going much better these days, however, the pump out wasn't as well contained as it might have been. The less said the better, but I definitely felt that I needed a shower afterwards. Having cleaned up we took a quick trip to "Dave's" to buy provisions for the afternoon. Just to note that I think "Dave's" in East Greenwich is one of the best, if not the best supermarket that I have been to. Around 2pm some of our work / climbing buddies came over for the afternoon. Bridget arrived first, followed by Stew and his son Evan. We took Cotinga out into the Bay for a sail in fabulous conditions - clear and sunny skies and 10-15 mph winds from the south. We had a blast, although it was just about as busy as I've ever seen it out in Narragansett Bay, which is probably not suprising for such lovely day at the end of the season. Once back on the mooring we drank some fine English dark ale and barbecued sausages, burgers and pineapple. At this point I should say that I started to worry a little about Bridget … she at first called the goblin on the "Hobgoblin" beer bottle label "cute" and then expanded a little to describe him as "ruggedly handsome" ! If she'd already had a few beers I might have understood where she was coming from … but this was half way through the first beer! Agh well …. a fine afternoon was had by all.

"Ruggedly Handsome" ...?!!

Evan takes control

Stew and Bridget

It got chilly outside - so we went indoors to eat

No bundle of Sweet Peas

No bundle of Sweet Peas   …   Thursday 20th September 2012

It' just coming up to 7pm and we are back on the boat having been to shower over at the yacht club. It was pleasure to get cleaned up. We spent the afternoon replacing the hoses on ours septic system. Not a very pleasant job, but it went well and I'm very optimistic this will address the odor problem we had under the forward v-berth. We still have a couple more to do before we complete the job but we ran out of new hose and are awaiting delivery of more. Tonight we plan to row ashore and have dinner at "Fat Bellies" pub in East Greenwich and hopefully watch the Thursday night football game if they have the NFL channel. We seem to be on track to get all our jobs done by middle of next week and ready for departure southwards shortly thereafter. When we get going again hopefully we'll have more exciting things to report and start to get more photos up.

Errands, Friends and Fun

Errands, Friends and Fun    ....   18/19^th Sept 2012

Yesterday was a bit of a different day.  Mike has a tooth that has been bothering him and had managed to get an appointment with our dentist in Weston, MA.  The traffic was astonishing, despite leaving East Greenwich at 6:30 am it seemed we were going to be late for his 9:00 am appointment.  The dentist sent him off to the endodontist (?) who was unconvinced that the problem is the tooth that Mike thinks is hurting (and did nothing).  I guess they don’t think much of Mike as a tooth-sayer.

While we were in our old stomping grounds, we did a few errands.  These included picking up some medications from the pharmacy, acquiring some additional warm clothes (those few weeks in Maine were an eye-opener) and purchasing some second hand books.  I managed to have lunch with one friend at AZ (also saying hello to many others) and dinner with another friend.  Mike arranged to go to the climbing wall with a set of his pals and then had dinner (and one or two ‘hops-teas’) with a few more.  We spent the night at our friend Gunther’s house.  He was kind enough to offer us not only beds for the night but also a fantastic breakfast of cappuccino and croissants.  Almost enough to make you think you were in Paris…

Today we returned to the boat and the glamorous chores.  Mike did some more work on installing the monitor into the holding tank.  I continued to sand down the teak “eyebrow” that goes around the top of the cabin on the outside.  Mike got one coat of varnish on this before we gave up for the day.  Tomorrow we will start on replacing the hoses on the holding tanks and hopefully get more coats of varnish on the "eyebrow".  Ah, the joys of the boating life.…

Our Glamorous Lifestyle

Our Glamorous Lifestyle    …   Monday 17th September 2012

Amongst the list of jobs we have to get done in the next week are a number of enhancements to our septic systems. These include putting in new hoses on the forward holding tank, installing a tank monitor on the aft system and replacing the overboard discharge pump. We have a number of parts on order, but today I got to drill a 1.5 inch hole in a stainless steel holding tank. How exciting is that! Believe it or not I was thrilled to accomplish this. I wasn't at all sure how to approach this job, but a quick call to the manufacturers of the tank gave me good advice. I bought and used a "bi-metallic hole saw" (a drill bit with a circular saw blade around it) and taking it fairly slowly the cutting went just fine. I also drilled holes to screw down the flange of the new monitor, but the stainless steel is so hard that I think I will have to tap these with a proper thread. I keep wondering how all my training and career experience helped prepare me for such glamorous work. I can't wait to get to those hoses! Earlier in the day our projects weren't going quite so well. We had bought some parts to mount our barbecue on the rail, but they didn't fit so well. We were debating whether we could adapt what we had or take it back to the store, when it became a moot point … I dropped the clamp plate overboard. The air was rich with choice phrases…

