[Kyle] We left Duck Island just before 4 a.m. during the new moon. It was dark, but it was clear, and for the first time in 5 days we had real wind. I only made Maryanne get up long enough to help me with the anchor, then she went back to bed. Once the sails were unfurled, Footprint dug in her port hull and shot across the widest part of the Sound. It was just like day 1. We had our biggest sails just a couple of knots under their limits and we just flew! No bugs, just going fast in the direction we wanted to go! it was great! What had been planned as a nine or ten hour trip took less than six.
We arrived on the Long Island side of the Sound just before 10 a.m at Port Jefferson. The harbor was about the same size as the one on Block Island and already almost as full. The weather was so clear that we could see Connecticut on the other side of the sound clearly. It was so crisp that nothing had any depth, visually. It all looked like it was right in front of us. Those days are pretty rare out East. Being a beautiful Labor Day Saturday, the harbor was packed with all sorts of water stuff going on. There were dingies zooming around, people being towed from boats on various water toys, sailboats of all sizes under sail, fishermen trolling, kayaks, you name it. The beaches were full of people playing and splashing around. the piers had people fishing from them. We watched a beautiful sunset from the cockpit with a nice glass of wine. A pretty good day.
[Maryanne]We have been practicing with our sextant every day during this trip, and made pretty much every mistake you can (especially with the many calculation steps) - finally today we got a good sight (while underway in rough seas) and Kyle triumphed with a calculation getting us no more than 1.5 miles off position. Not exactly GPS accuracy, but we were very happy.
Also since we ended up with the afternoon to spare, Kyle decided the bottom needed cleaning AND he managed to get a nap in (well deserved, as mostly he lets me sleep in or return to bed once the anchor is up).
2 comments:
Must you look so HAPPY scrubbing your boat? I mean, really - it's practically indecent!
Ahh, Kate - I certainly did not jump in as a willing participant, it took a lot of toe dipping and procrastination to get me to that state!
I was mostly happy that there was going to be some evidence of my forced labor by my taskmaster of a husband! Hard evidence is always valuable for subsequent nasty jobs :-)
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