The Eponymous Island

The Eponymous Island

Thursday, June 17, 2021

By this point in our year afloat, the early start is a pretty common happening.  However, it never seems to get much easier.  Today we were up at 5:30 am for a 6 o’clock departure.  I did notice that once the anchor was stowed the time was 6:02—not as the captain had commanded.  The winds were about 8-10 knots from the northwest and we motor-sailed along Long Island Sound with both genoa and mainsail and just a little engine.  We expected that the seas would build after we passed Montauck.  In anticipation of possible swells, I had taken some seasick medication.  While there was a long period swell, it really was barely noticeable.

By 9:00 am we were approaching Block Island (Mike’s favorite).  We got the sails down and stowed before entering the cut into the Great Salt Pond.  To our surprise, there were only a few free moorings.  Apparently even mid week in June, the mooring field will get full.  Once we were all tied up, we indulged in “second breakfast”.  I’m starting to sense that we eat like hobbits—early and often.  After putting on the sail cover and tidying the cockpit, we dropped the outboard on the engine and went to shore.  For the first time in almost a week, Sheila stepped foot onto dry land.  

We got a taxi and went out to the north end of the island to visit the lighthouse and the point.  It’s nesting season for seagulls, so the birds are quite vocal about what they see as our intrusion into their domain.  We saw plenty of herring and black-backed gulls and chicks.  On the beach near the point, we saw a pair of oystercatchers with a chick.  In the shallow waters off the beach, we saw about a dozen seals.  I couldn’t decide if the seals were eying the gull chicks as a potential snack or if they were looking for a quiet stretch of beach to haul out for a rest.

The taxi brought us back to “The Oar”, a bar / restaurant overlooking the Great Salt Pond.  Sheila treated us to a delicious lunch (meal number three if you are counting) on the deck overlooking the harbor.  I think we are all a bit tired; perhaps I’m just projecting... 

Postscript: meal number four … Thai green curry … yummy!

Gloria

41 11.142 N, 71 34.678 W

North Light - a half mile walk along the beach from where the taxi dropped us off

Oyster Catcher - normally shy and hard to photograph, but because they had their baby with them it was relatively easy to get close (I did try not to stress them too much)

Oyster Catcher baby

Black back gull close up

Black back gull baby