I can't sign off without mentioning the great time we had round at our friends Steve, Laura and Dan yesterday afternoon. We watched the Patriots and ate lots of food. The Patriots were really lame and lost … but the food and company were spectacular. Strawberry crapes with maple syrup and ice cream are the best!

Mike

Engine Problems and Solutions

Engine Problems and Solutions …   Saturday 15th Sept 2012

It's fun to be back in East Greenwich after our shakedown cruise. After dinner at "Twisted" last night, pizza with olives and anchovies for me (yummy) … a "lovely big salad" for Gloria (not what I call dinner!), we found a cool coffee house / bar where we had cappuccinos and lemoncella tart, which was great. Anyway, the main purpose for coming back here is to address any issues that came up during the previous 5 weeks and prepare to head south at the end of the month. We do have a long list of things to do or to buy, none of which are a big surprise. The thing that Gloria didn't mention in her last blog is that after weeks of trouble free motoring we started having engine problems again. A couple of days ago we noticed that the boat would run all day at 2000 revs but when we tried to increase to 2500 revs the engine would speed up then quickly fall back. This happened a number of times and was clearly evident this morning when we went for a "test drive" after cleaning the boat. So this afternoon we set to changing the fuel filters. This is a pretty straight forward job, but with the very real potential to introduce air in to the lines and cause the engine either to not start or cut out, so we approached the job with some trepidation. Fortunately, the previous owner was very meticulous and we have plenty of spare parts on board that he had bought in. We started with the two fuel separators, located in a utility area under the settee and finished with the fuel filter on the engine. Only one separator is used at any one time and if you have problems you flip a lever to engage the other. However, we had already switched from one to the other back in August when we had the previous problems but had not replaced the used one. The whole process went well, although we did seem to create a lot of diesel coated waste (spill cloths and paper towels) but we managed to contain it all in plastic bags. The great news is that the engine started fine and showed no signs of any air in the lines. Even better is that when we went out for  a test run there were no problems holding higher revs. It looks like we sorted the problem and we feel really good about learning another necessary skill for the live aboard sailor.

A view of our 75 HP Yanmar turbo-diesel ... with it's new fuel filter!

The fuel separators - the first stage in removing any water or debris

Home again, home again

Home again, home again   ...   14^th September, 2012

We had a more relaxed start this morning, leaving Cuttyhunk at 9 o’clock.  After a short while we put up the sails and turned off the engine.  We were sailing tight to the wind but able to use the SSW breeze to head west.  On a single tack we got to Brenton reef off Newport. In a short distance we rounded Beavertail on Conanicut Island.  Then we were going downwind into Narragansett Bay.  Suddenly we seemed to have entered the ‘highway’.  First, we got into a right of way problem with a sailboat also on port tack but coming out of the Bay.  Then we encountered two ocean going tugs who were not giving way to anyone.  Next came a tug towing a barge laden with what appeared to be giant plastic dome.  Then some sailor had the audacity to overtake us.  All of this had to happen just as we were trying to eat our lunch.  It was almost enough to put us off our food.

The wind seemed to strengthen during the afternoon and we maintained good speed toward Warwick Neck.  The gybe to turn into Greenwich bay seemed a bit more exciting than we might have liked.  Lively sailing was to be had on a broad reach toward “C3”.  Shortly thereafter we started the engine and dropped the sails.  Greenwich Cove seemed so full of boats after the places we have been recently.  An uneventful motor to the mooring completed our “shakedown cruise” to Maine.  Showers on land with plenty of hot water were followed by a meal in town.  We would be sitting pretty if it weren’t for the bands playing in the bars along Water Street….

Beavertail Light - marks the entrance to Narragansett Bay

A fine looking ketch outside of Narragansett Bay