A First Time for Everything
Wednesday 16th June 2021
As Gloria mentioned yesterday, we took turns taking showers last night, including me. When she previously told me they had a shower on board, I have to admit I was very skeptical, I even brought cleansing wipes just in case. But after 4 days, I had to cave in and try it, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. They really have a good system and it works!!!
Last night, I felt like a baby sleeping in a cradle as there was more rocking than normal, but I did not mind. We (I) woke up a bit later today and after coffee, we discussed the plans. As you know, the changing weather was an important factor, and safety and comfort always come first. After much discussion, checking weather and currents, including Gloria showing me the current maps and nautical miles to our destination, we decided to stay here for the morning, then sail to an anchorage on the east side of Gardiner's Island this afternoon. This would allow us to make use of favorable currents tomorrow morning with an early departure for Block Island. One additional advantage of that strategy is that with good winds this afternoon and we could unroll the sails! Can you tell that sailing under the current sunshine and blue skies sounded absolutely perfect to me?
This plan still meant there was time to go ashore, especially as Mike and Gloria had never been to Sag Harbor before. However, Mike mentioned a possible extra bumpy dinghy ride, so I declined and decided to stay on board and watch the huge yachts arriving, the osprey diving and in general have a relaxing morning. Mike and Gloria left for shore, so I’ll let them tell you what they did.
(Mike) Well I never realized that my brother-in-law Rod had such high level influence. One comment on the blog about light winds of Long Island Sound and he invoked the Gods to intervene and during the night the wind piped up to 15 knots! This morning the Sag Harbor outer anchorage was covered in white caps. Gloria and I did venture ashore and had a couple of pleasant hours wandering around this ritzy little town. Of course we managed to find a very nice restaurant for lunch, eating outside on the patio. Sheila didn’t go hungry either as we do have lots of food on the boat! It has been a stunning day with cloudless blue skies and so it seemed a great idea to take advantage of the conditions and have a real day-sail, covering about 15 miles and putting us in a good position for tomorrow’s journey.
When they returned, we began sailing to our next destination, a quiet cove off Gardiner's Island, the largest privately owned island in the US. We had 2.5 hours of sunshine, perfect wind and spectacular sailing as we crossed Sag Harbor and Gardeners Bay. As we turned down the sheltered east shore of Gardiner's Island we were almost downwind and going quite slowly so for the last 30 minutes we motor-sailed. The cove is called Tobaccolot Bay and is beautiful; it consists of about 30-foot high cliffs, and beaches with large boulders. We are the only ship in the cove and we are currently listening to the birds singing and the sound of gentle swells breaking on the beach. It is quite tranquil.
(Mike) As we sailed this afternoon we listened to an ongoing saga back in Sag Harbor where a 41-foot vessel, situated about 1000 feet outside the breakwater, was taking on water and needed to be rescued by the Harbor Master and a towboat. We heard conversations between the Harbor Master, Coast Guard, tow boat and marina about water levels being 4-5 feet in the vessel, the pumps not being able to keep up, towing it to a travel lift and getting it out of the water before it sank. We have no idea what caused the leak but thankfully they were successful helping it.
Sheila
41 04.845 N, 72 04.940 W
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